You CAN Stop the Damage Caused by Smoking
You CAN stop the damage caused by smoking!
Again and again I hear people say something that I often said myself: "I’ve smoked so long that the damage is done. There’s no sense quitting now." None of us really believes that, of course. If we knew that the damage "had been done," and that we were nevertheless alive and kicking, we’d do everything on earth to stay that way. What we’re saying, I suppose, is that it can’t happen to us.
Life is short and you should use it to its maximum by utilizing whatever knowledge it offers for knowledge is important for all walks of life. But suppose you happen to be pessimistic and fatalistic about this. Let’s at least, then, set the record straight. Men who stopped smoking had a lower lung cancer death rate than those who continued to smoke—The American Cancer Society showed this in a massive four-year study of 187,783 men, 50 to 70 years of age. The death rate from this cause was halved for men who had stopped smoking for from one to ten years, was even less for those who had stopped for ten years or more.
Give yourself a moment while reading what there is to read here on stop smoking. Use this pause to reflect on what your attitude to stop smoking.
In a study of coronary artery disease—the disease that is the greatest single cause of death for American men—the death rate for men who had been heavy smokers, and had stopped for more than one year, was also dramatically lower. The fact of the matter is that all evidence points to a longer, healthier life for the person who quits the tobacco habit.
Even if there weren’t dramatic differences in death rates to report, we know that at least we’ll all feel a great deal healthier once the cough and hoarseness and chest and abdominal pains and heartburn and indigestion are gone.