Saturday, February 18, 2012

Sometimes Trying To Quit Smoking Can Blow Up In Your Face (literally)

Imagine enjoying a cigarette after a nice meal with your wife and suddenly BOOM!  The cigarette blows up on you!  Teeth get knocked out, parts of your face are charred and some of your tongue is missing.  You wind up in a burn center...

Well this is what happened to Tom Holloway earlier this week when his e-cigarette lit up like a bottle rocket on the 4th of July, shooting across his home office, starting a small fire and leaving him severely injured.

While this is rare and should never happen to anyone...  allow me to observe that the injuries Mr. Holloway received as a result of him trying to quit with an e-cigarette would have happened either way.  Meaning what?  All this e-cigarette exploding did was speed up the process.

  • Cigarette smoking is a known cause and trigger of periodontal disease which results in receding gums, bone loss and eventually tooth loss.  So his teeth were coming out one way or another...

  • Tobacco smoking is one of the leading causes of oral cancer and the first step in fixing that is tissue removal.


Seem insensitive?  Sometimes a reality smack down is in order...

Look, here's what set me off: 

"Holloway, a Vietnam veteran, photographer and father of three, reportedly stopped smoking two years ago and turned to e-cigarettes to kick the habit."

This came from ABCNews.com.  What the hell are they talking about?  Kick what habit?  He didn't kick anything!  Jeffrey Wigand put it best when he deemed a cigarette "a delivery device for nicotine."  Mr Holloway simply had not kicked anything and because of switching delivery devices, damn near kicked the bucket sooner than if he'd have simply continued to smoke regular cigarettes!

They did redeem themselves later though when they said, "Electronic cigarettes have become a popular crutch for many who have quit smoking" 

To which I say, here, here!  The e-cigarette is just that.  A crutch.  At some point you will need to go it alone and stop!

So what did we learn today?  E-cigarettes are just as dangerous (if not more so) then regular cigarettes and sooner or later you're going to have to go cold turkey.  Stopping smoking is like pulling off a band-aid.  It's no fun either way, but it's better to do it fast and get on with it.

Need help ripping off the band-aid?  Try my book!  Get your copy at www.stopdontquit.com or on this blog!