As I have previously mentioned, I am a member of a poker club and more often than not have to play in smoke-filled rooms. My fellow players have been interested to find out what the piCO+™ Smokerlyzer® shows about their dependence to cigarettes so I have been religiously testing them. Everyone has been shocked by the scale of their readings but they still have the perception that it is difficult to give up smoking. Nevertheless I am continuing to advocate the benefits of giving up smoking and have been demonstrating my decreasing levels of CO which everyone has been very impressed with and hopefully found encouraging.
I have also been able to demonstrate the dangers of passive smoking. A non-smoker in my poker club, who has never let a cigarette pass his lips in all his 70 years, was tested before a game showing normal CO levels. After the game his readings showed considerably higher, encroaching into the danger zone, which is very worrying for a non-smoker. This really does highlight the need for smoking bans to protect those who do not smoke. Of course when the ban hits all parts of the UK in July this will be a thing of the past in public but will not stop passive smoking within homes.
I now see smokers in a very different light. I never realised just how desperate I must have looked. For example I recently played at a very prestigious poker match that did not allow smoking at the tables. People were so needy for a cigarette that they even left mid-game to go out and have a smoke. The liberating effects of not smoking are really encouraging me to continue. I have never enjoyed being dictated to by anyone but that is exactly what was happening to me, I was beholden to cigarettes and now I am free.
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