A friend is concerned about the damage she may have suffered from passive smoking. So;
Cigarette smoke has long been established as the single most important cause of preventable disease and death in the world. The reduction in life expectancy for the average smoker is eight years. Across the world smoking cigarettes kills six million people a year, (every year 480,000 smoking related deaths in the USA alone) ~ every ten seconds somebody dies from smoking cigarettes.
Half of all smokers will eventually die from it, often from cancer. Of that half, half will die in middle age, losing around 25 years off their life. All smoking related deaths are messy, drawn-out and agonising to suffer and to watch.
Cigarette smoke is the cause of 90% of all lung cancers and chronic lung diseases. And you know what? Passive smoking also kills. You are quite likely to get lung cancer or lung disease just by being in the same room as a smoker. Worldwide at least 600,000 non smokers, (who are passively smoking), die from smoking related disease every year, and 28% of those are children. There is no safe level of second-hand tobacco smoke. If someone is ill-mannered enough to smoke near you, get up and leave. Only
sluts and bastards very impolite people smoke near non-smokers.
As well as directly causing chronic lung diseases like emphysema, bronchitis, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, (COPD). Cigarette smoke also causes strokes, a stack of heart related diseases, and cancers of just about every part of the body; mouth, larynx, oesophagus, stomach, urinary tract, and bladder.
Women suffer disproportionately badly from smoking related illnesses. For example there is a higher incidence of osteoporosis, (thinning of the bones), in female smokers. Smoking reduces female fertility and maims seriously damages unborn children in the womb. Female smokers also look decrepit age well before their time, have greater risk of breast cancer, and cancer of the cervix. Women who smoke heavily are often alcoholics also tend to drink far too much booze for their own good. The Baylor College of Medicine found that people crave alcohol when they are smoking, and nicotine when they are drinking. Both nicotine and alcohol are far more dangerous for women than they are for men.
There are about 2,700 nasty and dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke, including; ammonia, cyanhydric acid, acetone, toluene, methane, naphthalene, carbon monoxide, phenol, DDT, Toluidine, Urethane, Pyrene, Polonium-210, cadmium, vinyl chloride, benzopyrene and nicotine. Some of this stuff is deadly even in small concentrations, and most of it is carcinogenic.
A regular smoker probably has no idea just how utterly disgusting non-smokers find your habit. Smokers stink, their clothes stink, their breath stinks, even their sweat stinks. In my whole life I have only dated one woman who smoked, and thankfully for both of us she eventually quit her filthy habit.
I would never, ever, date another woman who smokes, no matter how attractive she was otherwise. Personally, and luckily, I have never smoked anything, even though both my parents were smokers ~ thank you for that mother. My only very nasty, and very deadly vice has been booze, and I’ve quit drinking.
It is never too late to stop smoking ~ if you stop before middle age you will likely avoid most of the cancers, although if you continue smoking after middle age, and then stop, you will probably still die from your history of smoking. There is plenty of help out there for those addicted to smoking, but who want to quit. Probably the first step is to see your doctor. Or, like many old-looking, penniless, coughing, ill, sad, and stinking people, you could just decide to stay alive and stop smoking, all on your own.
If you smoke, do yourself a favour, give it up for Lent, (if you smoke and drink, try giving up the booze too).