Life Gained from quitting

[MrStik]

I commend all those who have quit smoking. It take a lot of work, time, and sacrifice to be able to achieve this feat. And with that in mind, I do see many of these sig banners proudly stating how many analogs they have avoided, and how many dollars were saved. But what about the greatest savings of all? Life! I googled around a bit and found that a general consensus is that a cigarette takes away 10-12 minutes of a person's life away. Let's split the middle and go with 11, or be conservative and go with 10, but wouldn't it be a kick to see how many days a smoker who has quit has gained back?

Ex: Pack a day smoker
20 cigs a day x 365 = 7300 cigs a year
7300 x 10 = 73,000 minutes lost
73,000 / 60 = 1217 hours
1217 / 24 = 50.7 days

A pack a day smoker who quits, would gain back 50 days a year that would have been lost to smoking. I know this is not anything near exact science, but it does put into perspective on how much money and how much life was actually thrown away on cigarrettes..

 

[mare ze dotes]

Yes. But wow. That is true.

 

[LaziDaze]

Interesting thought - but I don't want to do the arithmetic on what my 60 years of smoking has cost me.

It brings to mind something that an old friend of mine used to jokingly say - " someone that lives healthy and takes good care of himself - is just dying more slowly". LOL

 

[The Vagabond]

isn't there something about how everyday you've avoided smoking analogs reverses some of the effects of smoking - loss of time

 

[Ranic85]

That whole lose 5 minutes of your life per cigarette thing always seemed like bogus science to me.

 

[ScottP]

I had heard that, but the whole time I was smoking (and to a degree I still feel this way) I always said "yeah but the part you are cutting off is the old and sitting in a nursing home alone hoping someone might come visit you every now and then part."

 

[kbf101998]

I had heard that, but the whole time I was smoking (and to a degree I still feel this way) I always said "yeah but the part you are cutting off is the old and sitting in a nursing home alone hoping someone might come visit you every now and then part."

I often said that too--but the older I got the more hollow it began to sound to me...

 

[DanG]

I don't care if it takes a nano second an analog. It is still seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years that I might not get to spend with my kids or someday grandkids.

 

[cmdebrecht]

Practically speaking, I have gained real hours of my life back that I used to spend outside, away from famiky and friends, smoking. That's life gained!

 

[ScottP]

I often said that too--but the older I got the more hollow it began to sound to me...

I have had enough relatives die in nursing homes that it doesn't sound hollow to me. I have one grandmother in one now, and every time I talk to her, she mentions being past ready to go. She is 90years old, her bones are brittle, she can't even get out of bed on her own anymore, and every single day is an exercise in pain tolerance. I had to watch three of my Great Grandmothers go this way as well as one of my grandfathers. If I cut some of that kind of time off, I will consider myself lucky. I quit smoking because I don't want to die from lung cancer before I even get old enough to be in a home, not because I want to hang on to every second of agony at the end.

"I am not dumb enough to want to live forever, nor naive enough to think I can." - a younger me.

 

[ScottP]

Practically speaking, I have gained real hours of my life back that I used to spend outside, away from famiky and friends, smoking. That's life gained!

This part is 100% true. If you spend 7 min smoking an analog and smoke 1.5 packs a day outside away from people you care about or things you would rather be doing then you were spending 3.5 hours per day chained to a cigarette.