Cigarettes are fickle little friends

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Occasionally when you get your paycheck, you might want to splurge on an expensive outfit. Whether it’s a new dress or a new suit, everyone likes to have things they can wear that give them that little extra boost of confidence. Something to make you feel really good.
This power outfit can be used to put an extra spring in your step when you have an important meeting with a client or boss, a first date, or any other event that makes you nervous. When you’re nervous, you probably don’t need just a new outfit. If you’re a smoker, you’ll also want a cigarette. Or two. Or three. Or four. However many you can suck down in the car, on your break, or before he picks you up.
But watch out. A cigarette might seem like a good friend to calm your nerves, but it’s just sitting between your fingers waiting to bite you. To ruin any potential chances of your nerves being calmed. Cigarettes are fickle little friends.
If you’re nervous, you’re more likely to be a little rough with the cigarette. You could easily flick it into your lap. Or the wind could knock the cherry off while you’re flicking ashes out the window.
A cigarette might seem like a great friend while you’re inhaling it to calm your nerves, but a burning cherry in your lap is a whole different story. As that hot little cherry lands in your lap, you better believe it’s going to burn. Your reflexes will kick in to brush it away as soon as it hits. Your palm or finger, or which ever part of your hand meets it, will get burned too. A stinging, scathing ember brushing against your sensitive hand. If you’re lucky, the first brush will do the trick and the cherry will be gone. Most of the time it will take two or three or four chances. That’s four burned spots on your hand and fingers and at least five on your laps and legs.
You’re going to focus on the physical pain of the burn at first. What you don’t notice is that the pant leg of your suit or the skirt of your dress has at least one hole. That’s from the first drop. If you’re lucky the second spot is just a black round burn. The third is black and ash. Speaking of ash, it’s everywhere. All over your legs, lap, and probably on your chest too.
And that’s when the meeting starts or your date arrives. You’re in pain. Your new outfit is ruined. This is the fickle nature of your nicotine-laced friend. Hopefully you’ll still ace the meeting with burn holes in your pants or dress. Or your date will be really impressed. Smoking is seen as a liability by most people. The inability to keep a cigarette in your hand just worsens it.
Next time you’re nervous, put down the cigarette and try some breathing exercises instead. Visualize succeeding in the task that you’re nervous about. These calming methods won’t burn you. Or ruin your pants.

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Pregnancy And Smoking

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quit smoking

Pregnancy and Smoking

If you’re a woman who smokes, you will be familiar with how much you enjoy a cigarette. You probably enjoy one when you wake up, and you probably enjoy many more throughout the course of your day.Cigarettes are highly addictive, and whether you know it or not, they rule your life in many ways. You probably think about them almost constantly, and you’re willing to put your life at risk to have them even if you don’t admit to it.However, every woman who smokes can also become pregnant. If you continue to smoke throughout your pregnancy, you risk harming the child in your womb. Before you became pregnant, you were only harming yourself, but now you’re responsible for the life growing inside you too.If you smoke during pregnancy, you are more likely to birth a child who is underweight.Low birth weight babies are at greater risk for childhood and adult illnesses and even death. Babies of smokers have less muscle mass and more fat than babies of nonsmokers The child is also more likely to develop respiratory problems later in life.After the child is born, it doesn’t get any better. Infants eighteen months and younger who have second hand smoke surrounding them in their houses are responsible for up to three hundred thousand cases of pneumonia and bronchitis.Babies exposed to secondhand smoke after birth have double the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Babies whose mothers smoke before and after birth are three to four times more likely to die from SIDS. Smoking is responsible for raising the chances of getting lung cancer, and other types of cancer. If you smoke near your child, you raise their chances of getting all sorts health problems.Not only are the health risks a huge concern, but smoking can also cause all sorts of other problems as well.For instance, you could accidentally fall asleep with a smoke in your hand and burn your house down. It doesn’t sound likely, I know, but it happens several times a year across North America.You could flick your cigarette away and have your baby step on it, burning their foot. You’re first reaction might be to give them crap for not wearing shoes, but it would really be your fault. Your child could find the lighter and burn themselves or worse, burn your house down. Maybe they figure out how to light the cigarette themselves, and decide to try and smoke like Mommy.Remember, everything you do, is an example to your children. Is smoking really the kind of example you want to set?

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stop smoking