By Gayle North
If you are still smoking or chewing tobacco, you probably do plan to stop in
the future. Most people do stop, sooner or later.
Maybe you are waiting for a vague “something” to help you make
up your mind. I hope this article will assist you to do just that – make up
your mind. Because you can use your foresight and stop now before you burn up
any more of your precious money and before the tobacco poisons do any more
damage to your body, --- or you can wait for hindsight.
Ray Price waited until his hindsight took over. You may have
seen his picture and the article about him on the front page of the Daily
Interlake a few years ago showing him with the oxygen tube he had to wear all
the time. Ray waited until his lungs were irreversibly damaged by emphysema to
stop smoking. He said at one point he was using a nebulizer and puffing away on
his cigarettes at the same time! His friend "the cigarette” cost him his
beloved golf game, his breath, even the ability to shower himself, -- and then
he made up his mind.
It’s was too late for Ray to recover his health but he stopped
the poisoning and use the last three years of his life promoting programs to
help people to stop smoking. Appearing
at schools wherever he could, his health permitting, he’d show kids what
smoking did to him.
Johnny Carson’s death has been in the news, too, with a lot of
commentary about his smoking habit. Even fame and money couldn’t provide an
escape from the ravages of the habit. He had everything a person could want in
life – except the health to enjoy it. His friend "the cigarette” slowly
took it all away.
Smokers in denial about the dangers of their habit may point to
elders who have used tobacco their entire life with, seemingly, no ill effect.
But people who smoke into old age and die a natural death are extremely rare.
The general consensus from 20 years of studies and research is that cigarettes
are killers.
More Americans will die prematurely this year from smoking than
all the Americans killed in 24 years of battle deaths from World War I, World
War II, the Korean War, and the Viet Nam War combined! Talk about chemical
weapons of mass destruction!
The Center for Disease Control now says that on average, adult
men and women shorten their lives by 13.2 and 14.5 years of life, respectively,
by smoking.
The CDC also says that each pack of cigarettes results in $3.45
in medical costs down the road and another $3.73 in lost productivity. If we
combine these costs with the $5.45 you pay at the local store, the cost for a
pack of cigarettes is actually a whopping $12.63! And you already know about
the other hidden costs of increased insurance premiums, damage to clothing,
furnishings, and risk of fire.
If you smoke one pack a day for another month, you’ll be another
month older, you will have wasted another $215 of your money, and you will have
poisoned yourself with 600 more cigarettes - and your excuses will probably
still be there. In a year that’s $2,400 and another 7,200 doses of cigarette
poison.
If you smoke two packs a day, you can double those figures. Why
not make candles out of your dollar bills and burn 10 of them each night? You
could have some fun - and you won’t be poisoning yourself or suffering the high
hidden costs.
Or you can wait until you earn the right to say “I wish I could
have a second chance – I wish I would have known what I know now.” The cost of
smoking can be computed financially, physically and emotionally, and your costs
grow with each passing day.
Whatever your reasons for waiting – you know they are just
excuses. Your loved ones who are increasingly concerned about you wish they
could make up your mind for you – but they can’t. Only you can do this for
yourself. Why not make up your mind and stop now?! Help is available. There are
lots of ways to go about it – as we will explore in the next issue.
Gayle North offers Personal Coaching for Positive Change
using recently developed empowerment technologies to clear mental and emotional
blocks that keep people stuck in unhealthy habits and prevent them from
performing at their highest potential in school, sports, relationships,
work and finance. Call 406-837-1214 to learn how you can STOP SMOKING IN ONE
HOUR and for coaching in person or by phone.
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