Are You Still Smoking? If yes, today is the Great American Smokeout, the perfect day to consider quitting smoking.
According to the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it takes 8 to 11 attempts to quit smoking.
Before my pharmaceutical career began, I sold smoking cessation products that are still around to help smokers quit. Those products, the Nicoderm patch and Nicorette gum. Both therapies help ease the desire to smoke with behavioral modification steps.
I currently sell prescription products for COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.) COPD is a respiratory disease that mostly comes from a lifetime of smoking.
It saddens me to see the staggering statistics for the number of people that die from lung cancer. Smoking also leads to poor quality of life because of COPD.
Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States.
The reasons why people smoke:
♦ It’s a habit
♣ Alleviates the desire to overeat
♠ Stress
♥ Some say smoking gives them energy
◊ Peer pressure during teenage years
Yet, despite the constant reminders of how harmful smoking is to one’s health, many people do not quit smoking. Nicotine is just as hard to give up as heroin. Only 4% to 7% of people who try to quit smoking can do it cold turkey.
Why it’s challenging to quit smoking?
◊ Nicotine is addictive
♥ Mental triggers
◊ Social Situations
Helpful Resources if not comfortable with face-to-face support from a health professional:
State Quitline: 1-800-QUIT-NOW
National Cancer Institute: 1-877-441-QUIT
smokefree.gov
This is a final reminder of how smoking harms nearly every organ of the body.
As always, thank you for reading. If you smoke, I hope today is the day you decide to quit.
