Lung Cancer: Addiction to Cigarettes and Nicotine

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Imagine sitting in a hospital with an IV stuck in your arm. This is just one of many chemotherapy sessions intended for treating the cancer living in your lungs. How did it get this way? It’s simple; the addiction to cigarettes and nicotine has planted an illness in the lungs which now requires a long, gruesome process of treatment. How could this have been avoided? The answer to this is even simpler, leave the cigarette in the pack, and walk away.
There are many reasons as to why the habit of smoking cigarettes is taken up. According to Mathew Cunningham, the top three reasons people smoke is for self-medication, because of media influences, and number one, for stress relief (health.howstuffworks.com). There are also many occasions when tobacco and drugs or alcohol are abused in an effort to suppress undesired feelings. Abusers use the substance to escape reality and make themselves feel better. Media plays a very influential role in many aspects of life, so it’s no surprise that the second most popular reason people smoke is due to the media’s influence. Media, primarily, has a large hold on the younger generations, which encourages smoking to begin at a younger age. Teens often are found trying to mimic their celebrity idol’s actions. Since many celebrities these days are involved with smoking and other substance abuse, that example is then set for their fans. Stress relief is the most common reason people smoke because of it is a way to cope. Before the smoker knows it, the nicotine draws them back, at any sign of stress. Smoking when the feeling of stress occurs becomes routine, and forces the smoker to rely on cigarettes whenever a rough patch comes along. There are, of course, many other reasons that people in society smok...

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...it, but these are just a few of the popular ones. Effects, on the other hand, include many kinds of illnesses, many undesirable appearance changes and, in some cases, death. So the choice is yours, what would you rather do? Take the route that includes IV needles in your arm, or of living a normal happy life and walking away from the pack?

Works Cited

Cunningham, Mathew. “10 Reasons People Start Smoking”. Discovery Fit and Health.
Retrieved 19/1/2014.
No known author. “Secondhand Smoke: What is secondhand smoke?” Cancer.org.
Copyright 2014. American Cancer Society. Retrieved 19/1/2014.
No known author. “Emphysema”. Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Sixth Edition. 1993.
Retrieved 1/21/2014.

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