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Post by judyb on Mar 30, 2018 4:58:08 GMT -5
I found that the quitmeter was a fantastic impetus to keep my quit. I got it from SilkQuit. I just stumbled across the website and found that it has a BUNCH of quit smoking questions that you've GOT to look over, very interesting stuff. Here's the link: www.silkquit.org/articlesThe link to the meter is on that page too. Enjoy!
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Post by judyb on Mar 30, 2018 4:26:27 GMT -5
When I quit in 1998, I visited lots of quit smoking support boards, to get a feel of what other people were going through. Some boards were lame, others were very supportive, like this one. I spent a lot of time reading at alt-suppport-stop-smoking (as3), where I collected a lot of my quit files that I share here. Here is the link, enjoy: groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/alt.support.stop-smoking
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Post by judyb on Mar 30, 2018 4:22:17 GMT -5
I said it every day of the clinics, it's in almost all my posts, and you see it at the end of each of these short articles. Even so, I still feel I cannot repeat it enough - NEVER TAKE ANOTHER PUFF! It is not that I am afraid that you will like the cigarette and decide how wonderful going back to smoking will be. To the contrary, it will probably make you dizzy, nauseous, and generally sick. You may absolutely hate yourself for having done it. Even this, though, is not the problem. The real danger is the reinforcement of the nicotine addiction. It is a powerful addiction. One puff can send you back to your old level of cigarette consumption within days. We have had clinic participants who have previously quit smoking for periods exceeding 20 years. One day they decide to try just one. Even after this great period of time, the first cigarette is enough to start the whole addiction withdrawal process. This is another great site to keep you quit: whyquit.com/joel/Joel_04_03_never_take_puff.html
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Post by judyb on Mar 30, 2018 4:19:23 GMT -5
When the act of smoking is examined as a response to a few observable physical cues, quitting and staying quit become simple skills that anyone can quickly learn. Have you ever gotten angry and reached for a cigarette or felt anxious and wanted to smoke? Have you been bored and found yourself lighting one cigarette after another? Have you started and finished tasks with a cigarette? Do you smoke when you’re on the phone, at the computer, or driving? How long after you’ve put out a cigarette do you feel the need to light another? Many of the cigarettes you light in a day are tied to situations and experiences that have nothing to do with a sagging nicotine level. The common elements are physical cues or, body cues. These typically include changes in breathing and muscle tension. Smoking became a very effective response to observable body cues regardless of their source - anger, boredom, fatigue, etc or nicotine withdrawal. Understanding this connection between the physical experience of life and a smoking response is the key to creating new non-smoking responses. IF THE ABOVE HAS INTRIGUED YOU AND YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ MORE, GO HERE: www.cognitivequitting.com/
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Post by judyb on Mar 25, 2018 21:19:46 GMT -5
Denying The Undeniable... She started smoking at age 16, enraptured by such glamorous movie queens such as Joan Crawford, Bette Davis who smoked alot and always seemed to wear gowns, not dresses like she did. She dropped out of high school to help make ends meet and was smoking a pack a day when she was 18. She married at age 21, Tony who never smoked but would go to the store for her when she ran out. She tried to quit when she became pregnant, but instead smoked a pack during her labor. In 1955, the cigarette ads contained assurances of their new cigarettes having “lower tars, lower nicotine” and health-conscious, she switched from Chesterfield to Liggertt’s new filter brand, L&M. She figured that this was a good idea, trapping that brown stuff in the new filter, and the ads said it “was milder and a miracle”. (That while the word “safer” was not used, it was clearly inferred over and over again.) When the Surgeon General’s report came out in 1964, she knew about it, but didn’t want to think about it--though it was frightening. She felt if smoking was really and truly that dangerous, the tobacco companies wouldn’t sell it, and certainly the government would stop them from being sold.... She figured since she used a milder, filtered brand she was probably OK. But mostly, she felt nothing that bad would be allowed to be sold. Tony, who adored his wife, kept after her to quit but to no avail. But she countered with everything was bad for you, these days, eggs, sweeteners, meat--they were always coming up with something.... Rose Cipollone, in short, had a classic textbook case of what academics called “cognitive dissonance”. Two social psychologists* would later testify in her case in court referring to a paper they’re written for a journal “how smokers dwelled in a constant state of disequilibrium because their dependency conflicted with the human impulse to survive and continued “in the face of undeniable and overwhelming evidence that cancer is directly attributable” to smoking. “Information can be denied, distorted or forgotten in the service of ‘dissonance reduction’, while arguments supporting the perverse conduct or belief are sought out and prized.” (*Harold Kasarjian and Joel Cohen, in California Managment Review,) So did we live in an tortuous state, denying the undeniable one day, flogging ourselves the next...but to return to Rose... Rose’s health began to falter in her forties--hysterectomy, gallbladder---smoker’s cough--a symptom of chronic bronchitis. She took her doctor’s advice and switched to True, Lorrilard’s new low-tar brand. But she found herself smoking so many more when she smoked them..... “I didn’t want to believe there was a risk.” and she said novenas, promising God she’d quit, she was getting so scared..... Her luck ran out in 1981, when a routine x-ray was taken, and the next three years were fighting cancer. The four-day deposition by tobacco lawyers drained what little strength she had, her charge that the tobacco industry had knowingly foisted a dangerous addiction on her. She had smoked for 25 years before any warning labels had appeared. Three days after her death, her lone, unaccompanied attorney faced the Chairman of Philip Morris and a squadron of company lawyers, their sheer numbers intimidating, in a large conference room to depose the Chairman. More than three years would pass after her death before Rose had her posthumous day in court, and five more years of strategic delays before a judgment that was far less than the cost of litigation would be awarded--but it was a ground-breaking case that would prepare the way for many other decisions that held the tobacco companies culpable for their willful withholding of the truth of their product. Roadkill Read more about Rose in “Ashes To Ashes,” by Richard Kluger, p.647--
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Post by judyb on Mar 25, 2018 21:16:44 GMT -5
Resisting a physical craving can be accomplished by any number of things--tying one's self to a bedpost, sitting on the roof having kicked the ladder over, eating 7,435 M&M's--any number of tactics can work--for a while.
But sooner or later one has to deal with one's mind. I think that the romance of the cigarette started long before we smoked that first one, or even saw the first ad, and that we were 'imprinted' with certain illusions that the cigarette was a 'good' thing, maybe not as soon as the just-hatched duckling, but very early. It could have been seeing parents/attractive movie stars with a cigarette, etc....who knows?
Then, of course, there's the advertising...do auto makers ever have as models some snaggle-tooth models? Of course not--the women certainly don't have an apron tied around their waist, but are gorgeous, and the men are suave and rich. There's usually a circle drive-way. We know all that stuff. Madison Ave. stuff.
But when it comes to cigarette advertising, we have been exposed to the state of the art-- it is the most sophistocated message that deep & bottomless pockets can buy. It's not only the earliest messages that impresses the young smoker but messages continues to re-inforce the early brain-washing for the rest of the smokers life, unless the smoker intervenes and pulls all the romance out. Tobacco has created a giant myth--not even kissing cousins to truth.
(Ads usually contain, wonderful words like flavor, taste. Beautiufl scenery--no consequences--no odor,; no haze--mostly outdoors in fresh air.).
Example: Consider the task of writing an ad for cigarettes. Only, you have the condition that you must tell the truth in your ad. You are a compulsive truth-tellerHow would you word your ad?
Would this be a start?
The Romance: For those special moments of relaxation....Cigarettes relax you......."
The Reality: "When your nicotine levels drop, use our nicotine delivery system, " Brand X, to stop those nasty withdrawal pangs. Guaranteed to hold off the next pangs and their anxiety for the next30- 45 minutes!!!! And then you get to do it all over again!!!! The Reality: "It's hard to think when you're in a state of withdrawal--use our product to relieve withdrawal anxiety and to plug most of those empty receptors with that much needed nicotine, (receptors that by the way, our product stimulated their growth) and to constrict the blood flow to your brain--which DECREASE thinking ability.!!! Free side benefits are tension headaches, sinus headaches/congestion!!!!"
The Romance: "Look at people smoking, having a good time..."
The Reality: "Looking at people still in perpetual withdrawal/relief/withdrawal/relief....who would love to be free....
The (Hidden) Romance: "Notice our slim models? Smoking will help you lose weight;!!"
The Reality: "ANYTHING that you substitute for food/calories will help you lose weight."
The (hidden) Romance: "A man smoking a cigarette is a turn-on--a picture of virility, sexy. " You will exude that special Marlboro aroma that marks you special The Reality: Urologists urge male pts. to stop smoking--for inclreased blood flow--and the smoker is a turn on only if they have had their teeth cleaned, hair washed, clothes sent to the cleaners, etc....."
The Romance: "For Superior flavor and taste....."
The Reality: "(While we don't recommend you eat our product, 'flavor' and 'taste' sound better than smell) For that unmistakable smell of old rope burning, for the taste of dried lawn clippings, most likely sprayed with insecticides, extra nicotine enhancers, throw in a pinch of arsenic/carbon monoxide, and you've got our disgusting product!"
The Romance: "Come back to [friendship, i.e., companionship]"
The Reality: "Our product helps you commit suicide on the installment plan and is no friend to anyone!!!! And you get to do it again and again and again and again every d**n day of your life for the rest of your life!!!!--Talk about obsessive-compulsive behavior!!! All this can be yours!!!!"
De-romancing cigarettes, IMHO, is not a one-time experience, but has to be attended to daily, over & over until one is completely convinced that a cigarette will do nothing for them.
The lies are all exposed, the smoker unable to fall for the lies anymore, the glamour and the myth, and knows that he's no longer willing to be the tobacco companie's sucker. The romance is over.
Roadkill
(posted June 98)
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Post by judyb on Mar 25, 2018 21:09:38 GMT -5
Date:
Forum: I look out my window on my backyard that is so beautiful and the urge comes over me. In the past I would have fought this urge to have a smoke but today I embrace this demon. I accept that he is here. I look him in the face and say "it is OK. I understand that you are here and want to smoke, It's OK for you to be here demon I embrace you" He is pissed and diggs in to my desires and tries to get me to give in to the temptation but I look at him and say, "Stay as long as you like, I have other things that I need to do. I will be here for you if you need, I embrace you for you have no where else to go and you are mine, you are of my creation. I am sorry that I have created you however I have and now I must live with you until you feel that you can go out on your own and not be a part of me anymore" "I embrace you for you are mine"
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:59:07 GMT -5
Nineteen years, eight months, three days, 5 hours, 51 minutes and 35 seconds. 323380 cigarettes not smoked, saving $56,591.67. Life saved: 3 years, 3 weeks, 2 days, 20 hours, 20 minutes.
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:53:45 GMT -5
DAY 9 Even though he quit 16 years ago, Micheal Mery vividly remembers how difficult it was. "I loathed myself for smoking, for trashing myself, but it still took me a long time to quit. When I finally did stop, the first three days were just the normal physical withdrawal. Then a light-headedness set in that was so extreme that I was borderline dangerous. (Mery is a carpenter and works with power tools). At the same time, I was almost euphoric not to be smoking. "I'd also break out in a sweat from head to foot while just sitting in a chair, and I had major joint pain. I was irritable for months. Three months after I quit I had a drag of my then-wife's cigarette. Having that one drag filled me with fury at myself for being so stupid. That was the last time I smoked." "I didn't notice much physical change until one day I was shovelling horse manure into my truck for my mother's garden. I was in a big hurry, and I loaded up in less than twenty minutes. As I drove away I was amazed to notice I wasn't winded. Now, I run twenty miles a week. I'm just grateful to be free of cigarettes. -------------------------- DAY 10 Day by day, this book takes note of the milestones the ex-smoker passes along the road to recovery. Some body parts recuperate quickly, some slowly. For ease of reference, we collect together here some of the highlights in the progress of an ex-smoker. Twenty minutes after the last cigarette: Blood pressure, pulse, and body temperature return to normal. Eight hours later: Carbon monoxide level in the blood falls, allowing oxygen level to rise. Seventy-two hours later: The bronchial tubes relax, and breathing becomes easier. The lung power increases. Coughing decreases. Two weeks to three months: Circulation improves; stamina increases; lung capacity increases up to 30 percent Two Months: Chronic cough completely disappears One to nine months: Sinus congestion, fatigue, and shortness of breath decrease. The cilia regrow in the lungs. One year: Risk of heart disease falls to half that of a current smoker Five years: Risk of heat attack and stroke almost equals that of a never smoker Six years: Risk of bladder cancer becomes half that of a never-smoker Ten years: Risk of lung cancer drops to half that of a never-smoker Fifteen years: Risk of lung cancer drops to almost that of a never-smoker From www.amazon.com/Meditations-Surviving-Without-Cigarettes-Wanning/dp/0380769166
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:52:38 GMT -5
DAY 7 "Just for today" is a key slogan in Nicotine Anonymous. "Just for today, I will not smoke." You may reassess the situation tomorrow, whereupon you may decide to smoke again. Thus, your only problem is getting through today. In the years to come, if you want to smoke, say to yourself, "Well, maybe tomorrow." Tomorrow, one hopes, you will decide you can get through tomorrow. This takes the chill off making a lifetime decision. The thought of forever may be too much to contemplate. And if tomorrow seems too close to forever, there's "just for the next 7 minutes I will not smoke." ------------------ DAY 8 Congratulations! Your first and worst week without cigarettes is over. It is not, however, time to relax your vigilance. Instead, count your blessings. You look better, you smell better, and you're welcome wherever you go. You are probably enjoying your food more, too. Few great cooks are smokers, as smokers generally lack both the passion for food and the nose for it. You may, however, now be demonstrating an obsession with food that you'd rather not have, and you should take certain precautions. If you crave sweets, suck on lemon drops or Life Savers. Bowls of sunflower seeds around the house are diverting. Keep plenty of fruit, juice, and ice water on hand, and fill the fridge with ready to eat vegetable snacks. You can use the vitamins; as a smoker, you needed more and absorbed less. And eat good square meals, remembering that the US Government recommends that we all eat five to seven servings of fruit and vegetables each day. This is no time to diet. Chew gum if you must, but bear in mind that some people find gum chewing even more irritating than smoking from: www.amazon.com/Meditations-Surviving-Without-Cigarettes-Wanning/dp/0380769166
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:51:34 GMT -5
DAY 5 By: Meditations for surviviing without cigarettes As long as you smoked, your body operated under a tremendous hindrance. It had to adapt not only to nicotine, but to the 4000 plus other chemicals found in burning tobacco (over 40 of which are known to be carcinogenic). That smoke you took in didn't just gum up your lungs, but passed immediately into your bloodstream. The carbon monoxide in the smoke displaced oxygen, making you tired and breathless. Nicotine sped up your heart rate and raised your blood pressure. When you lit a cigarette your body temperature also fell, and less blood flowed to your arms, legs, and feet. If you're feeling tingling now in your fingers and toes, it's because you're noticing improved circulation. If you still want a cigarette, try the 4 D's: Drink water, Delay, Deep-breathe, Do something else. The craving will go away in a couple of minutes -- If you don't smoke ------------------------------- DAY 6 You do exercise, don't you? Exercise lets you fully reap the sense of well-being that comes from not smoking. Exercise does well what the body does badly, which is to alleviate anxiety, depression, and restlessness. Both smoking and exercise give the brain's neurotransmitters a boost, but the effects of exercise are much longer lasting. A cigarette produces only a few minutes' reprieve from anxiety; a good workout creates genuine relaxation, lasting hours. For those who worry about getting fat, exercise is a critical part of the program. It's necessary to find an exercise you can bring yourself to do regularly. You can hate running and still like ice skating or racquetball or weight lifting or bicycling or swimming or yoga. Good old walking will do fine. An easy stroll is far better than nothing. In your early weeks of not smoking, you should try to at least one exercise break a day. The exertion cuts the craving for a cigarette, and there is satisfaction in making the most of your body's growing capabilities--now that it is no longer a smoking machine. From: www.amazon.com/Meditations-Surviving-Without-Cigarettes-Wanning/dp/0380769166
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:50:42 GMT -5
By: Meditations for Surviviing without Cigarettes DAY 3 You have conferred tremendous benefits on yourself by quitting smoking. You've added not just eight years (on average age) to your expected life span, but eight much healthier years than you could look forward to as a smoker. Put to good use, they will be happier years, too. You are now in a position to get more out of life than you ever could as a smoker. That cloud of smoke stood between you and life's full experience. At the moment you may be coughing or clearing your throat more than ever before--so much that your chest may hurt. Be glad! You've recovered the ability to clear out blocked airways, which were stuck full of mucus. The clearing-out process lasts only a few days, and your old smoker's cough (the body's attempt to protect itself from the irritants in cigarette smoke) will be history in a few weeks. Fatigue during the day and wakefulness at night are normal withdrawal symptoms, not likely to last more than a few weeks. Intestinal upsents can also last weeks, but most of your other symptoms will pass in a day or two. The worst cigarette cravings should now be behind you. ------------------------------------------- DAY 4 Your worst physical withdrawal syjptoms should hav passed by now. if the only reason you smoked was that you'd once had the bad luck of becoming addicted to nicotine, you'd be home free. But people are not such fools that they smoke out of addiction alone. They smoke because smoking is rewarding. Chances are, you have a number of hurdles still to cross in your metamorphosis into a nonsmoker. In the past, smoking has helped you to regulate your moods, ignore pain, control excitment, ward off anxiety, and medicate depression. But as smoking provides only a distraction, not a cure, smokers tend to have a lont of unfinished business in their psyches. When someone stops smoking, he or she is apt to suffer most from the intensity of emotions. The uplifiting ones can be as intimidating as the anxious ones. Both scream "CIGARETTE"!!! The trick is to let these feelings rush by without succumbing to them. In time, you will learn to tend your emotions far more effeictely without cigarettes than you ever did with them. From: www.amazon.com/Meditations-Surviving-Without-Cigarettes-Wanning/dp/0380769166
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:49:48 GMT -5
DAY 2 Don't feel sorry for yourself. People moan about the pain of quitting, but what about the pleasure? Things are looking up already. You've cleared out those vile ashtrays. You smell better. You don't have to look for your cigarettes. You probably don't feel your best today. You crave a cigarette, naturally. You expected that. But you may also be bowed down by headaches, nausea, sweatiness, aches, and digestive upsets. Not to mention irritability, restlessness, anxiety, and difficulty concentrating. These are normal nicotine withdrawal symptoms, and they pass quickly. You can ignore them, or if you prefer, declare yourself sick and go to bed. It's best to stay away from smokers; this is a perfect time to haunt museums, movie theaters, parks, and mountain trails. one woman spent the first two no-smoking days on her bicycle miserable and depressed. On the third day she felt wonderful. Withdrawal is a nasty business. Wouldn't care to repeat it, would you? Even if you're on a nicotine patch, you're unlikely to be feeling wholly yourself. Observe your feelings, as if they were a passing parade. They will retreat, and so will the urge for a cigarette, unless you smoke. Tomorrow will be different. Excerpts from How to Stop Smoking First Day: You will have a great feeling of excitement, a kind of adventurous feeling. You will constantly be tempted to smoke, but the knowledge that you are doing something revolutionary for yourself will carry you through. You will feel a bit overemotional an perhaps—today or tomorrow—will begin boring your friends with talk about what it means to go four or six or eight waking hours without smoking. That’s fine. Keep telling them, whether they like it or not. You’re engaged in a major project, and you have the right to take a few liberties. Your lunch today will taste as it hasn’t for a long time, and so will your dinner. Second Day: In some respects, this day will be a little easier. You will have the experience of one day’s trials and temptations behind you, and the knowledge that you licked them. At the same time you may become aware that you laugh more easily and at less funny things, you get mad or irritated more easily. The normal emotions, which your smoking kept under warps, are now beginning to emerge. Don’t let that bother you. Before, you occasionally became irritated or otherwise emotional, too, and for less healthy reasons. This will presently pass, not to return. In the meantime, you may feel a little uncomfortable about your short temper. Just bear your temporary failing in mind, check it as much as you can, and don’t worry about it. Occasionally your hand will stay unconsciously to cigarette box or pocket for a cigarette. When you realize that you can’t have it you will feel a pang. Sweep this out of your mind as fast as you can by thinking of something else. Remember that by tonight you will have gone two days without smoking, longer than you have gone tobacco-less in – how many years? And with two days won you are well on your way. From: www.amazon.com/Meditations-Surviving-Without-Cigarettes-Wanning/dp/0380769166
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Post by judyb on Mar 23, 2018 12:48:59 GMT -5
DAY 1 Welcome to the majority. Only 26 percent of adult Americans smoke, and they nearly all wish they didn't. Public opinion holds smokers in low esteem. When a person lights up a cigarette, others see a poor soul lacking in self-control, a victim. To put it unkkindly, a drug addict. After all, precious few people smoke because they want to. They smoke because they can't stop. Yet they are surrounded by people who could stop and did. How does that make them feel? Bad. As you did until today. No you have crossed to the other side. You can hold up your head. You can sit in the non-smoking section. You don't have to subject yourself to other people's whims by asking the sniveling questions "Mind if I smoke?" Now you're as good as they are. Twenty minutes after your last cigarette, nicotine ceased to affect your blood pressure, pulse, and body temperature. Within 8 hours, the carbon monoxide level in your blood drastically fell, and increased oxygen is now reaching all the tissues of your body. From: www.amazon.com/Meditations-Surviving-Without-Cigarettes-Wanning/dp/0380769166
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Post by judyb on Mar 21, 2018 12:51:23 GMT -5
By Sagitelle March 1-99 (Sagitelle) on Wednesday, October 6, 1999 - 08:42 am:(RIP Sagitelle) Why is smoking so harmful to my health? by Debora Orrick, M.A., LCDC Long-term inhalation of tobacco smoke exposes every cell of your body to powerful chemicals that can cause cancer and cell mutations, and that ultimately cause tobacco-related illnesses. Tobacco smoke from cigarettes, cigars, and pipes contains over 4,000 chemical compounds and breathable, suspended particles. Some of the chemicals present in tobacco smoke have been proven to cause cancer and increase the risk of birth defects. These include ammonia, arsenic, benzene, cadmium, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, lead, mercury, naphthalene, urethane, and a variety of nitrosamines (potent human carcinogens). Formaldehyde, ammonia, urethane, and naphthalene are contained in household products with labels telling you to avoid inhaling them. There are also radioactive chemicals in tobacco smoke, like polonium-210. So far, over 40 chemicals have been found in tobacco smoke that are known human carcinogens. This means that these chemicals have been proven to cause cancer not only in laboratory animals, but also in people. These chemicals make smoking such high risk to the health of any smoker. The carbon monoxide found in tobacco smoke is the same gas that you find in your car's exhaust system and a faulty gas heater in your home. It is a colorless and odorless gas that interferes with your body's ability to use the oxygen that you inhale to fuel your cells. Normally, oxygen binds to your red blood cells by attaching to a molecule called hemoglobin. When you smoke, carbon monoxide attaches to your hemoglobin instead of oxygen, and deactivates these red blood cells from fueling your body. Eventually, the carbon monoxide falls off the hemoglobin, but it can be replaced if you are still smoking a tobacco product. Up to ten percent of your body's hemoglobin can be deactivated when you smoke. This is how smoking can affect your stamina and athletic ability. Increased levels of carbon monoxide in your blood also means less oxygen to your brain. Fortunately, the body is able to eliminate most of the carbon monoxide quickly, and within a few days of quitting smoking, most people feel more energetic and less shortness of breath. Tar is a dark substance that delivers nicotine to the lungs, and it also contains the other chemicals discussed above. When tobacco smoke is inhaled, most of the tar is retained for a while in the mucous lining of the lungs and then mostly distributed throughout the body. After years of smoking, tar can collect in the lung and cause tobacco-related illnesses. If you drink alcohol and smoke, more of the carcinogens in the smoke are dissolved into the bloodstream because alcohol is a very effective solvent. Source: www.allhealth.com/kickbutt/week1/gen/0,4260,6564_128787,00.html
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