Bad habits(SMOKING, ALCOHOL, DRUGS)

BAD HABITS (SMOKING, DRINKING ALCOHOL, TAKING DRUGS)

Smoking Tobacco smoking is the act of burning the dried or cured leaves of the tobacco plant and inhaling the smoke for pleasure or ritualistic purposes, for self-medication, or out of habit and to satisfy. As the use of tobacco became popular in Europe, some people became concerned about its possible ill effects on the health of its users. One of the first was King James I of Great Britain. In 1604, he wrote " A Counterblast to tobacco ". In 1964, Surgeon General of the United States, released the report of the Surgeon Generals Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health. It was based on over 7000 scientific articles that linked tobacco use with cancer and other diseases. This report led to laws requiring warning labels on tobacco products and to restrictions on tobacco advertisements.
Because of their nicotine addiction, many smokers find it difficult to cease smoking despite their knowledge of ill health effects. Almost no smoker begins as an adult. Statistics show that about nine out of 10 tobacco users start before they're 18 years old. Some teens who smoke say they start because they think it helps them look older (it does - if yellow teeth and wrinkles are the look you want) . Others smoke because they think it helps them relax (it doesn't - the heart actually beats faster while a person's smoking). Some light up as a way to feel rebellious or to set themselves apart (which works if you want your friends to hang out someplace else while you're puffing away). Some start because their friends smoke - or just because it gives them something to do. Some people, especially girls, start smoking because they think it may help keep their weight down. The illnesses that smoking can cause, like lung diseases or cancer , do cause weight loss - but that's not a very good way for people to fit into their clothes! Another reason people start smoking is because their family members do. Most adults who started smoking in their teens never expected to become addicted. How smoking affects your health. There are no physical reasons to start smoking – the body doesn’t need tobacco the way it needs food, water, sleep, and exercise. In fact, many of the chemicals in cigarettes, like nicotine and cyanide, are actually poisons that can kill in high enough doses. Over the long term, smoking leads people to develop health problems like cancer, emphysema (breakdown of lung tissue), organ damage, and heart disease. These diseases limit a person’s ability to be normally active – and can be fatal. Nicotine and the other toxins in cigarettes, cigars, and pipes can affect a person’s body quickly, which means that teen smokers experience many of these problems: bad skin, bad breath, bad-smelling clothes and hair, reduced athletic performance, increased risk of illness. Some jurisdictions impose restrictions on where smoking is allowed. Several European countries such as the Republic of Ireland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and England have legislated against smoking in public places, often including bars and restaurants.  

Alcohol. Thousands of years ago people began to make alcohol for practical reasons. Egyptians also had problems with impure water, and they noticed that people did not sick over wine, but they often became ill when they drank impure water. In later years, wine became important to the Roman Catholic Church throughout Europe because wine was used to celebrate the sacrament of the Mass. Alcohоlism is sometimes characterized by the following elements: 1.Craving 2.Loss of control 3.Physical dependence 4.Tolerance Most of the psychologists consider alcoholism as a progressive disease, when naturally progressing has 3 stages that go one after another. The First stage is always introduced by pleasant regular “cultural” drinking that lasts from 1 to 10 years. People predisposed to alcoholism cover that stage very quickly, sometimes in a several months. The second stage of dependence begins when an alcoholic can’t already wait till the evening and cures a hang over at the midday. Later it happens earlier and earlier. Problems in the family and at work (if they’re not lost already) are inescapable. Life goes down, becomes uncontrolled. Alcohol takes the major place in the mind, life becomes seeming useless without drinking. The Third stage is a predictable final of many-year’s abuse of alcohol – stage of degradation and payoff for drinking. A person is not a person any more he is a wreck . Can alcoholism be cured? While alcoholism is a treatable disease, a cure is not yet available. By the beginning of the 1990s, alcoholism had become a serious social and health problem in our country. As early as 1966, special institutions, called “treatment-work therapy centres. People who were heavy drinkers and did not seek treatment were forcibly confined for treatment in such centres for up to two years. Official statistics indicate that, in 1995, the average consumption of alcohol per capita in Russia was 8-9 litres. That the average alcohol consumption some experts say that per person can reach 17-20 litres. More males than females are affected by alcoholism, but drinking among the young and among women is increasing. Alcohol has direct toxic as well as sedative effects on the body, and failure to take care of nutritional and other physical needs during prolonged periods of excessive drinking may further complicate matters. Recent evidence has shown that heavy and even moderate drinking during pregnancy can cause serious damage to the unborn child: physical or mental retardation, or both; a rare but severe expression of this damage is known as foetal alcohol syndrome.  

Drugs In the 20-th century drugs spread very quickly. In the past narcotics in the natural economy were confined to territories where drug-bearing plants were grown. By the end of century drug addiction has become a worldwide socially dangerous trend. Drug abuse is a serious disease caused by drug abuse. It shows a constant need for admission narcotic ingredient-leaf, because mental and physical condition of the sick depends on whether it took the drug, which developed addictive. Drug addiction leads to social degradation. It is a disease, develops gradually. The reason is the ability of drugs to cause intoxication, accompanied by a feeling of complete physical and mental comfort and well-being. The drug is a poison it destroys not only the internal organs of man, but his brain and psyche. For example gasoline or glue "Moment", makes people mentally retarded for 3-4 months, "safe hemp" - within 3-4 years. A person who uses morphine, two, three months loses the ability to do anything that stops a nurse and completely loses its human face. Those who use cocaine do not live more than 3-4 years. They die of a heart attack or because their nasal septum becomes thinner and begins to resemble a piece of parchment, which is cracked, broken, and, eventually, everything ends in a fatal hemorrhage. At the use of LSD man loses the ability to navigate in space. He has a feeling that he can fly. All the drug addicts do not live long regardless of the type of taking drugs. They lose the living creatures the instinct of self-preservation. It leads to the fact that about 60% of them attempting suicide after the first two years of the initiation of drugs. Many addicts do it. Condition of addiction is characterized by three properties: 1) need to continue to take drugs and get them by any means; 2) the desire to increase the dose; 3) the dependence of mental and sometimes physical nature of the influence of drugs. If you stop taking narcotic, your body goes through the effects of withdrawal. This occurs because your body cannot produce enough endorphins quickly enough to make you feel good, the way narcotics do. Drug use in traditional societies is governed by strict rules. Statistics is constantly reporting drug abuse has become a real plague of the 20-th century in many countries of the world.