Its not your fault you smoke!

I’ve treated patients in the pulmonary clinic for years, many who smoke or have smoked. I did an unscientific poll of their smoking habits. I found none of them appreciated being told smoking will hurt them. None of them started smoking to hurt themselves. And none of them felt others yelling at them for smoking was helping them quit smoking.

We treat smokers like this meme.

Loved ones yell at a smoker for smoking yet we don’t yell at people for getting high blood pressure or diabetes. There is a perception that smokers smoke because they want to. Over the next series of posts, I hope to convince everyone that smokers smoke because they are addicted to nicotine and not because they enjoy it. Their bodies are addicted to nicotine and this produces remarkably negative withdrawal symptoms of anxiety, irritability and cravings within 30 minutes of putting out their most recent cigarette. The ease of getting cigarettes makes it too easy for a smoker to quickly relieve themselves of the nicotine withdrawal symptoms. This in effect, forces them to continue to smoke.

I don’t blame a smoker’s loved ones from being upset at the fact a person smokes. We know smoking is the greatest reversible cause of death and leading cause of chronic respiratory disease, heart disease and cancer. Naturally, everyone wants to help a smoker stop. But I feel we need to understand the nature of the nicotine addiction and practice a lot of love and kindness to help a smoker break what is probably the strongest addiction known today.

Over the next several posts, I will show you how smoking is an addiction. I’ll explain why despite nicotine being a powerful stimulant, a smoker feels relaxation when they get a hit of nicotine. I’ll show you how the tobacco companies manipulated cigarettes to create a nicotine addictions and lied about it for years. I’ll discuss the role of nicotine replacement therapy and other medications to help a person quit. And finally, I’ll describe a smoking cessation plan that you can personalize for yourself because we know one size doesn’t fit all.

Because I don’t care if you quit tomorrow, next week or in several months. All I care is you quit. Because quitting smoking will decrease your chance of getting lung cancer.

‘Cause No One Should Die of Lung Cancer!