While the consequences of smoking have become well-known over the years, the lasting damage hasn’t seem to have left a lasting impression on many as no one seems to care nor think that smoking is that bad. But it is. If you smoke or know someone who does, I hope this gives you a small insight into the affects you can be left with. 

Lung. 

As well as mouth, throat, bladder, oesophagus, liver, stomach, voice box and pancreas are a list of all of the places you can have an increased risk of cancer in, if you smoke (and possibly if you have resulted in being a passive smoker also). Some smokers don’t want to believe, acknowledge or think about what they are doing to themselves but whether they want to or not, they are damaging their bodies and for what? A moment of relief and an addiction in the making. 

Everyone likes to think that they are the exception to side effects and consequences while they are smoking carcinogens and filling their body with carbon monoxide. Yet they still wonder and are forced to deal with constant coughing and shortness of breath. People are feeding themselves poison straight out of the bottle and still think they should do it? 

Having spent several hours studying and researching lung cancer in my past, I found out 72% of lung cancer cases are caused by smoking. 72% of people with lung cancer have caused their pain. 72% of lung cancer patients could have avoided chemotherapy, radiation, immunotherapy or surgery if they didn’t smoke. 

Many people don’t care about smoking and that what others chose to do with their body is nothing to do with them. They feel as though smoking doesn’t affect them nor that it should be made a big deal of but to them I say 2 words: What if. What if someone you cared about started smoking and what if they didn’t realise how bad it was or thought it made them seem mature or cool? Would you still remain unbothered, still not be fussed if you saw someone you cared for smoke away their health? 

As someone who has found a cigarette in the hand of one I care about and listened to the constant coughing and wheezing, I can assure any smoker that it is not only yourself you are affecting, it is those around you also. I worry for this smoker’s health everyday and my fear is one day they will become one of the approximate 78,000 that die every year from smoking and I doubt I am the only one with these worries. While, the 2nd leading cause of lung cancer (next to smoking) is in fact passive smoking, where the smoke not only emotionally affects others that surround smokers but damages their health just like it damages the smokers health. 

While quitting can be hard and often feel as though it is too late to change, it easily improves your health while just after 72 hours breathing already becomes easier and all carbon monoxide has flushed out of the body. Even better than needing to quit is being aware before you start that just by doing the three simple things of proper nutrition, fitness and not smoking, you can reduce your risk of lung cancer by 80%. As education on such matters improves and awareness of people's own health becomes more of a priority, less and less should be smoking.

If more people truly understand how severe smoking can be and how easy the process of stopping can be, more and more can be saved from cigarettes. 

 

For more information and advice on smoking and how to quit, visit websites such as https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/.