calling it quits

[Ron]

yes I'm also quitting my soda (Mountain Dew) habit,
do not need the caffeine and extra sugar

[Mugs-n-such]

Good for you! I think you'll find lots of support here! Not only will your health benefit, think of the money you'll save. Blankety-blank cigarettes are expensive (like I need to tell you that!).

[Big and Bashful]

Good man! stick at it. the first few weeks can be hard but keep going, it will get easier. I used to give up regularly, eventually I managed to give up just once more, for good. Now I find the smell of a smoker rather unpleasant, the smoking in pubs ban has helped a lot, that removed all temptation when I was drinking.

Now I know just how much radiioactive material I was taking into my lungs as I smoked, I wish I had never started! (google for polonium 210 and tobacco, that's a start)

NCRP quote (National council for radiological protection):

Polonium-210 and Cigarette Smoke
According to NCRP Report No. 95, Radiation Exposure of the U.S. Population from Consumer Products and Miscellaneous Sources (1987), deposition of 210Po in the lungs of cigarette smokers results in an average annual dose equivalent of 0.16 Sv (16 rem) to the segmental bifurcations of the bronchial epithelium. Although the data necessary for converting this to an effective dose equivalent are not available, based on information given in Publication 32 of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP, 1981) a weighting factor of 0.08 appears to be a reasonable estimate. This would yield an annual effective dose equivalent to the average smoker of about 13 mSv (1,300 mrem); the corresponding average population effective dose equivalent would be 2.8 mSv y–1 (280 rnrem y–1).

At my workplace if anybody receives more that 0.001 mSv (occupational) we have to investigate. u.K. background dose including medical X-rays averages out at 2.8 mSv per annum, just to give you some idea of what the figures mean.

Another quote: http://www.epa.gov/radiation/sources/tobacco.html this one explains in some detail how the polonium 210 and lead 210 get into your lungs, stay there and give them a right good seeing to.

[Ron]

Good for you! I think you'll find lots of support here! Not only will your health benefit, think of the money you'll save. Blankety-blank cigarettes are expensive (like I need to tell you that!).

ya here there almost $8 a pack

[skirtyscot]

Well, B&B, I'd often heard about the cancer and lung diseases (haven't we all?) but I had no idea fags were radioactive as well. Nearly 5 times the background amount - how dangerous is that?

[Big and Bashful]

Hard to say how dangerous it is, without my books in front of me. However, talking about radiation doses to the whole body, 20 mSv works out at 1 in 1000 additional chance of cancer. The dose from cigarettes is not to the whole body, it is concentrated in the lungs, that does affect the figures. Still, I am glad I stopped smoking. They cost a fortune, stink and fill your lungs with radioactive nasties. That is enough to keep me off them!

[skirtingtoday]

I have never smoked but my father did quite heavily (so I must have been subject to a lot of "passive smoking"). I saw the nicotine stains on his fingers, his coughing fits and general poor health and said "no way".

I also had a "summer job" whilst at University where it became clear that those who smoked took about twice as long to get out of hospital (I was in the surgical ward) This again reinforced my stance.

And my father died of it (lung cancer) at the relatively young age of 50 years when I was just 25yrs old.

So keep it up Ron - the damage already done to your lungs will be reversed.

[Kirbstone]

Another point, Ron:

I must admit I hadn't heard of the radioactivity factor attached to cigarette smoking. The really damaging factor is a bi-product of ignition....Carbon Monoxide. That's the colourless, odourless gas that kills people in confined spaces'
The effect on the lungs from low-level CO poisoning is the destruction of the walls of the tiny alveoli in the lungs where the oxygen transfer occurs. When a wall between two alveoli is destroyed they merge into one, producing a bigger alveolus, but with a halving of the surface area for oxygen transfer. The Medical term for this condition is Emphysema and it is irreversible.
Years of this will very significantly reduce one's ability to take up oxygen with startlingly reduced physical performance resulting in progressive strain on the cardio-vascular system leading to early failure, quite apart from any Cancer incidence

When I was a student I did a hospital term-residency under a 'thoracic' surgeon who daily did open heart surgery on people of all ages. The beautiful pink appearance of the lungs of a child contrasted so sharply with the mottled, blotchy and discoloured appearance of the lungs of habitual smokers that it wasn't difficult for me to vow never to touch the things.

My Dad was a medic of his time but was seldom photographed without a cigarette either in his hand or his mouth. He was terminally ill with lung cancer at age 69, just surviving past his 70th birthday.

Tom.

[Jack Williams]

Great Ron, keep up the good work! Your body wiil certainly appreciate it.
Somehow I never managed to take up tobacco smoking, although both parents used to, but eventually gave it up. My dad smoked a pipe for a long time. I think that was less destructive, because pipes are not generally inhaled as much as with cigarettes, as far as I know. He made it to 90 years old, Mum to 99.
As far as fizzy drinks go, I always use the "diet" version to mix with my bourbon..
..And if the pot doesn't kill me I'll live till I die. (As the old song goes, but I think it was about whiskey.)

[melsav]

Well done Ron. Having never smoked in my live I cannot imagine what you may go through, but support anyone that wants to quit. Good luck to you, and a healther future.

[janrok]

Melsav
It's like having walked around in skirts, kilts or kaftans for 40 years and suddenly switch to trousers for the rest of your -now miserable- life.
Auch!
Jan.

[Jack Williams]

The thing about tobacco is that the nicotine is very addictive, so people smoke many more a day than one would ever do of joints.