The longer you smoke, the longer this list becomes.
You may be able to think of 1000’s of reasons to quit that it seems utterly stupid to continue smoking other than the fact you’re addicted.
Is this true? Sound familiar?
Even the worldwide smoking statistics should scare you. Hopefully they will, because those are some startling numbers if you look at the big picture.
Want to know more? Here are some facts that will make your jaw drop in disbelief. But they are all absolutely true!
Again, if you like chain smoking your life away, and it doesn’t bother you, and you’re OK with it, then all of this means nothing. Any advice won’t help you because you don’t want help.
I know plenty of people that aren’t affected by cigarettes as much as I am. They seem to go about their everyday life and nicotine doesn’t seem to be an obstacle.
Of course, I could be wrong because I don’t know what their personal life is like deep down.
Maybe they’re miserable.
Maybe they’re going through the same struggles that I am.
CIGARETTES CONTROL YOU – They control every part of your day. They control when you get up, when you eat, how long you stay out, and even where you go out.
They control everything!
Just think, that tiny three inch cigarette filled with tobacco leaves and a filter at the end…IS YOUR MASTER!
You can’t live without them. You’d walk a mile down the road in a blizzard to get some if you had to. You’d walk 5 miles to get them. You’d choose smoking over eating.
Yes, nicotine is THAT powerful.
It doesn’t care where you are, or who you’re with. All it cares about is being smoked by YOU!
Is that what you want?
As long as you have one every 30 minutes or so and keep a good amount of nicotine in your body, it leaves you alone. But if you start to go over that 30 minutes, then withdrawal strikes.
This is your entire life. Are you OK with that? I’m not. I don’t want to die that way.
SMOKING IS EXPENSIVE – As a general rule, each pack you buy costs $7 (average price in 2023). A pack a day smoker (or PAD smoker) therefore buys 7 packs a week, thus 7 x 7 = $49.
4 weeks in a month: 49 x 4 = $196.
12 months in a year: 12 x 196 = $2352.
That’s how much you spend per year on those stupid cigarettes!
Then why do poor people buy them? Don’t they know better?
Now to some of you that may not seem like an awful amount, and it’s not really, until you start buying other things to go along with them.
That is the true cost of your addiction.
How about gum or breath mints? Every time? Once in a while?
It’s impulse buying. I’m guilty of it, too, and it happens often.
So, what I’m saying is that although you may be spending $7 on a pack each time you go into a convenience store, you may walk out having spent $12.
For the sake of argument, let’s say you do that everyday. Now your yearly total is up to $4032! Now THAT’S a lot of money!
I’d also like to point out the monthly total spending of $196 for just buying cigarettes. Could be more or less depending on how much you smoke.
Everybody has bills to pay. If you never bought cigarettes, what bills could this money go towards? Car payment? Student loans? A vacation to Hawaii?
The possibilities are endless.
Try putting $7 aside each day and buying yourself something nice, or put it into savings.
Trust me, great things will happen FINANCIALLY to you right away. Things will add up fast!
You’ll be amazed by how much money you can save.
YOU HAVE BREATHING PROBLEMS – Did you know that every time you inhale, 90% of the smoke stays in your lungs? That means only 10% you inhale gets exhaled.
Scary, isn’t it? Every one you smoke is causing you damage.
I paid the price and I got bronchitis. I’ve had it a few times now. It’s like breathing through a straw all day and all night long.
In addition, I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t even brush my teeth because I had no energy to do it.
When you can’t breathe, you can’t live your life. It’s a horrible, horrible feeling.
Does this sound like a fun time to you? Do you think this won’t happen to you personally?
You must stop as soon as possible or you’ll risk permanent damage.
To this day, I still get winded easily. I still feel the lung damage, but it’s getting better.
I don’t dare go running in the cold weather or I’ll end up with an asthma attack. I certainly didn’t have this condition before when I was younger, but I do now.
It has gotten slowly better, and that will just increase with time as long as I remain smoke-free.
Plus, sleeping is better. If you’re a chain smoker, I’m sure you have some pretty restless nights once in a while.
I’m sure there are times you go to bed coughing and wheezing and losing sleep.
Sound familiar?
Those are telltale signs your body is trying to tell you something. It’s time to quit before it’s too late. Don’t take breathing for granted.
Breathing means life!
IT MAKES YOU LOOK OLDER – As smokers age, they all begin to look the same. You can always tell, just by looking at them, who is a smoker or not.
No, I’m not talking about teenagers, I’m talking about the people out there who have smoked for years, especially women.
It decreases the amount of oxygen to the body, so your skin looks dried out.
This means more wrinkles.
Ever notice how some people in their late 30’s or 40’s just look like smokers even though you don’t see them actually smoking? It’s because cigarettes have aged them.
They have wrinkles all over their face, especially around the lips. All that puckering up over time has caused fine lines to appear.
Is this what you want? To look older before your time? Don’t you want to be young?
When you stop, you increase the amount of oxygen to your body, and to your skin. Your skin will then retain its moisture. It won’t dry out as fast. You won’t be puckering up.
YOU STINK – I’m sorry, but yes you do. I’m sure you can’t smell it, though, but we sure do.
I didn’t realize even for a second how bad I smelled.
When I quit, suddenly I could smell cigarettes everywhere! People who walked inside from having a one smelled just awful. It almost made me gag!
The ashtray scent is not a very attractive one.
I remember saying to my friend, “Was this me everyday?” She said it was. It’s embarrassing. It’s disgusting.
Now I know you should never care what anyone else thinks about you, but do you really want everyone to think you smell like an ashtray?
When you quit, your apartment, your clothes, and your breath freshens up again. You smell nice and pleasant, and you may even be more attractive to someone.
Think about it. People will want to be around you more. You’ll see.
YOU’RE DEPRESSED – I was always a sad, unhappy person. I never truly enjoyed every cigarette of the day. They made me depressed.
Sometimes I would even cry about it.
I knew I didn’t want that life, but I was caught in the vicious cycle of addiction and I just couldn’t get out of it.
People wonder why I was so anti-social all the time. My life was a roller coaster!
For years I tried quitting, then relapsed, then quit again, then relapsed again. It all made me so unhappy.
But I will tell you, once I succeeded, my life turned around 180 degrees.
I was proud of myself, I accomplished something. I beat the odds, I conquered cigarettes.
I could wake up in the morning full of life and ready to take on the day. That is what life is all about folks!
You’ll feel like a million bucks. There is no room for sadness and depression. You won’t regret it!
YOU’LL DIE OF LUNG CANCER – For the majority of those who continue to smoke, yes, it’s most likely true.
In fact, it may happen sooner than you think. It’s a real scary thought, and I think about it quite often.
What if I was too late? What if I already have cancer?
I have other friends or family members who smoke, and they might be getting cancer, too!
You’ll go crazy thinking about this stuff. And yes, it is a serious matter, and you should not take the issue lightly.
Nobody should.
Now I could go on about how cancer spreads throughout your body, or how the cells replicate each other, but I am no doctor, and I won’t pretend to have any expertise on the subject.
Quitting because of the fear you may get it is a viable option, but I believe that nicotine is more powerful than that fear.
That’s why people on their deathbed still find the time to have a cigarette. It’s the horrible truth.
In my opinion, if you quit because of that, you’ll most likely relapse.
Why?
Because you’ll say to yourself “I’ve got more time, I won’t get cancer until I’m old. I’ll quit later.”
Sound familiar?
YOU EAT UNHEALTHY – If you smoke cigarettes a lot, they’re likely more important to you than food is. In some instances, they may even replace meals.
Have you ever done this before? Have you skipped breakfast to smoke and drink coffee?
I used to do that all the time! I never ate breakfast, I just had a few cigarettes instead.
Now it’s not only the skipping of meals that’s unhealthy, but also what you eat when you do eventually eat.
I’m sure you don’t care at all what you eat. Eating comes secondary to smoking anyways, right?
I ate pizza all the time, or fast food, or something small from the convenience store. I certainly wasn’t making extravagant meals for myself.
I was too busy finding times to smoke!
After you decide to stop, suddenly you’ll be excited to eat, to make dinner, to cook for your family or friends. The sky’s the limit!
You’ll want to be eating more healthy. It comes naturally, but you won’t experience this firsthand until you quit.
YOU GET SICK ALL THE TIME – Why is that? Smoking lowers your immune system, it decreases oxygen intake, and it suppresses your appetite.
If you aren’t eating as much as you should, then you aren’t getting enough vitamins and nutrients.
You may feel sluggish more often, you may have a constant cold, and you may be more susceptible to the flu.
Do you want the flu? I don’t think you do. I don’t think anybody wants the flu, it’s nasty.
Do you ever find yourself smoking less while you’re sick? Why is that?
It’s your own body’s way of rejecting something that is harmful.
The addiction might even bury itself for a little while until the sickness is gone. You won’t be having any cravings, which can be very misleading. You need to be careful.
But do you ever find yourself reaching for a cigarette as soon as you begin to feel better? Why is that?
Once the sickness has vanished, the withdrawal comes back, and you’ll want to smoke.
You may even be right back where you started when the sickness began.
YOU HAVE NO ENERGY – You might feel as if all the energy you do have is targeted towards finding moments to smoke. If you have 20-30 cigarettes a day, that takes energy to find all that time.
So what’s left? Basically nothing.
You certainly aren’t exercising or going to the gym, and if you are, it’s not very intensive.
You aren’t running a mile down the road for fun. You aren’t waking up early to do all kinds of stuff in the garden. You aren’t do anything, you’re just smoking.
Sound familiar?
Now if you’ve smoked your whole life, you don’t know the feeling of increased energy when you throw all that stuff away for good.
Trust me, your energy level flies through the roof!
Suddenly you’ll WANT to wake up early to do all kinds of things.
You’ll WANT to exercise and go to the gym. You’ll WANT to run that mile down the road for fun. You’ll WANT to do a lot of things you previously didn’t even think about.
Why?
You were too busy missing out on life.
Your life changes 100% in every possible way. When you feel the energy, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
NONE OF YOUR FRIENDS SMOKE – I bet at the very beginning of your early adulthood, EVERYONE smoked, right? Back then it was cool.
Then everyone got addicted, and some quit and some didn’t. Then those who didn’t finally made it. So that leaves you.
Perhaps they go inside while you stay outside and ruin your lungs.
Perhaps you are bothering everybody around you and you don’t even realize it. Sure, who cares what anybody thinks, right? Right!
But, nobody wants to be an outcast, and be a person nobody likes. If everyone is disgusted by the way you smell, they’ll eventually start hanging out with you less.
You might even lose friends because of it.
YOU HAVE CHILDREN – You shouldn’t smoke in front of children, both yours or anyone else’s. Not only does the secondhand smoke affect them, but it also portrays smoking as a good thing if they see YOU do it.
Do you want them to grow up and be a smoker? Do you want them to go through what YOU’RE going through? I think not!
Did you also know that smoking around children might lead them to have allergies as adults?
I have horrible allergies, and my parents smoked in front of me as a kid all the time. Now, I realize it’s mainly a genetic issue, but smoking DOES have something to do with it.
Hopefully you smoke outside (if you must). If not, you are not only hurting yourself, but others around you as well.
Same holds true for pets.
Smoking affects them, too. You may even be shortening their lives as well as your own.
If this is an issue for you, then it’s time to quit.
YOU’RE PLAGUED WITH ANXIETY AND STRESS – Do you recall having anxiety and stress as a child? How about high school? The answer is probably no.
How come you’ve developed it now?
Does your anxiety completely ruin your day sometimes? It did for me. I had horrible anxiety attacks almost daily.
Now I get them maybe one or two times a month, which is a HUGE improvement.
How did I accomplish that? Simple, I quit smoking.
If you’re at work and you need a cigarette, you’ll get anxious and stressed out. So when you do finally get to smoke, those feelings go away.
From that I bet you think “cigarettes relieved my stress and anxiety.” WRONG! They caused it. It’s the complete opposite, and don’t believe anything else.
If you’re a heavy smoker, you have at least 20-30 per day. That means you have at least one every hour.
What if you’re in a situation where you can’t have one for over 4 hours? Work is a perfect example. Then what?
Well, what people naturally do to avoid this is smoke as much as possible before work so there is enough nicotine in their body to last those 4 hours.
What happens if they don’t do this?
They go through withdrawal, and that’s precisely when anxiety and stress begins.
You smoke, the anxiety goes away, and so does the withdrawal. So it’s back to square one you go.
Eliminating stress alone makes it worth quitting.
It’s not the situation you’re in, it’s the fact your body craves nicotine, and it will stop at nothing until it gets it.
You must understand this concept if you truly want to quit.
YOU WANT OUT OF THE “PARTY STAGE” – This may not pertain to everybody, but it might be relevant to a lot of smokers out there. If you’re like me, you like to drink.
Wanting to lead a healthy lifestyle and getting out of your party stage is a very important step. You can’t be 21 forever.
For the vast majority of my 20’s, I was in my “party stage.” I went out, had fun, and smoked cigarettes. Drinking and smoking go hand-in-hand.
This is why it’s very important to quit when you are absolutely ready.
Eventually you’ll get to a point in your life when you won’t want to party anymore.
Perhaps cigarettes are keeping you in that stage. Perhaps they are allowing you to keep doing those bad things, because they go hand-in-hand, so you’re like “Why not?”
I bet you already know this. I bet you already know that if you quit right this instance, you’d drink less and do other harmful things less. That is precisely the key.
Leaving the party stage means growing up. I think once you reach the correct mindset, you’ll want to move forward in life, not backwards. You’ll want to do good things for yourself.
This is a very important concept, in my opinion.
IT’S TIME TO GROW UP!
10 MORE REASONS TO QUIT SMOKING
Thank you so much I wish I found this all them times I said “last pack” I’d smoke 50 reds a day, and it did become more important than meals, I’d only eat lunch for 24 hours, just lunch. Anyway this article is true I feel so good and just fuck like u have the experience it to belive it, I quit cold turky and I’m 5 hours and 22 minutes away from 11 days and I feel so empowered that im never looking back, I feel like I have control over my life and the things that I do and like I can do anything with my life and it’s beautiful but everyone will quit when they are ready, wont be easy but the harder something is in your life the better you feel afterwards trust me if theirs smokers out their like me who get constant 24hr cravings just ride it out and I promise you it gets better just put it out and dont look back;for real this time
All I can say after reading this, is if I hadn’t decided to quit smoking cold turkey 5 days ago, I would have decided to right this very moment. I love how you tell it how it really is. We need to hear this, no matter how hard it is to accept. I have been wanting to quit for months, no YEARS. I started out a few months ago, everytime I would smoke I would keep saying “I don’t want cigs, I need cigs, I don’t smoke cigs, I don’t like the smell of cig smoke, I don’t spend my money on cigs”. I repeated this out loud, as I smoked, everyday. As I continued I started smoking less cigs. Eventually I got down to 3 a day (over a 2-3 month period of time). Then went cold turkey. This only the beginning…one day at a time. I do believe that the words we speak, especially out loud are very powerful.
Wow!!! Very cool read. I am on Day 6 and I really appreciate this. Excellent website. I have seen a ton of them, but this one is really good. Speaks to my soul. Thank You.
I love your website and videos! I have been smoke-free for almost 4 years now and your videos help me to stay off nicotine. I can relate to everything you say and discuss and I feel that is the most helpful thing a Quitter can get. I’m glad your putting out videos more often too. Keep up the good work man!