Coming from a household of two smoking parents that have smoked well before I was born, and who's Uncle's were smokers (1 is a reformed smoker), and grandfather who was a smoker I can definitely say I'm against it.
In June of last year me and my mother were involved in a minor accident but we suffered injuries to our spine and neck/head. As result, we both needed multiple MRI's, 1 being of our head. We were lucky to not have incurred any permanent damage to the brain, but what was picked up on my mothers MRI of her brain were the beginning stages of hardening arteries in her brain. This is a result of her smoking. She was told this and fully understands it. It scares her.
Yet, she is so dependent on them (however, my father is 5x more dependent than she) she still smokes before we go running, she smokes when she's upset/angry/stressed. Out of all drugs, I'd have to say nicotine/cigarettes are the most insidious of them all.
Now that's bad enough, and even though statistics have told us that children of smokers are more likely to become smokers themselves, all 6 of us (me and my 5 siblings) are smoke free and wouldn't touch a cigarette with a 10ft pole.
Even worse, I've become allergic to cigarette smoke and my lungs have been experiencing difficulty functioning for some time. I find it hard to breathe sometimes, especially around my parents. They know this, but they are hardly sensitive to it at all. They were also informed that while smoking is bad both ways, 2nd hand smoke is the worst end of the spectrum because those around you don't have the luxury of a filter.
I can definitely say I'm strongly against smoking. I understand stress is a killer, I'm only 20 yrs old and I've incurred more stress than some adults I've met and I've learned healthier ways of handling stress than smoking.
The problem with smokers quitting though, is they have to want to do it for themselves. You can't make any major life changes if you're doing it for someone else or something else. It has to be for you, and you have to realize the impact it has on your life and how it is hurting you before you can truly kick the habit. We've tried to help my parents in many ways, when my father had to have major spinal surgery, me and my grandmother cleaned the entire house top to bottom (including all linens) and removed all forms of smoking reminders from the house (ashtrays, etc). All that did was force my mother to lock herself in the bathroom to smoke a cigarette by the window with air freshener like a teenager.
We also bought them the electronic cigarette and my mother didn't smoke it properly so she ended up getting sick and rather than changing how she smoked it, she just swore off it entirely and blamed it on the device rather than her lack of thinking.
It doesn't matter what you try to do to help someone who's a smoker, they have to want it bad enough to be willing to do it. I'm against smoking, it's honestly caused nothing but problems in my family for a long, long time
. There just isn't anything positive about it.
In June of last year me and my mother were involved in a minor accident but we suffered injuries to our spine and neck/head. As result, we both needed multiple MRI's, 1 being of our head. We were lucky to not have incurred any permanent damage to the brain, but what was picked up on my mothers MRI of her brain were the beginning stages of hardening arteries in her brain. This is a result of her smoking. She was told this and fully understands it. It scares her.
Yet, she is so dependent on them (however, my father is 5x more dependent than she) she still smokes before we go running, she smokes when she's upset/angry/stressed. Out of all drugs, I'd have to say nicotine/cigarettes are the most insidious of them all.
Now that's bad enough, and even though statistics have told us that children of smokers are more likely to become smokers themselves, all 6 of us (me and my 5 siblings) are smoke free and wouldn't touch a cigarette with a 10ft pole.
Even worse, I've become allergic to cigarette smoke and my lungs have been experiencing difficulty functioning for some time. I find it hard to breathe sometimes, especially around my parents. They know this, but they are hardly sensitive to it at all. They were also informed that while smoking is bad both ways, 2nd hand smoke is the worst end of the spectrum because those around you don't have the luxury of a filter.
I can definitely say I'm strongly against smoking. I understand stress is a killer, I'm only 20 yrs old and I've incurred more stress than some adults I've met and I've learned healthier ways of handling stress than smoking.
The problem with smokers quitting though, is they have to want to do it for themselves. You can't make any major life changes if you're doing it for someone else or something else. It has to be for you, and you have to realize the impact it has on your life and how it is hurting you before you can truly kick the habit. We've tried to help my parents in many ways, when my father had to have major spinal surgery, me and my grandmother cleaned the entire house top to bottom (including all linens) and removed all forms of smoking reminders from the house (ashtrays, etc). All that did was force my mother to lock herself in the bathroom to smoke a cigarette by the window with air freshener like a teenager.
We also bought them the electronic cigarette and my mother didn't smoke it properly so she ended up getting sick and rather than changing how she smoked it, she just swore off it entirely and blamed it on the device rather than her lack of thinking.It doesn't matter what you try to do to help someone who's a smoker, they have to want it bad enough to be willing to do it. I'm against smoking, it's honestly caused nothing but problems in my family for a long, long time
. There just isn't anything positive about it.
