Picking up Butts

While Steve slept this afternoon, I walked to the front of the house and discovered a pile of cigarette butts that had fallen out of Steve's truck when it was being washed the other day.

As I picked up the ends of these former cigarettes, I thought about how things would have been different if Steve hadn't heavily smoked and drank.

He sucked on each cigarette until there was nothing left, and then threw away the butts. Now, the cancer is sucking on him.

I was thinking of all of you that smoke and are thinking, "That won't happen to me. I can stop whenever I want." Steve said that. I guess you think you won't die either.

"And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment," Hebrews 9:27

READ THE FACTS from: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/tobacco/smoking

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States. It causes many different cancers as well as chronic lung diseases, such as emphysema and bronchitis, and heart disease.

• Cigarette smoking causes an estimated 443,000 deaths each year, including approximately 49,400 deaths due to exposure to secondhand smoke.
• Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women in the United States, and 90 percent of lung cancer deaths among men and approximately 80 percent of lung cancer deaths among women are due to smoking.
• Smoking causes many other types of cancer, including cancers of the throat, mouth, nasal cavity, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, and cervix, and acute myeloid leukemia.
• People who smoke are up to six times more likely to suffer a heart attack than nonsmokers, and the risk increases with the number of cigarettes smoked. Smoking also causes most cases of chronic lung disease.
• In 2009, approximately 20.6 percent of U.S. adults were cigarette smokers.
• Nearly 20 percent of high school students smoke cigarettes.
  (See Tobacco Statistics Snapshot for references for this information.)