Week 4

        

          It’s been 23 days since I put out my last cigarette. I just recently passed the 3-week mark (when the nicotine leaves your body completely), and I’m feeling great. I haven’t had any desire to light up at all this past week. The health benefits of quitting are gradual, so I’m continuing to get healthier everyday. You may notice the cartoon of President Obama at the doctor’s office. I thought that for this posting, I would discuss the subject of health effects of smoking.

The fear of contracting lung cancer didn’t make me quit because I believed the risk was rather like walking through a minefield. If you got away with it – fine. If you were unlucky you stepped on a mine.  You knew the risks you were taking and if you were prepared to take the risk, what had it to do with anyone else?

So if a non-smoker ever tried to make me aware of those risks, I would use the typical evasive tactics that all addicts invariably adopt.


1. “You have to die of something.”
Of course you do, but is that a logical reason for deliberately shortening your life?
2. “Quality of life is more important than longevity.”
Exactly, but you are surely not suggesting that the quality of life of an alcoholic or a heroin addict is greater than that of someone who isn’t addicted to alcohol or heroin? Do you really believe that the quality of a smoker’s life is better than a non-smoker’s? Surely the smoker loses on both counts – their life is both shorter and more miserable.
3. “My lungs probably suffer more damage from car exhaust than from smoking.”
Even if that were true, is that a logical reason for punishing your lungs further? Can you possibly conceive of anyone being stupid enough to actually put his or her mouth over an exhaust pipe and deliberately inhale those fumes into his or her lungs?

THAT’S WHAT SMOKERS EFFECTIVELY DO! Think of that the next time you watch a poor smoker inhale deeply on those “precious” cigarettes!

Many doctors are now relating all sorts of diseases to smoking, including diabetes, cervical cancer, and breast cancer. This is no surprise to me.  I truly believe that the greatest hazard that smoking poses to our health is the gradual and progressive deterioration of our immune system caused by this gunking-up process.

All plants and animals on this planet are subject to a lifetime of attack from germs, viruses, parasites, and the like. The most powerful defense we have against disease is our immune system. We all suffer infections and diseases throughout our lives. However, I do not believe that the human body was designed to be diseased, and if you are strong and healthy, your immune system will fight and defeat those attacks. How can your immune system work effectively when you are starving your muscles and organs of oxygen and nutrients and feeding them with carbon monoxide and poisons? It’s not so much that smoking causes these other diseases; rather, it works like AIDS, gradually destroying your immune system.

Allen Carr says in his book, “ One of the great evils about smoking is that it fools us into believing that nicotine gives us courage, when in fact it gradually and imperceptibly dissipates it. I was shocked when I heard my father say that he had no wish to live to be filthy. Little did I realize that twenty years later I would have exactly the same lack of joie de vivre.“

This kind of got me thinking about becoming a father myself. When I read that, I thought about that if I do have children, I want to live past 50 and watch them grow up. Forcing your child to breathe in secondhand smoke is appalling.  There is nothing good that comes from smoking around your children. I feel bad for children when I see parents smoking with them in the backseat or even just walking next to them.  They shouldn’t be subjected to smoker’s decisions. Not to mention the bad example that you’d be setting for your child. Don’t you think they’ll take some of dad’s cigarettes to try them when they get curious? That’s all it takes for them to become hooked.

Although the health risks of smoking tobacco are well established, in Canada the prevalence of smoking among young men remains well beyond that of the general population. Up to 30% of young men aged 20-24 years, and 25% of young men aged 25-34 years reported being cigarette smokers in 2006. Also, 15% of households in Canada reported daily exposure to a smoker in the home, and 9% of children under the age of 12 years old were estimated to be exposed to secondhand smoke on a regular basis in 2006. (Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey 2006)

As men and women enter child-bearing years and become parents, the decision to reduce or quit smoking moves to the forefront of their lives influenced by: (1) the de-normalization of tobacco use during pregnancy for women, and (2) the negative effects of second-hand tobacco smoke on children. Despite much attention on women’s efforts to reduce or stop smoking at this time, less attention has been directed to fathers’ decisions and experiences in modifying their smoking. Researchers reported that fathers who demonstrated better knowledge of the effects of passive smoke on an infant were more likely to have made attempts to quit during the pregnancy.

Analysis of interviews with 20 fathers revealed that men used smoking as an expression of masculinity, portraying themselves as risk takers, resilient to the harms of smoking. Constructions of smoking as a deeply ingrained part of their lives, a source of enjoyment, and as an aid to being a responsible father precluded the men from viewing their partner’s efforts to stop smoking for pregnancy as an opportunity for smoking cessation. Nevertheless, fatherhood challenged men’s freedom to smoke, and prompted them to modify their smoking to minimize its impact on others.

Cultural influences on men to ascribe to traditional masculine ideals which minimize self-care and concern for one’s own health, combined with dominant discourses about fathering that espouse equivalent child-care responsibilities, intersect with a strengthening social climate that promotes smoke-free environments, thereby creating an uncomfortable dilemma for fathers who want to smoke.  Fatherhood and the duties of parenting herald a need to reconstruct alternate male identities that reconcile or reformulate masculine ideals. The time when a man adapts his life and identity to becoming a new father may therefore present an opportune time for the introduction of new ideas and strategies about smoking cessation.

To conclude, I wanted to remind anyone out there who is still smoking that the health benefits of quitting are gradual, just like how we gradually destroyed our bodies by becoming addicted. In 72 hours, your bronchial tubes will relax, and your energy levels will increase. In 2 weeks, your circulation will increase, and it will continue to improve for the next 10 weeks. In three to nine months coughs, wheezing and breathing problems will dissipate as your lung capacity improves by 10%. In 1 year, your risk of having a heart attack will have dropped by half. In 5 years, your risk of having a stroke returns to that of a non-smoker. In 10 years, your risk of lung cancer will have returned to that of a non-smoker. In 15 years, your risk of heart attack will have returned to that of a non-smoker.

Citations

Carr, A. (2005). The Easy Way to Stop Smoking. New York: Sterling Publishing, pp. 97-107.

Bottorff, J., et. al. (2009). Fathers' narratives of reducing and quitting smoking. Sociology Of Health & Illness, 31(2), 185-200. Retrieved on March 22, 2010 from MEDLINE with Full Text database.

              Picture Citation

Beeler, N. (Artist). (2010). Obama smokes. Retrieved from http://www.politicalcartoons.com/cartoon/f20bf6ae-56e3-4c9c-a34a-4919e0109dc2.html.