Classification Essay

Classification Essay Draft
Ways to Stop Smoking In the United States, smoking is responsible for about one in five deaths annually (i.e., about 443,000 deaths per year, and an estimated 49,000 of these smoking-related deaths are the result of secondhand smoke exposure) (cdc.gov). Every day, people all over the United States try to stop smoking, but not many succeed. The three methods to quit smoking that I'm going to compare are quitting cold turkey, nicotine replacement, avoiding triggers, and also their difficulty level, advantages, and disadvantages. The first way to try and quit smoking is to quit cold turkey. In some kind of way, quitting cold turkey is the most popular way to quit smoking even though to most people, this is one of the hardest ways to quit smoking because of how powerful nicotine dependency is (health.com) According to evidence tables in the June 2000 USDHHS Guideline, a smoker's natural six-month odds of quitting "on-their-own" are roughly 10% (whyquit.com). Even though quitting cold turkey is very difficult to do and the success rates are low, there are some advantages to quitting cold turkey though. After just 72 hours of not having any nicotine in your body and all of the chemicals from the nicotine will be out of your body and also your breathing becomes easier (whyquit.com). After almost 2 weeks, your addiction to the nicotine is beginning to wear off and the blood circulation in your gums and teeth are now similar to one of a non-smoker (whyquit.com). Another advantage of quitting cold turkey is just about one year of quitting, your chances of a lung cancer have decreased magnificently (whyquit.com). Before you can achieve your goal of quitting smoking cold turkey, you'll need to overcome all of the disadvantages. Once you quit smoking, your body must start adjusting to not having anymore nicotine in it's system and for the first three months of quitting, you'll begin to experience irritability, insomnia, and depression (health.com). Due to the sudden disruption of the nicotine intake, a person may experience physical and mental problems like intense cravings for cigarettes, headaches, increased appetite and weight gain (cancer.gov). The second way to try and quit smoking to to avoid triggers. Triggers for smoking may include being around other smokers, feeling stressed, drinking coffee or tea, and enjoying a meal. Other things that may trigger you need to smoke is your mood, feelings, places you're at, or things you do in your daily life that turn on your desire to smoke. Knowing your triggers helps you stay in control because you can avoid them, or, when you can’t, you can do things to keep your mind off smoking (cancer.gov). Even though trying to avoid the triggers may seem easy, it can be quite difficult depending on how you feel or where you go in your daily life. The only advantage of avoiding the triggers of your smoking habit that it's cheaper to do than using nicotine replacement. The disadvantages of this would be that it's hard for people to chance their schedule in their daily lives and if you're always around people that smoke, it's hard for you to get away from it. The third way to try and quit smoking is using a patch for nicotine replacement. Nicotine replacement means instead of getting the nicotine from a cigarette, you're getting it from a patch. Nicotine replacement is said to be the easiest way to quit smoking and the success rate of using the replacement is 70 percent (cancer.gov). The only advantage of using the patch is that you can get it over the counter. The disadvantage of using the patch is that it still has nicotine in it for you to wean yourself off of it, but since it involves nicotine, it can become addictive. Knowing how motivated you are to quit smoking and how much support you're going to get through out quitting will either help you be successful or not. Just keep in mind while trying to quit, it will all be worth it once it's done and over with. Once you quit, you'll feel healthier and your chances of getting cancer related illnesses because of smoking will decrease.