Yes, Smoking Will Kill You

There was an author on tv this morning who wrote a book called "Ending the Tobacco Holocaust". He said that tobacco companies have increased the level of nicotine another 11% in cigarettes over the last 5 years. Basically he said they have used an ammonia compound to "free base" the nicotine, causing it to enter your bloodstream faster and result in a faster addiction. He compared it to the process that takes cocaine to crack, which is much more lethal.

I was thinking last night about my dad who used to smoke Lucky Strikes. He even wore the cardboard pack rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve, just like Fonzie. He went so far as to flick his ashes into the cuffs of his pants. And, I was sick with asthma the majority of my childhood.

Of course the doctors in the day insisted it was all psychosomatic so I spent night after night sitting on the couch trying to get my breath or when I got older, overdosing myself with asthma medicine to try to cut through the sense of drowning you get when under attack.

As they always say, the smoker has to want to quit before they will ever be successful. In my dad's case, he had smoked about 30+ years when my 13 year younger little sister finally got through to him. However, even when he was resolved to do it, he was unsuccessful until he underwent hypnotism. Knowing my skeptical dad, I am still amazed he would even try it. The fact that he did really demonstrates how desperate he was.

On the other hand, my husband's dad had smoked forever and finally had to have quadruple heart bypass. Everyone in the family smoked at that point and they all agreed over his bed in the hospital they were going to quit. Nevertheless, only one out of the five actually quit and that was my husband, that includes his dad who died within 10 years of emphysema and cancer. I'll never forget him laying there with oxygen, smoking. And his wife and youngest son still smoke. Not only that, his granddaughter just started smoking (age 27) even after watching the end of his life.

Humans have an amazing ability to deny their mortality. To me that is the definition of addiction.