If you happen to be a teenager stumbling into this forum, please get it into your head that there is nothing cool about smoking and you will live a life of regret once you start and get addicted to this little stick of tobacco
Many people start young then realise they can't quit and instead of trying harder they try to justify their addiction when they are slave to a little stick
As they become more and more faggoty, their arguments become more and more surreal.
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/whatsin/story/0,4574,311651,00.html?
Published December 27, 2008
Help! I want to quit smoking
The success rate of quitters who do it alone is in the single digits, say doctors. By Cheah Ui-Hoon
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FROM Jan 1, puffers will find that they have an even more limited space in which to light up as the non-smoking ban gets extended to more places. Now that you can't smoke in non-air-conditioned offices, lift lobbies, multi-storey carparks or anywhere within five metres of the entrances and exits of buildings, isn't it time you redoubled your efforts to snuff out that last cigarette?
But smokers have first to recognise that what they have is similar to a drug addiction, and that most will need professional help in quitting, say doctors.
'We understand more about smoking today as more information has come to light in the past 10 years. It's more than just a fad or habit, and there's a biochemical basis for this addiction,' says Associate Prof Philip Eng, consultant respiratory physician at Mt Elizabeth Hospital and visiting consultant at Singapore General Hospital.
Once a person smokes beyond a certain amount or time, certain parts of the brain respond accordingly, he points out. Nicotine is known to act on the brain to release dopamine, the 'feel good' chemical. 'And with time, nicotine receptors will increase,' says Dr Eng.
'So when you stop, what happens is that these receptors crave nicotine,' he adds.
Doctors also know now that dopamine levels go up and down depending on how much and fast you smoke, with levels coming down within two hours when you stop smoking. 'After that, the receptors get 'hungry' again, so this fuels the smoking habit and makes it difficult to quit once the habit is established,' says Prof Eng.
Hooked
What people don't know is that nicotine in cigarettes is an extremely addictive substance. 'Weight for weight, it's more addictive than heroin and most other drugs,' points out Ong Kian Chung, respiratory physician at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre and president of the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Association of Singapore.
The other thing is that the cigarette is a very effective delivery tool for nicotine, says Dr Ong. 'It's rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and reaches the brain within 3.5 seconds. If you gave nicotine intravenously, it takes 11 seconds.
'So the cigarette's potent delivery system means that you can get hooked on it easily,' he adds.
For the first two years, smoking could be a 'fad' for a beginner smoker, but once it drags on beyond that, it's definitely an addiction, says Prof Eng. 'Which is why it's so hard to quit. In many studies, the success rate of quitters who do it alone is single digit.'
According to a Cochrane study recently published, an average of 3 per cent of smokers manage to quit smoking for six months via cold turkey methods. 'We use a six-month quit rate as a more meaningful and reliable way to compare quit rates as we know that relapse is common in the first six months,' explains Prof Eng.
And like the local TV advertisement showing how a gambler is addicted to gambling, smokers who are addicted demonstrate the same behaviour. They don't admit that they're addicted, says Dr Ong. 'Less than 50 per cent will say they are. As with any addiction, there's denial.'
Only less than 10 per cent can quit anytime they want and not suffer withdrawal effects.
Cessation techniques
'There are three types of medications available all over the world. The first is nicotine replacement therapy which can come in the form of patches, gum or inhaler. The theory is to wean you from the amount of nicotine in your circulation,' says Prof Eng. The second is Zyban. This is a tablet taken for a couple of months. It was the blockbuster drug about eight years ago as it was the only new drug available in the market for more than a decade. It has fallen out of favour currently because of its side effects such as restlessness, anxiety and even seizures.
The new blockbuster drug for 2008 is Varenicline, retailed as Champix. 'Champix works on receptors and blocks them so that dopamine is released at a lower level. With time, receptors decrease,' explains Prof Eng. 'This is probably the best available drug now in terms of outcome studies, with over 40 to 50 per cent success rate,' he says, adding that Zyban sees a 30 per cent success rate and nicotine replacement therapy 20 per cent, at six months.
Those who stop smoking by quitting cold turkey are really the exception rather than the rule, Dr Eng points out.
Dr Ong agrees, pointing out that people need to realise that this is a real biological addiction. 'Friends and relatives of smokers need to understand that smokers need professional help to quit.' He advocates counselling and pharmacotherapy for quitters, 'because there's a habitual component to smoking, while medicine like Champix deals with the biological'.
Prognosis
Smoking cessation has been quite successful in Singapore, thinks Dr Eng. In 2004, 12 per cent of the population smoked regularly (down from 18 per cent in 1992), a far healthier figure than most places in the world. In first world countries (eg the US, UK and France), the rate is 20 to 25 per cent.
However, male smokers far outnumber female smokers here (21 per cent males vs 3.5 per cent females), while in most developed countries, the proportion is equal. In Sweden, female smokers outnumber males.
'My crystal ball tells me that our female rates will go up and average out with males. So I suspect that our smoking rate will go up in five to 10 years unless more efforts are put in to curb young female smoking,' he anticipates.
To quit smoking, self-will plays a big part. 'If a person does not want to quit, nothing can really make him quit,' Prof Eng concludes.
He has seen two groups of quitters. The first consists of smokers who might be older, and who develop a health problem. The second group comprises those in their 30s, who are re-assessing their lives because they just got married or have a new child in the house. 'I've seen more quitters in the second group in the past five years, as more people are getting more health conscious,' he says.
Many people start young then realise they can't quit and instead of trying harder they try to justify their addiction when they are slave to a little stick
As they become more and more faggoty, their arguments become more and more surreal.
http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/sub/whatsin/story/0,4574,311651,00.html?
Published December 27, 2008
Help! I want to quit smoking
The success rate of quitters who do it alone is in the single digits, say doctors. By Cheah Ui-Hoon
Email this article
Print article
Feedback
FROM Jan 1, puffers will find that they have an even more limited space in which to light up as the non-smoking ban gets extended to more places. Now that you can't smoke in non-air-conditioned offices, lift lobbies, multi-storey carparks or anywhere within five metres of the entrances and exits of buildings, isn't it time you redoubled your efforts to snuff out that last cigarette?
But smokers have first to recognise that what they have is similar to a drug addiction, and that most will need professional help in quitting, say doctors.
'We understand more about smoking today as more information has come to light in the past 10 years. It's more than just a fad or habit, and there's a biochemical basis for this addiction,' says Associate Prof Philip Eng, consultant respiratory physician at Mt Elizabeth Hospital and visiting consultant at Singapore General Hospital.
Once a person smokes beyond a certain amount or time, certain parts of the brain respond accordingly, he points out. Nicotine is known to act on the brain to release dopamine, the 'feel good' chemical. 'And with time, nicotine receptors will increase,' says Dr Eng.
'So when you stop, what happens is that these receptors crave nicotine,' he adds.
Doctors also know now that dopamine levels go up and down depending on how much and fast you smoke, with levels coming down within two hours when you stop smoking. 'After that, the receptors get 'hungry' again, so this fuels the smoking habit and makes it difficult to quit once the habit is established,' says Prof Eng.
Hooked
What people don't know is that nicotine in cigarettes is an extremely addictive substance. 'Weight for weight, it's more addictive than heroin and most other drugs,' points out Ong Kian Chung, respiratory physician at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre and president of the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) Association of Singapore.
The other thing is that the cigarette is a very effective delivery tool for nicotine, says Dr Ong. 'It's rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and reaches the brain within 3.5 seconds. If you gave nicotine intravenously, it takes 11 seconds.
'So the cigarette's potent delivery system means that you can get hooked on it easily,' he adds.
For the first two years, smoking could be a 'fad' for a beginner smoker, but once it drags on beyond that, it's definitely an addiction, says Prof Eng. 'Which is why it's so hard to quit. In many studies, the success rate of quitters who do it alone is single digit.'
According to a Cochrane study recently published, an average of 3 per cent of smokers manage to quit smoking for six months via cold turkey methods. 'We use a six-month quit rate as a more meaningful and reliable way to compare quit rates as we know that relapse is common in the first six months,' explains Prof Eng.
And like the local TV advertisement showing how a gambler is addicted to gambling, smokers who are addicted demonstrate the same behaviour. They don't admit that they're addicted, says Dr Ong. 'Less than 50 per cent will say they are. As with any addiction, there's denial.'
Only less than 10 per cent can quit anytime they want and not suffer withdrawal effects.
Cessation techniques
'There are three types of medications available all over the world. The first is nicotine replacement therapy which can come in the form of patches, gum or inhaler. The theory is to wean you from the amount of nicotine in your circulation,' says Prof Eng. The second is Zyban. This is a tablet taken for a couple of months. It was the blockbuster drug about eight years ago as it was the only new drug available in the market for more than a decade. It has fallen out of favour currently because of its side effects such as restlessness, anxiety and even seizures.
The new blockbuster drug for 2008 is Varenicline, retailed as Champix. 'Champix works on receptors and blocks them so that dopamine is released at a lower level. With time, receptors decrease,' explains Prof Eng. 'This is probably the best available drug now in terms of outcome studies, with over 40 to 50 per cent success rate,' he says, adding that Zyban sees a 30 per cent success rate and nicotine replacement therapy 20 per cent, at six months.
Those who stop smoking by quitting cold turkey are really the exception rather than the rule, Dr Eng points out.
Dr Ong agrees, pointing out that people need to realise that this is a real biological addiction. 'Friends and relatives of smokers need to understand that smokers need professional help to quit.' He advocates counselling and pharmacotherapy for quitters, 'because there's a habitual component to smoking, while medicine like Champix deals with the biological'.
Prognosis
Smoking cessation has been quite successful in Singapore, thinks Dr Eng. In 2004, 12 per cent of the population smoked regularly (down from 18 per cent in 1992), a far healthier figure than most places in the world. In first world countries (eg the US, UK and France), the rate is 20 to 25 per cent.
However, male smokers far outnumber female smokers here (21 per cent males vs 3.5 per cent females), while in most developed countries, the proportion is equal. In Sweden, female smokers outnumber males.
'My crystal ball tells me that our female rates will go up and average out with males. So I suspect that our smoking rate will go up in five to 10 years unless more efforts are put in to curb young female smoking,' he anticipates.
To quit smoking, self-will plays a big part. 'If a person does not want to quit, nothing can really make him quit,' Prof Eng concludes.
He has seen two groups of quitters. The first consists of smokers who might be older, and who develop a health problem. The second group comprises those in their 30s, who are re-assessing their lives because they just got married or have a new child in the house. 'I've seen more quitters in the second group in the past five years, as more people are getting more health conscious,' he says.
