My Addiction To Smoking

About the Book

I have lost both legs to smoking cigarettes. And if I had kept smoking, I would have lost my arms and my life. The tobacco companies have never been honest about their product and I’m on person that can prove them wrong. I have Buergers Disease, a totally smoke related disease.

About the Author

Buerger's Disease; Thromboangiitis Obliteran; and sometimes called The Smokers Leg or The Jewish Disease; I have suffered with Buerger's Disease all my life. I was born with second hand smoke being blown on my face, everyday. And only in 1982 when I lost my second leg to smoking that I was able to quit smoking and I got my life back.

You can only get Buerger's Disease if you smoke — the two are related. Where it comes from is still not known. But we do know it affects men between the ages of 25 to 45. How it starts: first you notice little red spots on your toes and feet. Then you feel tingling, and then numbness, then the foot starts to swell. And by now you will have this unbelievable excruciating pain. If by this time you still persist on smoking you definitely will get gangrene, if you don't have it already. What it does, once the smoke enters the blood stream it dries the small arteries up, eventually affecting the veins. And now from the lack of blood flow your larger arteries and veins are affected. This results in ulcerations to the feet and toes. Now you definitely have gangrene in that leg. And the only way to alleviate the pain is to have the leg amputated. Of course stoppage in smoking will reverse the spread of this disease any further. But the already affected area it is to late. Unfortunately if you are a smoker you can't tell if you have this disease. Buerger's Disease starts doing it's damage from the bone out. And usually by the time it surfaces as ulcers on your extremities it is too late. Stopping smoking will only stop it from getting worse. Once the damage is done, it is done.

Our government has known about Buerger's Disease since at least the second World War — why wasn't anything done then? Why where labels not put on cigarette packaging then? We had to wait for something like what happened to me before someone reacted. And though I am the only one speaking out about this disease I'm not the only one who has it. Millions like me have no funds to sue these giants for this atrocity. We are all waiting for our government to get off their behinds and do the right thing; Get cigarettes off the shelves and possibly in more controlled areas. We want the tobacco company to confess and to own up to their mistakes. I have lost my family, and my future, because my son also had to try smoking, and he too didn't believe all the negative stuff that was said about the uses of tobacco products. Well one day he did and it cost him his life. By lighting a cigarette he suffered an epileptic seizure, fell into the water, and drowned. Was this the tobacco companies’ fault? I don't have the money to find out. Cigarettes have caused so much destruction and pain for so many people it is incredible. How can we still be selling this stuff in stores today? When will our tax money used to pay for all these smoke related injuries, and law suits going to stop. Better yet, when will it stop — period?