What is tobacco dependence?

Cigarette is an important public health concern both in Turkey and around the world and it is a high risk for addition due to its high rate of nicotine.

Smoking cigarette, hookah and pipe or inhaling smoke cause addiction after a while. Tobacco product consists more than 4000 chemical substances in it and the basic component of these substances which causes addiction is nicotine. The nicotine includes even more poison when smokeless tobacco is inhaled or chewed.

• Cardiovascular diseases
• Lung diseases caused by bronchial stenosis and copd
• Palsy as a result of blocked arteries
• Gastritis, ulcer and stomach cancer
• Yellow skin, wrinkles, skin cancer
• Bad breath and yellow teeth
• Smoking during pregnancy causes premature birth and development disorders caused by premature birth, smoking after the birth causes breastmilk to dry up.

After quit smoking…

• The nicotine starts to withdraw from the body after two hours of quitting.
• The hearth rate and blood pressure begin to drop after six hours.
• The carbon monoxide level is back to normal and your lungs will function better after twelve hours.
• The sense of taste and smell get sharper after two days.
• The blood flow improves which facilitates activities such as walking and running after 2 weeks to 12 weeks (3 months)
• As the lungs get stronger, diseases such as cough, difficulty in breathing, and stridor will start to clearer after 3 months to 9 months.
• The risk of heart disease decreases by half after 5 years.
• The likelihood of lung cancer decreases by half and the risk of heart attack is the same as a nonsmoker.

Do you know?

• Tobacco kills six million people every year which means every ten seconds one person dies because of tobacco.
• A person who smokes about half a pack of cigarettes a day sends 300 nicotine currents to his brain every day.

Quitting is possible!

In the treatment of smoking cessation consultancy for attitudes and medication are very significant. There are Smoking Cessation Clinics in many hospitals and also there are drug therapy and psychological treatment for quit smoking.

Drug therapy is applied in the case of nicotine withdrawal during quit smoking. These medications should be prescribed by doctors so one should not take any medication which is not prescribed doctors.

Psychology and behaviors of smokers should be considered otherwise smoking can relapse because of nicotine withdrawal. Various treatments such as coping skills, anger management, family meetings and motivation are considered regarding the dependency level of smoker.

• Set a date for quitting.
• Share your plans about quitting to the people surrounding you.
• Make plan for possible hardships in the future.
• Move away all stuff related to smoking such ad cigarette, lighter, match, ashtray.
• Think about the benefit of quitting.
• Find new activities to do.

If your child smokes

• When you catch your child smoking, take the cigarette box away from him/her and remind him/her the rules about smoking ban either in home or in school.
• Show same reaction in every time you catch your child smoking, coherency in your reactions is important and you should set limits firmly.
• You should also obey the rules and your children should not see you while you are smoking.
• Talk with them about the harms of smoking to avoid advising in order to ensure that they get the right information about smoking.

Risk factors

• Nicotine is very addictive.
• Withdrawal symptoms are highly observed among more than 50% of who try to quit.
• Smokers find smoke-free life very hard but some think that they can quit without help of anybody.
• Some smokers either do not have sufficient information about how to deal with negative feelings of quitting or they think that quitting is very easy to do and it is not worth to deal with.

Passive smokers

Passive smoker is one who does not smoke but exposed to smoking. Effects of being a passive smoker depends on the time, the intensity and the interval of smoke they are exposed to and millions of people die annually because of diseases caused by smoking./p>

• Being exposed to smoke causes many diseases such as cancer, heath diseases and copd.
• Children are more sensitive to the harms of smoke.
• Being exposed to smoke just for 30 minutes also leads to psychical effects of smokers.