you should never do is ignore a smoking addiction

A group of researchers led by professor Edward Ellerbeck from the Department of Preventive Medicine & Public Health at the University of Kansas say that doctors need to be more forthright when dealing with smokers and to consider the smoking habit to be a chronic disease in itself. They argue that rather than being passive about smoking and suggesting getting help doctors should do everything in their power to get the patients to take smoking cessation medications such as Champix, or go and see special smoking cessation counselors.

In their study which looked at 750 smokers they observed that over a two year period people who were given high intensity counselling were the most likely to quit the habit. The research which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine concludes that smoking should be classified as an illness that needs treatment. Considering smoking to be a disease is a good attitude to have if you are trying to quit smoking. Rather than think of your smoking habit as an annoying addiction you should try and visualise your desire to smoke as a serious illness which you need to cure yourself of.

In the same way that if you ignore a serious illness it will eventually make you seriously ill, if you ignore your smoking habit it will eventually catch up with you and do you serious harm. If you are a smoker you need help and probably the best person to turn to is a doctor who can prescribe you smoking cessation medication or recommend that you get counselling or even hypnotherapy from professionals.

What you should never do is ignore a smoking addiction and pretend that because you feel all right at the moment you will be spared from getting a smoking related illness. Remember that over 90 percent of those people in hospital suffering from lung cancer are smokers. No one ever gets to the end of their life without regretting having smoked because it will eventually get you!