Addictions To Nicotine And Their Implications To Your Health

Additions To Nicotine And Their Implications To Your Health

Addiction is the habit of taking drugs or alcohol, with the development of a craving which is beyond the will of the person to control. Two basic things are characteristic of one who is addicted – habit and a craving for the substance.

One major substance that people easily addicted to is nicotine, a poisonous alkaloid of tobacco. It is very easy to get hooked on it and also very difficult to quit once you are hooked. Some people resort to the use of nicotine because they see others smoke. Others smoke because of the way cigarettes are advertised.

But why do people really smoke?
Smokers have always had excess to advance for their addiction. Some would tell you that smoking helps them to eat well; some say it helps them to go to toilet well. Yet some say it helps them to cope with stress, boredom, loneliness, anxiety, frustration, tiredness, etc. Even as some are aware of the danger of smoking to their health, they still find it difficult to quit because of the appealing brands of cigarettes in the market and the aggressive marketing strategies by manufacturers.

What are the symptoms of nicotine addiction?
The major sign that shows that you are addicted is your craving for the cigarette. If you can’t stay for a day or two without cigarette it means you are addicted. Staying comfortably for 3 days in a roll without the desire to have a puff means that you really never were addicted to nicotine.

If you need to have a puff before you can comfortably empty your bowel, then you are addicted. Other signs that show that you are addicted to nicotine include depending on it to relieve your stress always, using it to relieve your anxiety, using it to kill hunger or to improve your appetite. Most importantly, if you experience headache, nausea, aggression, irritation, etc because you have not smoked for sometime, it means you are really hooked. If you also see yourself smoking spontaneously without really having a good reason for doing so, then you are hooked as well.

Health implications of smoking
Decline in memory: Nicotine interferes with the brain cells and destroys the gray matter which is connected with learning and memory. This makes the smoker to easily forget recent or past events. The condition gets worse with time as the individual remains in the habit.

Cancer: Nicotine promotes the development and growth of cancer. This is the reason why many smokers end up with cancer of the lungs, lips, mouth, larynx, pharynx, cervix, colon, kidneys, etc.

Heart disease: Nicotine predisposes one to heart disease and other related problems. Some of the diseases that could come up include coronary heart disease, heart attack, pericarditis, etc.

Blood vessel disease: The risk of developing atherosclerosis and abdominal aortic aneurysm is quite high. The risk of developing high blood pressure is high because of the constrictive nature of nicotine which leads to narrowing of the lumen of the blood vessels. Besides, carbon monoxide makes the build up of fatty plaques in the vessels faster – a condition known as atherosclerosis. This brings about narrowing of the inside and hardening of the wall of the vessel.

Respiratory disease: Respiratory diseases like pneumonia, chronic bronchitis, chronic cough, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, etc are common problems of smoking.

Nicotine addiction has so many other health risks. So you must consider your health when next you are tempted to take a puff. Think whether the risk is really worth it. Your life is important to yourself, your family and the nation.

Overcoming Medication Dependency and Addiction as a Cancer Patient

Pain medications may be necessary for those suffering from pain due to an illness, such as cancer, or those recovering from an injury or surgery. Many pain medications carry an increased risk of developing a dependency or addiction. This risk is further increased if you have struggled with substance abuse dependency in your past. There are several things you can do to lessen the likelihood that you will abuse or develop an addiction to your pain medication.

Tell your doctor of any history of substance abuse or addiction. It is imperative that you carefully follow your doctor’s orders for your medication exactly. Do not take doses that are larger than prescribed or take the medication more frequently than prescribed. Take the medication whole. Crushing or breaking pills can change the way the body absorbs the medication. Know the possible side effects and when to notify your doctor. Do not mix your medication with alcohol or other drugs, including over the counter drugs, without checking with your doctor.

Medical supervision for pain management may be needed for people who live with chronic or long-term pain, such as patients with mesothelioma. This aggressive form of cancer often calls for palliative measures. With a mesothelioma life expectancy often only being one to two years, pain management becomes critical.

Pain medication is generally safe for use and effective at managing pain when used as directed. When it is not used as directed, it can cause serious problems, including death. Medication monitoring, combined with learning skills to help you cope with your pain can help prevent addiction. The Mayo Clinic recommends therapy to help patients deal with the mental aspects of their diagnosis and to adjust to living with chronic pain.

Managing your pain medication can be a lot to handle on your own. Most communities have pain management clinics available. These clinics have medical professionals that can give you the time and attention you need to feel safe, comfortable and confident with your pain management plan. Therapists can help you deal with the psychological aspects of living with severe pain and help you develop strategies and tools to cope.

If you are already struggling with a dependency to pain medication, they can help you overcome it. A drug detox period may be necessary to get the medication out of your system. The clinic staff will work with your medical team to find a way to keep you comfortable without dependency. You don’t need to worry about being able to manage your pain alone.

8 Success Strategies That Would make You An Accomplished Person

Success is achievable for everyone so long you aspire to move ahead in life and acquire things you have in mind. In order to succeed, there are keys you need to apply and unlock the door that would lead you out of failure and obscurity into fame and prosperity.

No one wants to remain in abject poverty; no one wants to be a failure and be treated with contempt by his peers. Success brings prestige, respect or honour; so everyone desires to be successful in life and be treated as an important personality, and not as a nonentity. You need to apply the following strategies if you are aspiring to be successful:

1. Don’t procrastinate: Procrastination is a dream killer; anyone aspiring to be an accomplished person must therefore put it far away from his/her life. It is the act of postponing what you can do right now for a future date. If you keep procrastinating, you are not likely to succeed at the right time you are supposed to. It could make you end up not doing what should have brought you prosperity. Therefore, you should learn to do whatever you wish to do as soon as the idea comes into your mind without having to put it off for the future.
2. Aspire to grow: You must have the desire or hunger to move further in life. You can hardly succeed if there is no hunger to get out of your mediocre life. You must have the urge to improve yourself in some way. It is this hunger and desire that actually propel you into achieving what you dream of.
3. Dig for information: Don’t just be passive about success; you have to be proactive. You need to get information that would put you on the road to excellence. Read good books, consult people who are in some ways better than yourself, and possibly pay a professional who has the right information you need.
4. Work hard: Diligence is the key to breaking out of mediocrity into stardom. You have to work real hard if you are to be what you desire to be. Success does not come by mere wishing; it comes through hard work. Hard work pays.
5. Change your friends: If you are not succeeding, then you need to change the people you associate with because they have a way of influencing the level you reach in life. Begin to associate with successful people who have a way of rubbing off on you and make you grow to their level. When you associate with such person, you begin to imbibe their mentality and grow in their direction.
6. Read autobiographies: Check the lives of great men, read their autobiographies and you would see that hard work had lifted them to where they are. You are bound to discover the secret to success as you keep reading the biographies or autobiographies of great people like Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Carlos Slim, Warren Buffett, Daniel Carnegie, Aliko dangote, etc. The more you seek to know their secret the more you discover things that would make you excel in life.
7. Take action: Reading autobiographies, getting the right information and dreaming would never take you anywhere except you take action and apply whatever information you have gathered to your life. You need to build a business, set up a website if you want to manage a forum or information site; you need to go to school to improve yourself. You also need to develop your ministry if you have God’s call. You can never be the real you if you do not take action to start what would be used as a stepping stone to take you where you ought to be.
8. Believe in yourself: It is very difficult for anyone who does not believe in himself to succeed. You have what it takes to get to where you wish to be. If you believe you can, then you can. Don’t see yourself as one who cannot make it in life.

So think of what you can do and go ahead to do it without wasting time any further. You have the power to determine how far you get in life. Having done all you need to do, commit your ways to God and he will help you to achieve your life’s desires.

Gbaaaaaam! And It Happened; See What Alcohol Could Do

The sound of ‘gbaaaaam’ and the crackling of metals woke the entire neighbourhood from their early morning sleep. With sleepy eyes, people rushed toward the direction of the sound. An accident had just happened, and five people were dead, with several others injured.

The driver of the 18-seater Toyota Hiace bus was caught between the seat and the dash board; his legs were tightly wedged in between the brake and clutch pedals. The villagers tried to pull him out of his seat, but he remained glued; and after all attempts to free him failed, they decided to employ the use of axes to destroy the engine of the vehicle in order to free his legs.

While some concentrated their energy on breaking the vehicle’s engine, others tried to revive the few passengers who still had hope of survival. The dead bodies were separated and kept by the corner of the bush. Eventually they were able to free the driver’s legs, and he was rushed to the nearby hospital along with the other injured passengers.

One more passenger, a young man, died on their way to the hospital from his multiple injuries. They finally got to the accident and emergency ward and were received by a well prepared medical team. The nurses ran around cleaning and suturing wounds, and the doctors concentrated on carrying out surgery on two persons (the driver and one other passenger) whose cases were critical.

Eventually, they were able to repair the passenger’s abdominal wall that had been penetrated by a piece of glass. However, the driver was not that lucky as he had his two legs amputated because they were badly damaged. Though his broken collar bone was successfully repaired, he would have to live on a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

What actually went wrong?
The driver admitted driving under the influence of alcohol on that fateful day of the incidence. He also admitted he had resorted to the use of alcohol since he lost his wife two years earlier, as a way of consoling himself. Eventually he had become hooked on alcohol; so on that fateful day, he had taken about three shots of local gin (ogogoro or kaikai) at the motor park before embarking on the ill-fated journey.

He had driven at top speed all night until he got to that bend and suddenly saw a broken down trailer. He tried to avoid the trailer, but swerved into the bush where he collided with a palm tree. And now he has to live on a wheel chair for the rest of his life.

It is not a good idea to drive under the influence of alcohol; and it is also not the best to console oneself with alcohol, because one could become addicted to it and suffer more harms than the original problems he was trying to escape from. Alcohol can directly or indirectly destroy your life. Run away from it; it has nothing good to offer you.