stop smoking now and in 1 year you are 50% less likely to need that heart transplant.
in 5 years your risk of having a stroke is the same as someone who doesn't smoke
It may take 10 years, but if you quit, eventually your risk of dying from lung cancer will drop to half that of a smoker's
Ten years after quitting, your risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, bladder, kidney, and pancreas also decreases.
Fifteen years of non-smoking will bring your risk of heart disease back to the same level as someone who doesn't smoke. You'll no longer be at a higher-than-normal risk for a wide range of conditions like heart attack, coronary artery disease, arrhythmias, angina, infections of the heart, or conditions that affect your heart's beating rhythms.
book into a local no smoking clinic now (its 1 to 1 not group) and in 3 months you could be fag free for just the cost of 3 prescriptions!
http://www.nhs.uk/smokefree
I don't doubt there are risks to smoking, just like driving without a seatbelt or crash helmet on a motor bike, and I do need to give up, but it's made very difficult being married to another smoker. It's a bit like an alcoholic coming home to the pub he lives in.
But I think we were sold a bit of a dummy on the altar political expediency. Tony Blair and his government came in with a promise to cut down on smoking and there was a concerted drive to put us off. Ever increasing duty, the threat to have all branding removed and the reality of large outlets like supermarkets having to hide the fags behind doors. This in fact removes the ability to select a brand with a lower tar and nicotine content. Not the same as giving up, but better than nothing. Then there were the grotesque photographs of people with cancer (presumably). Mind you, I presumed that these were of people within the NHS, perhaps local to me, but the effect wore off when I realised they were library photos and appeared on Spanish packets as well as those from other nations. Does that mean they actually were of people with cancer, or were they photoshopped?
In anticipation of less people smoking, that nice Mr. Brown decided that loosening the licencing laws would provide some compensation for lost revenue from tobacco. But, as the risk of appearing cynical loomed ever larger as a result of more people developing alcohol related illnesses (plus the realisation that not every pub in the land was going to open 24 hours a day) there was a de-regulation of gambling. So, less smokers but more people with alcohol related conditions and more people with a gambling habit.
Two years ago I bumped into an old friend who I hadn't seen for a decade. I asked about the family and it seems that his brother had died a few years earlier at the age of 39 Cirrhosis of the liver as a result of over 20 years of heavy drinking.
Worse still, last year I met another old friend and we went for a drink and I asked about the old mob. It seems that five of the blokes we used to knock around with had died of alcoholic conditions before the age of 50. I know we can't just believe that the world is the way only we perceive it, but if the weather forecast tells you it's going to pour down all day today and you look out of the window and see wall to wall sunshine, what do you believe, Sky News or your own eyes?
One of our neighbours has survived stomach cancer (just) and can't eat anything bigger than a few tablespoons of food at a time. Another bowel and bladder cancer and currently has to buy trousers that are way too big in order to conceal the catherer and stoma bags. A colleague had skin cancer and another throat cancer, while Mrs. Beard recently attended two funerals for colleagues one of whom suffered from a brain tumour and died at the age of 36 leaving a young wife and two small boys. Only one of those people had ever smoked. If 17% of the cancer sufferers we know personally smoked, that doesn't seem to make smoking the most serious health problem we face.
Yet of the 6 guys I knew who died of alcohol related conditions, 5 of them smoked but didn't get to the stage where the smokes would have killed them.
I do need to give up smoking I'm sure, and hopefully when Mrs. Beard decides to pack it in then I will too, but I'd like more transparency and honesty from governments when the subject of smoking comes up.
Finally, how many people are assaulted in the street because the assailant has smoked "too many" fags? Is there vomit in the street bacause of smokers? Are bus shelters smashed up because someone had one ciggie too many? When was the last time a house was burgled or a car stolen because the thief was desperate for a smoke?
However bad smoking is, I would argue it isn't any worse than drinking and drug taking. After all, smoking cigarettes never brings on mental illness which is more than can be said for drugs.
