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The Far-reaching Effects of Smoking Essay

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Smoking has far reaching effects on your life and the lives of others around and being able to quit this habit can allow you to live a more active life free of the desire to smoke. Smoking cigarettes are an addictive habit that is caused from a chemical that is in the tobacco called nicotine.
Addiction is the word that is used to describe a person that habitually smokes cigarettes but the word addiction was not always used to describe such a negative thing. Addiction originally was used to describe an individual that was committed to another to learn a trade such as on the job training is used today. In the 1800’s the word addicted became more related to negative actions such as alcohol, cigarettes or drugs. Cigarettes are addicting …show more content…

A year after you quit, your chances of having a heart attack are cut in half. In five years, your risk of having a stroke is the same as that of a nonsmoker. In 10 years, your chance of lung cancer is half of what it would be if you had continued smoking. In 15 years, your risk of heart disease will be the same as that of a nonsmoker.(45)

Quitting this drug like any other has withdrawal symptoms that are related to quitting this type of drug that can be overcome with assistance but failure is still a concern. Nicotine replacement drugs are available as an over the counter medication for purchase at any local convenience store. Reducing the amount of cigarettes you smoke may be able to lessen the chemical dependency that you have and then quitting all together could reduce the risk of withdrawal symptoms. These types of medications have the ability to assist with the chemical dependency of cigarettes but not the psychological desire to smoke. To combat this psychological dependency some people turn to therapy to determine the triggers that make them want to smoke and determine alternate methods to deal with those triggers. Aversion therapy is another method that has been used in the past in which one will combat the pleasure that they receive from smoking with a negative one. This method is accomplished by simply attaching a rubber band to ones wrist that they use to

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