Smoking is an addictive habit that leads to many health problems to the addict and the people around him or her. Currently, the number of people who smoke in the world is very, World Health Organization estimates the figure to be around half a billion. People start smoking due to various reasons; some are introduced to smoking habits by prevailing circumstances, others are introduced to it at their tender ages when they see and emulate the elderly people around them smoking. However, the most common reason why people start smoking is peer influence and bad company. This is where someone is led to start abusing tobacco products by their cohorts whom they spend time together. Addiction in one way leads to people spending a lot of their resources on buying tobacco products.
Once someone starts smoking, they face various health risks to themselves and to the people around in general. Tobacco contains harmful substances that have detrimental effects on the human body. The first is nicotine. This is an addictive substance that will lead the smoker to start abusing tobacco frequently. The smoke also has affects the individual’s lungs by weakening the lungs’ respiratory efficiency. The smoke has been found to make the smoker prone to cancers such as lung and throat cancer. The other substance found in tobacco is tar. Tar is a brown sticky substance which when an individual smokes tobacco for so long, it sticks on the teeth and tarnishes their color as well as the lungs and the trachea. At times the fingers and the lips of the smokers are burnt and become dark and ugly. The people around smokers also face the same risks of getting cancer and mostly are irritated by the smoke they directly inhale. Therefore, smoking is a major problem which should be discouraged to help prevent such health risks to the society.
Tobacco addiction is no something that can be solved instantly, it usually takes time. It is also a tough task for the addicts since once one is addicted; they will find the act of stopping smoking habits to be very hard to manage. There are several ways of solving the tobacco addiction problem. The most effective is the one where the addict visits a drug rehabilitation center where he or she will be guided by professional individuals on the best way to stop smoking without wasting a lot of resources and without the risk of restarting the smoking habits in future.
Once at a rehabilitation center, the affected individual will be made aware of the different effects that tobacco smoking has on both his own health and that of people around such as family and friends. Next, the individual will be given the different options of mechanisms or procedures that he or she can follow with the objective of quitting smoking. The counselor or rehabilitation expert will advise on the best method to be used by the individual based on his lifestyle. He will also advise on the most appropriate diet for the addict. The addict will also be made aware of the withdrawal symptoms and effects and the amounts of tobacco intake he or she should consume during the different stages of withdrawal.
The individual will be expected to follow the counselor’s advice to the later and be psychologically set on quitting smoking. He will also be expected to make periodical visits to the counselor for further guidance and to assess the withdrawal progress until the time he quits the habit altogether. Stopping the habit of smoking tobacco is a problem in itself. Once an individual succeeds in doing so, he will have solve three major problems; his addiction, his and other people’s health risks and the withdrawal problem.
Works Cited
Denelsky, Garland Y. Stop Smoking Now!: A Cleveland Clinic Guide. illustrated. Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic Press, 2007.
