NEWS: How Your Body Changes the Second You Quit Smoking

Exactly. I need SOMETHING to do.

That might sound silly to some but it really makes sense. It is something you have to work on.

I think where people go wrong is they try to quit before they are truly ready. You have to reach a point where you are totally committed to it in your mind, until then forget it, don't even try as it will just be a half-assed attempt and make the next time harder.

There are also so many little things you have to change to make it easier, like I used to sit outside and read magazines, drink iced coffee and smoke. It was part of my daily routine but I had to stop drinking iced coffee and reading magazines because it just reminded me of smoking.

You mean we need publicly funded arts.

Which is a total bullshit move, because even as Cuyahoga county has this cigarette tax for the arts ballot initiative, the state has two indoor smoking bans on the ballot. So let's have a small group of people that has no connection, either direct or indirect, to the arts fund it while simultaneously trying to eliminate the very thing that would generate the money. It's like having a liquor tax to pay for a new community pool the day before prohibition takes effect. Fucking Ohio.

Though truth be told, the statistics in this article hardly put the "new" in "news". Years old.

I quit about 10 months ago, very happy I did.

As a non-smoker, I've always felt annoyed that I don't have an excuse to step out for a few. If a non-smoker does that, they look like they're on the verge of a nervous breakdown- "I just need to get some fresh air for a few minutes."

We should start a movement. Masturbation breaks.

I can see that happening.

"I'm gonna take a quick choke break. About ten minutes. Mind if I clock off first?"

"Hey, dude, you got a sock?"
"Nah, man, I don't masturbate."
"Cool, cool."

I quit smoking 8 years ago, and had mostly positive effects (and no weight gain, no coughing up black tar), but a couple of weird/bad effects as well...

1) My blood pressure didn't go down, it went up. When I smoked, I had pressure low enough that I'd do that blacking-out-from-standing-up-too-fast thing at least once a day; right after quitting, it went up to pre-hypertension/hypertension levels, and has stayed there ever since. A bit scary since my family's got a history of heart disease.

2) I knew smoking affected circulation, especially in the skin... I quit cold turkey, and apparently this freaked my body out enough that oil glands on the insides of my eyelids went haywire, clogging up and filling with goo, and I got numerous styes on the rims of my eyelids. I had to go to an eye doctor and have surgery to remove the grape-sized lumps from the insides of my eyelids, and had to have styes drained once in a while for the next few months. Mmmm! Sexy!

The worst long-term effect has been recurring nightmares that I'm smoking. I'll have dreams where I've got a cigarette, and overwhelming waves of panic wash over me, and I'll wake up in a start...

Thanks for posting this. Reminds me why I need to quit.

After this last cigarette, I'll give it a shot.

I quit on Tuesday morning, 2 days aint that bad so far. I'm just going cold turkey too.

I'm down to around one a week, if that. Sometimes some shit happens and I need a cigarette, but I rarely buy a pack. Sometimes I like to smoke a small cigar.

I miss this one smoke shop back home where you could by individual cigarettes.

I tend to smoke more if someone around me is chain smoking. If they give me cigarettes, I'll buy a pack the next day and keep it for weeks. Esp if I've been drinking.

All in all, I'm pretty happy I rarely smoke anymore, I used to smoke a pack a day.