Source: PSA Commercial Smoking Causes Impotence

I’ve yet to find an adult smoker that didn’t know that smoking is bad for them, but this knowledge doesn’t help them quit! I had a mental health nurse come to see me at my Toronto smoking cessation clinic, and she laughed about standing outside the hospital with her smoking buddy who was a cardiologist. These people knew more about the biological effects of smoking than we ever will, but this understanding did nothing to help them quit. If you nag your partner, the most likely outcome is that you will just create more resistance. Smokers need caring and loving support, not lectures about cancer and heart attacks.

Often spouses try emotional blackmail or control tactics and end up creating a power struggle and needless resistance. What works best is to come from a place of love so that you can talk with your partner about their smoking. Understand what smoking does for them. If you are able to discuss their habit in a non-threatening and loving way, you may find out that your spouse really wants to quit, but is afraid or doesn’t know how. If your love wants to kick the habit, then it becomes the two of you against the nasty habit instead of the two of you against each other. This will make your relationship stronger and the quit effort easier.

It may even surprise you to know that some smokers actually hate the habit but just can’t quit. They don’t believe they can cope without their crutch. However, if you try and force this type of person to quit, most often they will put up a smoke screen of anger or denial to prevent having to deal with uncomfortable feelings. What these people need to quit is love and support as well as help to change the belief systems and thought patterns that keep them hooked. Clearing out these patterns is the key to helping your partner break free.

The worst thing you can try to force your spouse to quit before they are ready since it will only make it harder for both of you. I’ve had people come to see me after a spouse said, “You get your butt in there and make him make you quit smoking.” Sure they come in to please their spouse, but they aren’t ready to quit, and they often put up so much resistance that I couldn’t work with them. Attempting to get someone to quit who isn’t ready is usually a recipe for disaster. At best it creates a lot of unnecessary struggle, but more often it results in a failed quit attempt. If your partner isn’t willing to quit, just accept it and continue to provide loving support so when they are ready you’ll be able to support them. Change the discussion to the subject of protecting your health and keeping your children clear of second hand smoke. Negotiate a code of conduct where your partner only smokes at designated times when the children aren’t home, and in designated locations outside the home. Make it about your rights to health and protecting your children, not about your partner’s right to smoke. Given the way attitudes have changed about smoking and research showing the dangers of secondhand smoke I’ve seen many cases where the smoking partner was very willing to cooperate as long as the negotiations were carried out in a loving and respectful manner.

What if that fails? Well then you have to ask yourself deeper questions about the value of your relationship and how important it is to you to live in a smoke free environment. If your spouse won’t quit or smoke outside, your best choices are either accept it, or move on if its something that you can’t live with. Just be sure that you don’t issue the ultimatum “it’s me or the smokes” unless are really serous about following though. Strong-arm tactics, emotional blackmail and other types of leverage usually just erode your relationship, which will make life unpleasant for both of you.

Coping with a spouse that doesn’t want to stop smoking isn’t easy, but if the situation is approached with sensitivity, love and respect, workable solutions are possible.

Coping With a Spouse Who Won’t Quit Smoking by Barry Moore

Source: The Dangers of Secondhand Smoke

Source: Toxic Chemicals in Cigarettes

As you draw in that first draft of smoke, it passes past your larynx, surges down your esophagus and goes along the two bronchi to the bronchioles that make up your lungs. Here it meets the alveoli, the little sacs where the oxygen that you breathe is taken up by the hemoglobin in your blood.

The alveoli are a wonderful creation of nature. They provide an absorption surface for oxygen with an area 90 times the surface of you skin. When the tobacco smoke hits the alveoli, the nicotine and other chemicals are rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream where is quickly makes its way to your brain and all over your body.

Less than ten seconds after taking that puff, nicotine hits the brain, its main sphere of influence. Nicotine is a psychoactive drug meaning it affects brain chemistry. It does this in many ways, one of which is especially insidious. It causes the release of dopamine a chemical naturally produced in the body. Dopamine works on the reward pathways that result in the pleasurable feeling we get after doing something good. In this case, nicotine tricks the neuroreceptors in the brain to giving us the feel good factor for doing something dumb – smoking cigarettes.

Meanwhile nicotine is causing your adrenal glands to release adrenalin causing the rise in pulse rate and blood pressure and release of glucose. At the same time, nicotine is telling the pancreas to reduce its output of insulin leading to a high blood sugar level. Your heartbeat rises by up to 30 percent

All these reactions in the body combine to form the rush that smokers live for.

As this happens, nicotine is causing the stomach to increase its acid secretions. With many smokers skipping meals, this has many unpleasant consequences such as gastric ulcers.

But the worst thing is that nicotine doesn’t come alone. It brings over 4000 cohorts ready to do damage to your body. While the nicotine is working on your brain and keeping you addicted, the other chemicals in smoke are busy destroying other parts of your body. These include tar, arsenic a deadly poison used to make rat poison, ammonia an ingredient in floor cleaners, and butane which you’ll find in your cigarette lighter,

To give just a few examples. Under the onslaught of smoke, the walls between the alveoli sacs break down. Once destroyed, they never grow back. This can lead to chronic conditions such as emphysema. The smoke also paralyzes cilia, the little hair-like sweepers that clean your lungs. When you most need protection, your cleaners are being incapacitated.

In addition, the chemicals in tobacco smoke damage the walls of blood vessels. This allows a faster build up of plaques increasing the risk of heart disease by hastening arteriosclerosis.

Nicotine has a short but devastating life in the human body. With a half-life of one hour, it’s almost gone in six hours. Except that the average smoker has lit up ten times during that period repeating the devastating cycle.

Some 80 percent of nicotine is processed by liver enzymes and most of the rest filtered out by the kidneys.

Many of the other chemicals in tobacco smoke are more dangerous than nicotine. But nicotine is the master without which they would never enter your body.

Recognizing nicotine for what it is is a key step to conquering tobacco addiction.

Along the Nicotine Trail – Following the Path of Nicotine Through the Body by Lloyd Morgan

Hank describes how our brains respond biochemically to various addictive substances and behaviors and where those responses have come from, evolutionarily speaking.

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References and image licenses for this episode can be found in the Google document here: http://dft.ba/-2J6k

Source: The Chemistry of Addiction

1. I never become addicted to drugs, alcohol, nicotine etc.
2. My friend gave up his or her addiction in one week; whenever I want I can give up my addiction in one week too.
3. To give up addictions is easy.
4. My friend tried all methods, but he could not overcome his problem, therefore, I can not overcome my problem too.
5. To overcome an addiction is impossible.
6. Addiction is a brain disease, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
7. Addiction is a long time disease, that I just can manage it.
8. The only way to recover from my problem is attending twelve-step addiction recovery groups.
9. The only way to recover from my problem is attending Non-twelve-step addiction recovery groups.
10. The best way for getting rid from my problem is to register for a 28 day rehab program.
11. Relapse means that treatment has failed.
12. I am powerless over my addiction, because I have a relapse.
13. I am worthless, because I have an addiction.
14. Overcoming addiction has to be without discomfort.
15. Giving up addiction is so hard.
16. I didn’t have to get addiction.
17. Stupid and crazy people are most susceptible to becoming addicted to drugs, alcohol, nicotine etc.
18. People who become addicted have mental issues that lead them to this problem.
19. It’s too late for me to quit my problem. The damage is done.
20. Relapse can happen without warning.
21. Recovery is an event, not a process.
22. Addiction is treated with cognitive behavior therapy, so it must be a behavioral problem.
23. Treatment is one size fits all.
24. There should be one magic solution for this problem.
25. You can’t treat addicts with medications because medications are drugs.
26. Since treatment didn’t work before, it’s probably hopeless, and there’s no point trying again.
27. Once detoxification ends, if the addict does not return to addictive behaviors, changes in the pathways of the brain will return to their original healthy state.
28. Once recovery ends, if the addict does not return to drugs, brain damage caused by addiction usually remaining for the rest of a person’s life.
29. Individuals must “hit bottom” in order to recover successfully.
30. There should be no drug relapses after completing a drug rehabilitation program.

30 False Beliefs About Addiction by Fariborz Arbasi

Source: Nicotine & Smoking Facts : Nicotine Side Effects

Lung cancer is perhaps the best-known effect of smoking, but smoking also causes a number of other lung diseases, including:

• Bronchitis, in which the small airways in your lungs swell and close up
• Emphysema, in which the air sacs where oxygen enters your body swell up and are damaged
• Respiratory infections
• Asthma

Effects on the Heart and Circulation

Smoking increases heart disease risk and the risk of a blocked blood vessel. Depending where the blood vessel is, this can lead to a stroke (damage to your brain) or heart attack.

Smoking causes the blood vessels to narrow and harden, blood pressure to increase, and blood to become stickier, thicker, and less capable of carrying oxygen. All of these factors together are bad news for the heart and the whole body. People under 40 increase their heart attack risk by 5 times if they smoke.

Effects on the Skin and Eyes

Smoke is irritating not only to the lungs but also to the eyes and skin. Age-related degeneration in sight can be caused by smoking, and the risk of cataracts (cloudy eyes) is increased.

Skin cancer, reduced blood flow to the skin, more rapid skin aging, wrinkling, dryness and poor wound healing are all potential health effects of smoking.

Effects on the Mouth and Throat

Cancers of the mouth and throat, gum disease, reduction of ability to smell and taste, bad breath, mouth infections, tooth decay, coughing, and poor healing from dental work are just some of the effects of drawing cigarette smoke into the lungs through the mouth and throat.

Effects on Sexual Health

Both men's and women's fertility is reduced by smoking. It can also reduce male hormone (testosterone) levels and lead to impotence through poor blood flow. For women, smoking can interfere with the menstrual cycle, increase risk of stroke or heart attack in combination with oral contraceptives and increase risk of cervical cancer.

Effects on Digestion and Internal Organs

Irritation and ulcers in the digestive system, kidney disease, cancer of the kidneys, bladder, stomach and liver, weakness and poor healing of the bones are just some of the negative health effects of smoking on the body's internal organs and systems.

Effects on the Brain

Smokers' brains can shrink and become less effective at remembering and processing.

Overall, the harm that smoking does to the body is considerable and widespread. Every major organ and system is affected. Despite knowing this, smokers often find it difficult to stop, because the harm done by smoking is long-term while the pleasure is immediate. Nevertheless, wanting to be healthier (and protect the health of others) is a major reason people give for stopping smoking.

Health Effects of Cigarette Smoking on the Body by Mike Reeves-McMillan

Source: Smoking Causes Impotent – Anti-Smoking Ads

I came up with these ten different things that are really gross about smoking. If this doesn’t make you want to quit smoking, then I don’t know what will.

10 Gross Things About Smoking Cigarettes

1. Black lungs. It has to be number one right. Everyone’s seen those pictures of what smoking does to your lungs. It’s nasty. Of course, it’s hard for you to think of your lungs actually looking like that, but they do. Or at least they’re getting there.

2. Gum disease. Gum disease is totally nasty. Your gums turn red and bleeding, or sometimes even black. And that’s something that people can see.

3. Teeth stains. Yet another thing that people can see. Smoking turns your teeth yellow. It also leaves dark brown tar spots on some people. Both of my parents are smokers and they’re too embarrassed to show their teeth when they smile. They just do one of those fake tight-lipped smiles.

4. The smell. You think you don’t smell, but you do. Other smokers may not notice it that much, but non-smokers certainly do. My husband still smokes and sometimes he tries to get all snuggly with me right after a cigarette. He reeks. It’s nasty.

5. Cancer. This is a horrible way to die. My grandmother died of lung cancer and it was really hard to watch her waste away. She was a tiny lady, but she was always so strong and feisty, so it was especially difficult to see her looking so small in her hospital bed.

6. Premature wrinkling. Ever noticed how heavy smokers tend to look older than they actually are? This is from smoking. It causes wrinkles.

7. Phlegm. If you’re a smoker, you probably cough a lot. And a lot of the time (particularly morning), you get a big nasty phlegm ball. This is not sexy. And even if you go to the bathroom to get it up and spit it out, people can still hear you doing it.

8. Poisons. Moving away from the physical things, have you ever taken a look at what some of the tobacco company puts into cigarettes? This may be the grossest thing of all because it includes a number of poisons and we actually pay for the privlege of putting them in our bodies.

9. You HAVE to have one. Maybe you’re not this bad yet, but sometimes there are people that are smokers and they just have to have one all the time. You can literally see them going crazy if they can’t have a smoke – like when they’re on a plane. This is a gross behavior that I wouldn’t want to show other people.

10. Manipulation with chemicals. Admit it. You have a favorite brand of cigarette. If you ever run out and have to bum one from someone else, you don’t feel quite as satisfied. This is because the tobacco companies manipulate you into only wanting their brand. You aren’t addicted only to the nicotine, you’re also addicted to the particular blend of chemicals in your brand. This is so gross.

Gross Stuff About Smoking Cigarettes – 10 Gross Things to Help You Quit Smoking by Star Smolik