Real Costs of Smoking
There are some real costs of smoking that you m ay not be aware of. Advertisers and tobacco companies would have us believe that smoking is not only cool, but that it will elevate your social standing and improve your relationships. This could not be further from the truth. The black and white days of mysterious men sparking up on street corners in long coats and Trilby hats, or rebellious teenagers playing pool with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of their mouth is long gone.
The innocence of those days has been replaced with a stark reality of the dreadful harm that the 4000 toxins in tobacco smoke can do. James Bond can be as casual as he likes with the villains he taunts, as the cigarette he lights with the stylish gold lighter is more likely to kill him than a bald man stroking a white cat.
There are some immediate real costs of smoking that everyone will experience. Firstly, you will become much poorer as the cost of smoking is enormous due to the “luxury” taxes with excise duty. Without a doubt, your breath, hair, clothes, skin and home will smell of stale tobacco smoke. Believe me when I tell you that it already does, it’s just that you don’t notice it because you smoke, but to those of us who do not smoke, it is both obvious and unpleasant. You may take a mint for your breath, but you cannot deodorise your clothes, skin and hair. The toxins and tar in cigarette smoke dull your taste buds and also taint the flavour of the food that you eat reducing your enjoyment of food.
There are many other damaging effects of tobacco smoking on your mouth, but those are not covered in this article. If you smoke, Life Insurance is more expensive. Insurance companies know that the likelihood of you dying young due to smoking related diseases is increased, therefore they need more money out of you sooner to cover the inevitable payout. If they do cover your life, it may be at the exclusion of death by smoking related illnesses.
You may struggle to find suitable employment if it is known that you smoke. If faced with a selection of candidates, some of whom smoke and some that don’t, the employer, armed with the knowledge that 34,000,000 working days are lost each year due to smoking related sickness, is more likely to choose the non-smoker. Don’t go thinking that this is discriminatory, because addicted or not, you have a choice as to whether you smoke or not.
If you have bad breath; your hair, skin and clothing regularly smell of stale tobacco, you have to go outside in social settings to smoke every half an hour, and you have less money to spend on leisure activities, this does not make you the social or relationship magnet that the advertisers would have you believe. Romance and friendship is not appealing to potential partners and friends given all of the above, if they are non-smokers.
You may appear physically less attractive if you smoke due to the decrease in blood supply that happens to the body. In the face, this can lead to pallor and increased incidence of premature wrinkles, not only due to decreased perfusion, but also the reduction in anti-oxidant vitamins A, C and E. Gentlemen be aware too. Of another of the real costs of smoking is the chances of Erectile Dysfunction, the inability to achieve or maintain and adequate erection for sexual intercourse, increases by 50% for those men that smoke. The BMA calculates that in the UK alone, there may be 120,000 men who suffer Erectile Dysfunction due solely to smoking.
So when you next feel tempted by the alluring imagery that is, or was, associated with smoking tobacco and cigarettes, think again. Who on Earth wants to be around a smelly, wrinkly, sickness prone, high-risk, social outcast that is prone to problems in the bedroom, and who has spent all their money on an addiction they can choose to stop?
Certainly not a non-smoker, and not one that would genuinely care for you if they did not want you to stop. This is really the most important of the real costs of smoking.
Martin Deakin is an ex-smoker. Like most ex-smokers he is passionate about the ill effects of smoking and how to help others to kick the habit. You could say that he is almost fanatical. He has a blog which includes articles, research and resources on how to quit smoking at Effects of Smoking Blog.
Thing is in reading this article you can really see that there is real costs of smoking that perhaps you had not thought of so look at the best way to stop smoking today.
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