How To Stop Smoking

How To Stop Smoking

• Smokers Have:
• Limited sense of smell
• Greater risk of chest infections
• Greater risk of developing cancer
• Greater risk of blindness
• Greater risk of periodontal or gum disease
• More wrinkles
• Pale gray skin

Smoking Today

• There is a lot of confusion and conflict about the role smoking plays in the lives of smokers
• On one hand, smokers feel their habit is pleasant and relaxing
• On the other hand, smokers know it is a serious health-hazard
• 39 states have laws prohibiting or limiting smoking in public places
• Smokers often feel like outcasts today

Why Do You Smoke?

• Nicotine is the only know psychoactive ingredient in tobacco smoke.
• Addicted smokers smoke for one principal reason---to get their accustomed doses of nicotine.
• When you stop smoking you will likely experience unpleasant side effects.
• Research shows that nicotine provides a variety of desirable psychological effects.

Rewards of Smoking

• The average smoker takes ten puffs per cigarette.
• If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, this is about 200 puffs
• Each puff of nicotine reaches the smokers brain within 7 seconds

Twice as fast as a syringe full of heroin injected into a vein!

Rewards of Smoking

Once nicotine enters the brain, it begins to mimic the brain’s most powerful chemical messengers.

The result: enhanced pleasure, decreased anxiety and a state of alert relaxation.

Because of this positive reinforcement many times a day (each time a cigarette is smoked) smoking becomes a part of every aspect of a smokers life.

Most smokers say that smoking:

Most smokers say that smoking:

Helps with concentration

Helps reduce tension

Helps them relax

Decreases feelings of distress