Today I am going to start a series on Tobacco Use and Smoking due to a prompt from my daughter Jenna. Now this information hits home for Jenna and I because I have dealt with this addiction first hand, which means that she has also.

Basically as I feed this information through posting on this post, I hope this helps me, and anyone else out there that may be interested. I will be providing statistics and information all the way from what tobacco and nicotine are to self-help information on quitting.

We've all heard how bad smoking is, but why do so many people struggle with this problem? Even the thought that you are literally killing yourself with the habit is not enough for most to stop, and there are reasons for that.

As I investigate and write about this, I hope to help you and I both understand this habit a little better and what it does overall to the mental phsychi and to the body. We all have a choice with our lives, and I hope this information can help you with your decision about what you do with your life as it relates to smoking.

First, I have to mention that I will be posting many facts in this series, please refer to the end of this post for references used in writing this.

A big thing to note in Part I here, especially to all of you parents out there, statistics show that approximately 80% of adult smokers started before the age of 18. The percentage of the population that does smoke in the U.S. is around 23%. There are more males that smoke than females but of that approximate 23% of smokers, only 9.3% of them are 64 years old or older.

Of the overall smokers, approxiamtely 23% of those are between the ages of 45-64, approximately 26% are between the ages of 25-44 years old and almost 29% of smokers are between the ages of 18-24.

Nicotine is the drug or main ingredient in tobacco that makes it so addictive. Experts say that nicotine is as addictive as heroin and it alters how the brain works. Nicotine is extremely poisonous in high doses and is a commonly used insecticide!

Smoking is the most common form of tobacco use and it delivers a strong dose of nicotine along with many other chemical substances. When a person is "smoking, particulate matter condenses in the lungs to form a thick brownish sludge called tar." This tar contains cancer causing agents.

Just a few tobacco statistics to think about are the facts that tobacco use is the single most "preventable" cause of death in the U.S. "resulting in more than 440,000 deaths each year" alone. It is currently responsible for the death of 1 in 10 adults worldwide and 1 in 5 deaths in the United States.

"If the current trends continue, half of the people who smoke today - about 650 million - will eventually be killed by tobacco use." Also second-hand smoke is "carcinogenic to humans" and leads to coronary heart disease or lung cancer over time.

After those few things to think about, I personally wonder now why I ever put a cigarette to my mouth, into my lungs, and around other people that I love as second-hand smoke. But if you have ever been a smoker you know, statistics alone are usually not enough to make a habit change when it comes to smoking.

I will be continuing this series soon with Part II, probably Part III and more. I will also be posting information and an opinion from my daughter Jenna who feels very strongly about this subject. I truly hope that the information that she has provided me about this subject will help us all...her, me, and anyone else that wants to be receptive to it.

If you are at this point of the reading, let me say "thank you for reading." As tough as this information is for me and I'm sure a few others of you out there, even if you decide to continue to smoke, and it IS your choice, I hope with this information you understand the risks better and can make a more well-informed decision.

Again, please note these references below were used to compile this information. Have a great weekend!

SOURCES FOR THIS INFO AND MORE:

www.who.int/tobacco/en/
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/
www.cdc.gov/tobacco/issue.htm
http://www.tobaccofacts.org/

ONLINE SOURCES FOR HELP WITH QUITTING:

http://www.quit4good.com/
http://www.quittobacco.com/