You've probably read a ton of articles about the dangers of smoking. I know that we started getting lectures about this in school in the fourth grade. At the time I thought it was odd to talk to a bunch of nine- and ten-year-olds about the harmful effects of lighting up, but now I see the reasons for it. I wasn't a particularly 'bad' kid, but I remember seeing my friends steal their parents' cigarettes and take them out behind the house/on the beach/playground/whatever. I'm sure you can relate. I didn't because the smoke set off my allergies, but I know quite a few people who wish they'd never smoked that first cigarette because of the effects the habit of smoking has had on their lives. I'm not just talking about heart and lung problems, because the impact goes deeper than that. That's why I'm writing this blog post about some of the 'other' reasons to quit smoking'.
If I sound like I'm 'preaching' here, I don't mean to. I just want to put a different 'spin' on the dangers of smoking so that you and/or someone you love will get the push needed to quit. Also, this might be a good post for your kids to read in case they start to 'tune out' the health-related lessons about smoking.
-Cigarette smoke causes everything it touches to smell awful. Think about it-have you ever gone into the girls' restroom in high school after someone's been smoking? I have, and it's not uncommon for a non-smoker take that smell with her when she leaves. This is why some guys I know don't want to date a woman who smokes; it's not the most pleasant thing to be close to, and ashtrays aren't particularly good kissers. That's what I've heard kissing a smoker likened to, although I haven't personally experienced it.
-It's obscenely addictive, and obscenely expensive. Seriously, have you ever noticed the prices on the cartons of cigarettes behind the checkout counter at the grocery store? The average carton of cigarettes in my home state of North Carolina can cost* anywhere from $17 to $41, rounded up to the next dollar.
Cartons hold ten 20-cigarette packs. When you consider that some people smoke more than one pack in a day, you can imagine how this adds up. For instance, suppose I were to smoke Marlboro Lights in a 2-pack-a-day (40 cigarettes) pattern for one year.
Cost per pack-$3.64
2 packs a day=$7.28
Cost per week=$50.96
Cost per month=$221.43 I once had a (good) car that cost less per month than this.
Cost per year=$2659.02
$2659 per year on cigarettes. Imagine what you could do with $2650-take a vacation, visit family, pay my house payment (please? :P). A lot of people don't realize how expensive this habit is until they see the numbers. Even if you cut the price of a pack in half, it still mounts up.
I'm 36. Just to make a point, I calculated how much I would have spent if I had carried on a 2-pack-a-day pattern starting on my 18th birthday, which is the current legal age for purchasing tobacco.
Cost per year-$2659.02 x 18 years=$48,725.04.
$48,725. That's more than a lot of people make in a year.
Also, consider the fact that some people start smoking earlier than that and get someone else to buy the cigarettes for them (or the store clerks don't bother to check ID).
For the rest of this post (as well as my sources for the calculations above), visit Part 2.
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