The Smoking Addiction.

Smoking is an addiction. Tobacco smoke contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive and can make it very hard, but not impossible, to quit.

Most people who smoke wish they didn't. They live with a hatred for the habit, and the fear of serious illness is usually there too, lurking in the background. And always that awful feeling of being powerless to quit.

When you stop smoking, your body reacts very quickly to the lack of nicotine in your system. Over the course of three to five days, you are likely to experience a number of the following physical symptoms as the toxins are flushed from your body:

1.) Increased irritability, frustration, or anger 2.) Anxiety, tension or nervousness 3.) Difficulty concentrating 4.)Headaches 5.) Increased appetite and weight gain 6.) Fatigue 7.)Restlessness Trouble sleeping

Cigarettes Are Addictive -- Once You Start Smoking, It Is Almost Impossible To Stop

What poisons are in cigarettes?

The list of 599 additives approved by the US Government for use in the manufacture of cigarettes is something every smoker should see. Submitted by the five major American cigarette companies to the Dept. of Health and Human Services in April of 1994, this list of ingredients had long been kept a secret.

Nicotine (insecticide/addictive drug)

One of the most addictive substances known to man, a powerful and fast-acting medical and non-medical poison. This is the chemical which causes addiction.

Did you know that there are chemicals added to cigarettes which increase the speed at which nicotine reaches your brain? One example is ammonia. The organic chemists of the tobacco industry knew that nicotine made a person feel a lot better if it was quickly delivered to the brain.

That first puff rapidly delivers a large amount of nicotine because of the added ammonia to your brain in seven seconds. It's like drinking a whole glass of water when you are really thirsty. It just gets soaked right up.

The addition of ammonia represented a very important breakthrough for the tobacco industry because it allowed smokers to receive very high levels of nicotine, which increased the addiction rate.

Ammonia (toilet cleaner)

Used as a flavoring, frees nicotine from tobacco turning it into a gas, found in dry cleaning fluids.

Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)

A colorless liquid, highly poisonous, used to preserve dead bodies - also found in cigarette smoke. Known to cause cancer, respiratory, skin and gastrointestinal problems.

Acetone (nail polish remover)

Fragrant volatile liquid ketone, used as a solvent, for example, nail polish remover - found in cigarette smoke.

Carbon Monoxide (CO) (car exhaust fumes)

An odorless, tasteless and poisonous gas, rapidly fatal in large amounts - it's the same gas that comes out of car exhausts and is the main gas in cigarette smoke, formed when the cigarette is lit. Others you may recognize are :

Benzene (petrol additive)

A colorless cyclic hydrocarbon obtained from coal and petroleum, used as a solvent in fuel and in chemical manufacture - and contained in cigarette smoke. It is a known carcinogen and is associated with leukemia.

Tar

Particulate matter drawn into lungs when you inhale on a lighted cigarette. Once inhaled, smoke condenses and about 70 per cent of the tar in the smoke is deposited in the smoker's lungs.

Arsenic (rat poison), Hydrogen Cyanide (gas chamber poison)

Cigarettes are one of few products which can be sold legally which can harm and even kill you over time if used as intended.

It's chilling to think about not only how smokers poison themselves, but what others are exposed to by breathing in the secondhand smoke.

This Article was written by Michelle People's Natural Living