Check my new videos on YouTube

 I have created several short videos on how to become successful at becoming smoke-free. Check them out on: YouTube

This is the introductory video about how I got started helping others. 

Also check out my new website: www.VJSleight.com

I just turned 50, had a physical and my doctor says I'm in great health. Why should I quit?

It is common to believe that you are one of the "lucky" ones who can smoke without it doing any physical damage, especially when hearing something like this from your doctor. Or believing that when your doctor listens to your chest and says, "Your lungs sound fine", thinking this means smoking has done no damage. This is called having an "optimistic bias".

The average life expectancy for men is 76 and for women 80. Smokers die about 10 years earlier than non-smokers. But since we all have to die of something, it might as well be something you enjoy -right?

Age 45 to 50 seems to be the tipping point. What your doctor should say is, "How do you want to live the last 20 years of your life? If you stop now, you will probably stay healthy and be able to continue doing the activities you enjoy most. However, if you keep smoking, you will probably end up disabled from heart disease, cancer, stroke, or emphysema."

Here is a graph that shows the progression of lung function decline of smokers, non-smokers and quitters leading to disability and ultimately death.

Click here to read the complete article. 

The truth is that no one who smokes is healthy. Fifty percent of all smokers will die from their addiction but almost all will develop some type of disability from smoking. The problem isn't that you will die too young from smoking but you will live too long suffering from a horrible debilitating disease. So quit now while there is still time to stay healthy. Turn your optimistic bias into believing that if you do quit, you will continue to be healthy but if you continue to smoke, you will suffer the disabling effects.

The #1 secret to quitting smoking

I'm asked all the time what is the one thing I would say to smokers who want to quit. The answer I want to say is to tell me more about the smoker and I will tell you what that smoker wants to hear but everybody is different. Every smoker is connected to their cigarettes in different ways and it will take different methods to become successful.

However, what every successful smoker has in common is that they truly desire to become smoke-free and quit smoking. They don't feel they have to, no one is forcing them, they are quitting because they WANT TO.

Which is the key to success: want to quit smoking more than you want to continue smoking. I can already hear you saying, "But I really do want to quit!" But is there that small voice in your head saying, "But I enjoy smoking too."?

Smokers often have a love/hate relationship with cigarettes. It is like any other bad relationship: sometimes it seems easier to stay than to go through the process of changing. So with cigarettes it is time to make the decision for a divorce.

Make two lists: things you enjoy about smoking and things you enjoy about being smoke-free. Spend time thinking about what being smoke-free means to you. More time to spend with your family or doing things you enjoy instead of constantly being a slave to your cigarettes. More money to spend. More freedom. No more searching for a place to smoke or feeling like a pariah. What are your values? is smoking preventing you from really embracing your values: as a parent and role model, as someone who values the ability to be physically independent, valuing freedom and the right to make your own decisions instead of being controlled by nicotine?

On the other hand, what do you truly enjoy about smoking? Do you enjoy the stench of stale tobacco smoke? Spending money only to burn it up? Lying to yourself that it relieves your stress when actually all it is doing is relieving your withdrawal symptoms and adding to your stress.

Once your reasons to be smoke-free are more important that another cigarette, you will find the method that will work for you. It will also get you through the months ahead when nicotine is calling you again for just one more time.  But when wanting to quit is the more important, you can tell that cigarette that you've moved on and there is no going back.

"You gotta die of something, might as well be something you enjoy"

After looking at my name tag, a man asked if I was the same VJ who used to go stop smoking classes. When I answered  yes, he said, "You saved my life."

Elliot had been a three pack a day smoker when he took attended a stop smoking workshop I did in January 1993. He smoked three packs a day and needed heart surgery and they were going to amputate his leg due to lack of circulation. His doctor wouldn't operate until Elliot quit smoking, so he was at the class so he could quit long enough to have his surgery and then Elliot fully expected to return to his beloved cigarettes.

"Do you remember what you said me all those years ago?" he asked.

"Yes, you told me, "You gotta die of something" and I told you, "Yes, but yours would be a long slow painful death as they just keep cutting parts off of you."

Elliot said he never forgot those words. He quit, had his surgery and was able to keep his leg. Twenty years later he knows he would not be here today if he had continued to smoke. He has married, has been traveling the world and started making pottery. He looks at all the wonderful things in his life today that smoking would have deprived him.

The lesson is not look at what you are giving up, Elliot loved smoking, but look at what you might miss out by not living so long; plus how do you want to live your last years of life? Disabled from smoking or healthy and enjoying life?

The ultimate way to increase your willpower to stop smoking forever

Zelda became fast friends with Mary another smoker when they both became members of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).  CORE is a civil rights organization which helped organize the March on Washington and ended with Martin Luther King giving his famous "I have a dream" speech. 

After smoking for 30 years Zelda and Mary decided to quit together. While it was difficult, Mary was successful but Zelda was not. Like many smokers, over the years she tried many times to quit but her willpower was not stronger than the temptation to smoke. 

Years later they met up again at conference and Mary said, "Why are you still smoking?"

Zelda didn't have a good answer but Mary's words haunted her for the next few days. When she drove Mary to the airport, Zelda turned to her and said, "If I ever smoke again, I'll write a check for $5000 to the Klu Klux Klan."

She quit cold turkey right then and every time she was tempted to smoke a cigarette, she thought of writing that check to the KKK which was such an abhorrent thought that she never smoked again.
Click here to hear Zelda's story

Zelda gave herself no way out of this deal. This type of action is called a "pre-commitment" which involves making a binding agreement with a huge cost if a temptation is acted upon. Neuroimaging studies on the brain are now showing how pre-commitment is different than willpower and uses different parts of the brain. Click here to read about it.

As any smoker who has tried to quit knows, using willpower alone makes it almost impossible to resist temptation when it pops up. Even with the best of intentions and having good reasons to quit, the long term benefits of becoming smoke-free are not strong enough to overcome that immediate pleasure of smoking a cigarette. Willpower breaks down when an immediate temptation creates that strong impulse or craving to act now by smoking.

Using a functional MRI, we can now see how pre-commitment can help in staying smoke-free. Our brains have a memory and a smoker's brain may recognize that in past experiences willpower has failed to resist temptation and that failure is repeated when faced with a new temptation. But when a smoker has made a pre-commitment and is tempted to smoke, a different part of the brain is used which eliminates this short term temptation. A pre-commitment, or a binding choice becomes an alternative to willpower.

So the trick is to make a deal with yourself that is so horrible that you will do anything to avoid it and tie that commitment to the act of smoking, like Zelda did by imagining writing a $5000 check to the KKK if she smoked even one cigarette.

What deal will you make with yourself? Make the decision to follow through if you do smoke and stick to it. Give yourself no way out. Making a pre-commitment may be all you need to stay smoke-free forever.

The Biggest Mistake When Motivating Smokers to Quit

A friend and I were at the park when a young man approached us and said: "Can I bum a smoke?"

My response was, "Boy, did you ask the wrong person. I help smokers trying to quit. Do you know why someone your age shouldn't smoke?"

"Yeah, I know..... cancer.", he said defiantly.

"No that's not why. Smoking is the major cause of impotency. Do you want to be able to have sex for the rest of your life?", I said.

After the young man wandered off, my friend said he disagreed with what I said. He went into great detail of what motivated him to not start smoking when he was young, which was a huge fear of getting lung cancer.

Ask anyone who has never smoked and they can list their reasons for not starting to smoke. This list is always about the consequences of smoking but it is a huge mistake is to think these are the same reasons why people will quit. After all, they have already started smoking--it's too late for prevention.

Never-smokers have never experienced the enjoyment and benefits of smoking so they only look at the consequences. Yet every smoker knows about lung cancer and has already weighed the future, maybe it-won't-happen-to-me consequences against their current enjoyment of smoking. The future threat of cancer won't motivate them to stop.The reasons to quit smoking are totally different than the reasons to not start.

To effectively motivate someone means their reasons to become smoke-free have to be more important than their reasons to continue smoking. Nobody wants to give up something they enjoy unless there is some more important to them. Besides, every time they see their doctor, he listens to their chest and says, "Your lungs sound fine to me."  A smoker hears that statement to mean he isn't at risk for lung cancer.

I knew I only had a few moments with this cigarette-bummer, so I gave him a reason that might be more important than a cigarette because I don't know of any man in his 20's that doesn't think sex is important. I will never know whether my words had an effect on him but I planted a seed because he hesitated  for a very long time before he answered me, "That's what Viagra is for."

Why is it so hard to quit smoking?

Becoming smoke free can be one of the hardest changes one makes in their life, but why is it so hard?

For true change to happen it is only possible when the desire to become smoke-free is stronger than the desire to continue smoking and when the smoker has the tools, skills and self-knowledge, that build self-confidence, to take effective action.

Every former smoker will tell nobody quits until they really want to quit, until then it's a struggle. Yet 70% of smokers will say they "want to quit" but in reality, what they want is to continue getting their perceived benefits from smoking (stress relief, enjoyment) and want to avoid the negative consequences (cancer ete.). They want their cake and want to eat it too--but you can't have both. The popularity of the e-cig is that this is the promise they are making. The only problem is they can't back up their promise because no one knows the long term health effects from using the e-cig. To build desire the "WHY: of becoming smoke-free is most important.

When the benefits from smoking are compared with the negatives of trying to quitting, the cigarettes win out but when becoming smoke-free is MORE important than continuing to smoke, the method will appear because the smoker will seek out the tools, skills and self-knowledge that are needed to go through the process of changing to a life of being smoke-free. 

After having a strong "why", the next part is the "how-to" part. Often smoking is considered part of our "self-care" especially when dealing with stress, fear, anxiety. When everything is falling apart, our "friends" are still there to offer comfort. Smoking is a low-effort coping strategy and if like most smokers you have started as a teen--you haven't developed other effective coping strategies because smoking has always been there and has worked. Part of the struggle is to develop other "self-care" techniques but often they require more effort than just lighting up. This differs for every smoker and the tools, skills and self- knowledge.

Allan Carr's book, "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking" is great for motivation because he takes every argument used to continue smoking and rips it apart. He works on the WHY to quit, but not the HOW to quit. In over 20 years of working with smokers, as soon as the WHY to quit is stronger than the desire to continue to smoke, the rest is just gaining the tools, skills and self-knowledge.  This builds confidence and when a smoker feels they have the ability to succeed, they will take effective action. 

Effective action means having a plan in place to deal with the many different aspects of smoking and not relying on just one method to quit. Some smokers are more physically addicted than others and may need medicinal therapy. Habit cigarettes require behavior modification, stress cigarettes require effective stress management. 

As a Tobacco Treatment Specialist, my job is to help a smoker develop the desire, figure out what tools, and skills are needed through self-knowledge and how to develop an effective action plan. 

Environmental Hazards of tobacco

There are many personal reasons to become smokefree such as better health, and saving money, but quitting is also good for the environment.
Trash
Cigarette butts are the number one trash item collected on our beaches with over one million butts collected in the United States alone. Worldwide over 4 trillion butts are smoked each year. Each butt is made of about 12,000 plastic fibers which take 12 to 15 years to break down. In the meantime, the excess tobacco left on the butt, containing nicotine, heavy metals and other harmful chemicals are leached into our water systems which is harmful for aquatic life. Deforestation
Tobacco consumption also contributes to world deforestation. One out of every eight trees felled each year is used to cure tobacco. In South Korea and Uruguary, 40% of the annual deforestation is tobacco related. In Malawi, only 3% of the farmers grow tobacco yet nearly 80% of the trees are used to cure tobacco. If all farmers world wide were to stop growing tobacco and switch to food crops, this would feed almost half of the worlds 28 million undernourished people.

Smoking causes surgical complications

The doctor was running late for my pre-operative appointment and I had time to talk with Jeanni, the patient coordinator at UCLA. In September I had a bilateral mastectomy (mandatory) with immediate (elective) DIEP-flap (tummy tuck) reconstruction. In two weeks I will have the second stage of the reconstruction. This surgery is on the cutting edge of breast reconstruction and offers the best possible cosmetic result. The surgery is very long (I was under anesthetic for 10 hours) and complicated (fat is harvested from the tummy and transplanted to create a new breast). But I told Jeanni that my recovery has really been a breeze. She said from our first conversation, she knew I would have an easy time because patients that are healthy to start with and have a good attitude, often don't experience problems. Patients that are smokers, have diabetes or hypertension are often the ones with complications. All three affect the blood vessels and smoking affects the lungs which can interfere with the recovery from the anesthetic.
I had been told that anyone who smokes, must quit 6 weeks prior to this elective surgery. Jeanni said that some patients had lied about quitting, and the surgeon cancelled the surgery. The risk of complications is too high. I know of one smoker that had quit 6 weeks to the day, prior of her surgery and she has experienced some complications (she needed an immediate second surgery since her "flap" died due to lack of blood supply) and two months after surgery, continues to have pain. Could it be that after smoking for over 40 years, that the damage to her blood vessels and lungs has already been done?
No one wants to think that any surgery lies in their future but it is another good reason to quit now. If I had been a smoker, I would not have been a candidate for this type of surgery. My options would have been limited, the cosmetic result would have been much worse and I might have had serious complications.
So on this Thanksgiving day, I have so much to be thankful for, including being a good candidate for a leading edge surgical option that has left no emotional scars and minimal physical scars. Cigarettes would have killed my opportunity for this surgery and who knows what emotional and physical scars I would have had after a double mastectomy.

If you continue to smoke, then live with no regrets if you develop a horrible disease

I quit smoking because I had cancer at a young age and knew I was at high risk for a reocurrence for the rest of my life. If the cancer ever came back, I didn't want to wonder if it was caused by my smoking. I know the answer to that question now, since in August, I was diagnosed with cancer again. While I don't know why it reoccurred, I know it wasn't from smoking. Some may ask if I don't  regret giving up  something I enjoyed since the cancer came back anyway. Again, I know the answer is NO. Quitting tobacco is the best thing I could have done for my health. If I hadn't quit, the cancer might have come back sooner, be more aggressive and may have spread to vital organs by the time it was found. Yet others may feel differently, like the writer, Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens was notorious for his hard drinking and heavy smoking and now he has throat cancer, most likely due to his excessive lifestyle and a genetic predisposition. Yet he feels no regrets that his lifestyle led to a fatal disease. Lung cancer claimed Morton Downey Jr. and was caused by his smoking. He used to rant on his TV program about "health nazi's" trying to get smokers to stop and was a member of the National Smokers Alliance, yet when he developed cancer, he did a complete about-face about smoking and became a strong anti-smoking advocate until his death.

Smoking is like playing Russian roulette except with a 50/50 chance of dying from your smoking. But I don't think the problem with smoking is that you may die too young, it is that you may live too long from the effects of smoking. With the advances in health technologies, the medical profession can keep you alive for a very long time. I'm not afraid to die, but I am afraid of suffering from a long term disability caused by smoking.

But knowing the negative consequences of smoking is often not enough to get us to quit, since we tend to avoid thinking about them. We have every defensive mechanism in place to deny that it will ever happen to us.We all know the dangers of smoking yet we always think that cancer (heart disease, COPD, stroke etc) will happen to the other guy yet, as smokers, we are the other guy. If you continue to smoke, imagine what your life would be, if you were to develop your worst nightmare disease. If like Hitchens, you would have no regrets, then smoke and stop feeling guilty over something you enjoy. But if like Downey, you would do anything to have your health back and it's something that you're doing to yourself, then start the process to become tobacco free.

The old health paradigm was that we got old, got a disease and died. But the new paradigm is that we can live a long healthy life, free of disease. Do you want a short life and a long death, or a long life and a short death? Smoking will give you the former and quitting gives you a good chance of the latter.

So far, my diagnosis looks positive. It appears that the cancer was found early. I've had major surgery to remove the tumor and adjuvant chemotherapy is being recommended. If I had not stopped smoking, I would have always regretted it because I would have blamed myself for the cancer returning. So I will continue my crusade to help others through the quitting process--it's not easy but one of the most rewarding things I have ever done.

Breast Cancer and smoking

I just watched a program featuring Stanton Glanz, PhD. from the University of California in San Fransisco. He is one of my heroes. He has been a leading force in California's smoke free laws since 1978. He was talking on the relationship between smoking and breast cancer. Another subject dear to my heart since I am a breast cancer survivor. I was diagnosed when I was 32.
Glanz presents a very compelling argument linking not only smoking but exposure to secondhand smoke to breast cancer. He points out that research in the past would compare women who smoked with women who didn't smoke and there was a relative risk of 1.2, not a large difference. However, what these studies fail to look at was the percentage of non-smoking women that were exposed to secondhand smoke, either at home with a smoking husband or at work. When these same studies took this into consideration, the rates of breast cancer went up, but only in pre-menopausal women and the risks were similar. Smoking women have a double risk (or 2 times that of a non-smoking, non-secondhand smoke exposed woman), while a non-smoking woman that is exposed to secondhand smoke has a 1.7 times risk.
Animal studies have shown that about 20 of the harmful chemicals in smoke, are found in breast tissue and in breast milk. So it would only make sense that this could lead to breast cancer.
There are many known risk factors for breast cancer having to due with the exposure to estrogen: the age of puberty, age of having a child, age of menopause. Smoking lowers estrogen in a woman's body which increases the risk for osteoprosis and a lwer age for menopause. But this might also explain why the relative risk is similar between smoking and smoking exposed women. Secondhand smoke might not have the same effect of lowering estrogen but still leave chemicals in breast tissue.
A woman's breast goes through different stages from when she is born, to puberty, to full development to lacation after having a child. It appears that the effect of smoking and smoke exposure is higher for women before having a child.

While I appreciate comments, those left in other languages will be deleted. Please post in English only.

Would you give up kissing and sex for your cigarettes?

Most smokers know that smoking causes lung cancer but they may not know that smoking is responsible for over 30% of ALL cancers including mouth and lip cancer. Pete had cancer of the lips from smoking cigars. While the plastic surgery did a great job at reconstructing his lips, Pete said that the numbness from the sugery, "Took all the fun out of kissing."

While 1 out of 3 Americans will develop cancer, the number 1 killer is heart disease. Smoking is a major cause because of the damage that it does to the blood vessels but it's not only the heart and brain affected (major cause of strokes as well) but it also affects the blood vessels to the penis and is a primary cause of impotency.

So the problem with smoking may not be that you die too young but live too long with the effects of smoking. Is giving up kissing and sex for your cigarettes worth it?

The Best Valentines Day Gift--Stop Smoking

Timing can be everything and today may be the time to stop smoking. Give the gift of a longer, healthier life to both your loved ones as well as for yourself.
As a single person who won't date a smoker, I've been told that I might be missing out on a great guy, which may be true but I don't want to fall in love with a man that will die from some horrible disease caused by his smoking. So if you still smoke and think you "gotta die of something", don't think of what you're doing to yourself but think of what you will be putting your family through if you're suddenly diagnosed with heart disease, cancer, COPD, emphysema or have a stroke? So give a gift of love this Valentines Day by giving up your cigarettes, your family will love for it.

Obnoxious Ex-smokers

Out of 7 siblings, 6 of us smoked. My brother was the first to quit because he was having surgery and was told that he would not heal very well if he continued to smoke, so he quit on the way to the hospital. After his surgery, he nagging the rest of us and was just obnoxious with his holier-than-thou attitude towards those of us who continued to smoke. Years later after I quit, he confessed that he developed that attitude on purpose to keep him quit. He knew that if he ever picked up another cigarette, the other 5 of us would just rag on him to no end. So if an ex-smoker is giving you a hard time, it might just be a defense mechanism.
Most individuals are allergic to smoke and after they quit can develop symptoms when around smoke such as runny and watery eyes, upset stomach, and headache. Secondhand or environmental smoke does affect others, especially children since they systems are still developing. So an ex-smoker may be allergic where they didn't have symptoms when they smoke, as if they were immune before.
For other ex-smokers, they might have been the in-you-face- kind of smoker like Morton Downey Jr. who would call individuals like me "health Nazi's", that is until he developed cancer and quit smoking himself. He had what I call an "Ah -Ha" moment, where a smoker finally gets that it's not about his right to smoke, it's a health issue. They say we spend our youth creating our wealth, then as we age, we spend our wealth trying to regain our youth. Smoking robs a person of their youth, causing wrinkles and damaged skin and will kill 50% of long term smokers and disable a large percentage that it doesn't kill. So the next time an obnoxious ex-smoker gets in your face, just realize that they have finally "got" it--it's about health and longevity and they care for you enough to want to to stop to be around for a long time.

Who is in Control, You or the Cigarette?

A few days ago I flew up to Seattle to visit family and friends. My flight was delayed and I spent needless extra hours in an airport. If I had been a smoker, this would have been very uncomfortable. Many participants in my stop smoking workshops have admitted that they avoid flying because of the restrictions on smoking. They can't or don't want to have to deal with the stress of flying and spending hours without getting a hit from Kid Nicotine. For others that must fly, it is to not uncommon for them to use Nicotine Replacement Products such as the patch, the gum or lozenge to get through those times when they absolutely can't smoke. So they instead of using these products to help them quit, they are used to just handle the withdrawals until they can grab a cigarette.
I remember once having a date at a 5 star restaurant. I noticed there was no ashtray on the table and I immediately wanted to leave because I thought I couldn't smoke, (Of course, this was many years ago, many states now ban smoking in restaurants). I would have missed out on a great meal.
These are just a couple of way that cigarettes control our lives instead of us being in control. When new laws are proposed to limit smoking, the smoker automatically thinks that the government is exercising too much control over our lives but isn't it the other way around? The cigarette restricts what we will and will not do, it is exercising the ultimate control but making us think that nicotine is a friend that we can't live without instead it is a cell mate that keeps us in prison. Cigarettes went as far as dictating what size purse I would buy because it had to be big enough for all the normal things women carry in a purse, plus two packs of cigarettes, after all, I didn't want to run out. I lived in fear of not having my cigarettes near.
List all the way that Kid Nicotine is keeping your world a prison and think of the freedom you will have when you knock Kid Nicotine out of your life for good.

97 Reasons to Quit Smoking

As if it is hard to think of reasons to quit, this site has some new and usual reasons such as it is an excuse to play computer games, save water by having to wash your clothes less often to rid them of the smell and save trees because they are being cut to make space for tobacco plants, and one of my favorites- broaden your dating options since many non-smokers will not date a smoker. This happened to my brother who had been acquainted with a woman smoker but didn't consider dating her until she quit smoking! For the full article:

http://www.health.com/health/condition-section/0,,20209134,00.html

Quit Smoking for Yourself or For Another Person

Jessica finally decided to quit smoking because her son and daughter in law were going to have their first child and told Jessica that she couldn't be around the child and smoke, which meant she didn't get to babysit her first grandchild.
It's important to quit for yourself rather than for someone else and Jessica is at high risk of relapse if her reason for quitting disappears. What if her son and daughter in law decide to move across the country and Jessica isn't able to visit and babysit like she would like to?
When Kathy became engaged, she promised her fiancée she would quit and she did through my Stop Smoking, Stay Quit workshop. I ran into her at the store about five months later and she cried,
“Every day I wake up and say-I miss my cigarettes!” I made a few suggestions but found out later that she started smoking again when her engagement was broken off. She didn’t really want to quit and when her reason (fiancé) disappeared, so did her desire.
Bertha quit smoking because her husband suffered a heart attack and his doctor told her about the harmful effects of second hand smoke for heart patients. After two years, her husband passed away and she started smoking again. She told me that she felt resentment towards her husband the entire time that she was quit and blamed him for taking away her cigarettes.
Being told that you have to quit or quitting for someone else is not the same as wanting to quit. It is important for the smoker to find reasons to quit for themselves instead of feeling forced to do something against their will. Even if the smoker does quit, they could be setting themselves up to relapse down the road.

Appreciation for Quitting Smoking

I have been helping smokers become smoke free since 1990 and I love receiving letters like the following. It makes it all worth while:

Dear V.J.,

Just needed to drop you a note and thank you for your support and guidance to help me stop smoking. I am "smoke free" since June 8, 2002. Sometimes I still here your voice in my head saying "Remember, you are only a puff away from a pack a day" so I have not even had a single puff since June 7, 2002. Thank you so much for taking my calls early in the morning when I wanted to smoke so badly and giving me tips on how I could get through that moment. Of course chewing on ice chips and baby carrots helped too.

I am grateful for the freedom not smoking has giving me! I no longer have to find the lighter, the pack of smokes and especially a place where it is legal to smoke! I took your advise and started saving the money I would have been spending on cigarettes. Thanks to those savings and not smoking I was able to realize a lifelong dream of flying to Hawaii (I was born there). I had never been able to go before because the thought of not being able to smoke for that long kept me a prisoner. Then I continued to save and my youngest son is going to college on thos savings! what a trip huh? (by the way my sons don't smoke either!)

Again, V.J. thank you for your dedication, your knowledge and you support of me. By the way, if you ever hear that old myth that alcoholics and addicts can't stop smoking, you can tell them for that is simply not true! I am both and they said it would not be possible for me to quit and not drink or use. And yes, stopping smoking was very, very difficult for me yet, one day at a time and with the help of you and your program I remain '"smoke free" for 2252 days (and counting )
See ya at the next Walk for Life. I'll be there in gratitude of being smoke free!

Sincerely,

Dani Melton

Link Between Lung Cancer and Smoking

For years the tobacco companies said that smoking did not cause lung cancer. We now know that smokers are at a much higher risk of developing lung cancer and about 10% of all smokers will develop the disease. About 90% of all lung cancers are in smokers. This article tells of several genetic studies that are showing certain genetic traits that may make a person more likely to become addicted to smoking and also more likely to develop lung cancer. So reality might be that lung cancer is a relationship between heredity and environment. Lung cancer has been so fatal because it is usually found late after it has already spread but a new type of CAT scan, a spiral CAT Scan can find tumors that are small enough to be treatable. This test is not covered by insurance because it hasn't been proved that the survival rate of finding a lung cancer tumor when it is smaller increases life expectancy but it only makes sense to find it as early as you can.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/576699?src=mp&spon=17&uac=103794FK

Smokers Age Faster and Wrinkle More than Non-Smokers

It used to be thought that smokers developed smokers lines above their lip because of the way they dragged on the cigarette but now we know that smoking causes more wrinkles because of the lack of oxygen to the skin. Carbon Monoxide is a main component of smoke (yes the same gas coming out the tailpipe of your car-the next smoker you see, just think that they are sucking on that tailpipe and sending that poisonous gas to their heart). Carbon monoxide binds to the red blood cells faster than oxygen, so the body believes it is not getting enough oxygen. It does two things. 1. It conserves oxygen and closes down the small blood vessels to non-essential organs, which is largely the skin. That is why smokers have a gray cast to their skin color and develop wrinkles and also why the color of their skin improves dramatically when they stop smoking. 2. The body adjusts to the lack of oxygen by creating more red blood cells. A simple blood test will show a high red blood cell count. This affects smokers when they quit because without the carbon monoxide to bind with the excess of red blood cells, the quitter can experience too much oxygen and have headaches, tingling in the fingers and toes from the blood vessels opening up. A tip to quitting is to go give blood when you stop. If not, the body will even itself out after a few weeks. Just another good reason to quit.