I have been scheming a pocket book of negative rules, rules of don’ts for health, travel, money, relationships and Life et al. To begin, on today’s dose of the Daily T, let’s start with one of my top health rules:
DON’T SMOKE
This is a no-brainer. Don’t smoke if you are concerned at all about your health. I’ve had friends who are heavy smokers and they pretend smoking is not going to kill them, because it hasn’t already. They think that the science that trashes smoking is trashy pseudoscience.
Here’s the deal. You smoke cigarettes and you inhale nicotine, plus a buffet of other chemicals, and your body becomes addicted to it. It becomes habitual. Whether or not you believe nicotine itself is habit-forming, the act of smoking is a habit that is being formed.
A person who smokes daily becomes a professional smoker in the same way that someone practices a sport every single day becomes good at that sport. It becomes a habit. Their body, their muscle memory, their mental and emotional memory, gets into a state of doing that sport.
It becomes a habit. In the same way, like anything else in life, smoking cigarettes becomes a habit.
Regardless of what you feel about the science, smoking will kill you.
It’s not going to make you live longer. It’s not going to make you smell prettier for your next Tinder date.
Smoking makes you stink. It makes your fingernails yellow. It makes your house smell like garbage and stale smoggy shit that only a fellow smoker can appreciate with you.
If you’re okay with relegating your group to ‘Smokers Only’, fine.
Go ahead and smoke. But, please do not get on a pedestal and preach to me that smoking makes you healthy, or that smoking has no impact on your health.
And don’t cry to me about how difficult it is to stop. It’s as difficult for me to start, and as easy for you to stop. Ready for the trick? You stop smoking. You stop complaining, whining and vocalizing how weak you are. You stop vocalizing how much of this filthy habit’s bitch you are and you put down the cigarettes.
You stop. The end. Simple.
It’s your health.
Do not smoke if you care about your health and the health of those around you.
Instead of being an 18th century Industrial smoke stack spewing black soot over yourself, your house and your family, stop smoking. There are no chimney sweepers for your lungs.
MY EXPERIENCE. AN OPINION
I’ve tried cigarettes a few times. I’ve, only after heavy drinking, taken one or two puffs and always felt like garbage the next day.
I know that smoking makes me feel bad. I know that if I am in the house of a smoker I get allergies. I leave feeling worse, but regain health with each passing minute spent away from the ashen environment.
It is not a habit that I intend on starting just so that I can get my dose of stress reduction for the day. You know, stress reduction by increasing the stress of my body by introducing foreign chemicals and decreasing its ability to handle external environmental threats and internally defend itself against any of those threats that have encroached upon my body’s defenses.
My friends who were first to take up smoking, have been the first to experience serious health ailments. The fast food eaters are next. Do both, you know what you’re getting yourself into.
Note that this rant is aimed at you if you are considering smoking, are a smoker who wants to quit, or a smoker that is under some insane illusion that smoking is good for you and especially if you complain about not having money. And last, but not least, smokers who research fringe studies to back up their filthy habit.
Save your breath for your cigarette, or choose clean air and better health.
And ultimately, it is your choice.