Smoking is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. About 420,000 deaths occur as a result of smoking cigarettes. Individuals who smoke are likely to develop peptic ulcer disease, and are more likely to develop cataracts, as opposed to non-smokers. People, who smoke, are ten times more likely to die from larynx cancer, esophagus, chronic obstructive lung disease, including emphysema. The risk becomes even higher if cigarette smoking is combined with alcohol use or with occupational exposure to certain types of toxic substances, such as asbestos. Many individuals continue to smoke knowing these dangerous conditions, because they believe that smoking has benefits like stress relief, anxiety, pleasure, or weight maintenance, thinking that quitting smoking is difficult and won't be an easy task to accomplish. Individuals who quit smoking however have a significantly lower life expectancy than continuing smokers. When smokers can quit at a young age, it is a huge benefit because they are exposing themselves relatively to fewer cigarettes.
Smokers experience symptoms such as persistent coughing, chest pain, and breathlessness. The fear of dying is what leads a lot of people to stop smoking cigarettes. It takes 2 or 3 serious efforts before this mission can be accomplished and sometimes may take even longer. Smoking cessation is usually a learning process in which mistakes made in the first attempt help improve odds of success during the next attempt. It is a slow process, which requires hard work. When the person finally hits the actual "quitting day", the person stops smoking and it can be called as the final stage.
Many doctors give advice to all ex-smokers to avoid alcohol temporarily after quitting, since drinking alcoholic beverages seems to induce relapses in cigarette smoking. Because smokers use cigarettes to relieve anger, anxiety, and frustrations; quitting often makes it difficult to get through their daily routine. Those people may want to visit a psychologist, who may help them cope with their new problems or concerns.
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Graduate student at New England Institute of Technology.