SUPPORT — Health and Wellbeing Support
Smoking and Drinking
Smoking and cancer
If you smoke, giving up is the healthiest decision you can make. Smoking can be a difficult habit to break, but there is support available. Please chat with your health care team about the support you can access locally to help you to stop.
Smoking and cancer
Quitting smoking has important benefits. It is the healthiest decision you can make and many of the benefits happen straight away.
It is not always easy to quit, and it may take you a few tries. There are lots of tools and resources to make stopping easier.
The first steps are:
- asking your cancer doctor, nurse or GP for advice
- contacting your local stop smoking service.
You are 4 times more likely to quit if you have specialist support from a stop smoking service.
There are varied services available to you both as an out-patients or in-patient. Please chat with the team caring for you so they can refer you to the right one. The services include QUIT and Yorkshire Smoke free.
Some of the benefits of stopping smoking
Every time you smoke a cigarette, your body is flooded with thousands of chemicals, many of which are poisonous as seen on the diagram above.
The day you stop, your body starts clearing itself of all those nasty toxins and the repair process begins.
You’ll notice some benefits within days or weeks:
- your senses of taste and smell improve
- you start to breathe more easily
- you have more energy
- better blood circulation to your heart and muscles, which will make physical activity easier
- improved lung function, leading to reductions in any cough, wheezing or other breathing problem
Your longer-term risks of cancer, lung disease, heart disease and stroke will be significantly reduced, and:
- after 1 year, risk of heart attack halves compared to a smoker’s
- after 10 years, risk of death from lung cancer falls to half that of a smoker
- after 15 years, risk of heart attack falls to the same as someone who has never smoked
- You will also be less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, bone disease including osteoporosis, eye disease and dementia.
You may think that smoking supports your mental wellbeing, and helps you to relax, deal with stress and anxiety, and cope with life's difficulties.
- In fact, the opposite is true. Stopping smoking boosts mental health and wellbeing.
- Evidence shows that after the withdrawal stage of quitting, people have reduced anxiety, depression and stress.
- People who have quit also have increased positive mood compared with people who continue to smoke.
For some people, a big reason for stopping smoking is to be there for their family and friends.
- If you have stopped smoking and are physically and mentally healthy, you’re more likely to be able to support your loved ones – and be a part of their life in the future.
- Also, becoming a smoke-free role model means your children are much less likely to take up smoking.
Quitting also means you'll protect your loved ones from the potential health harms of second-hand smoke (sometimes called passive smoking).
Second hand smoke is dangerous for anyone exposed to it, especially for children.
drinking and cancer
The risks of drinking too much
Regularly drinking more than 14 units of alcohol a week risks damaging your health.
- The number of units in a drink is based on the size of the drink and its alcohol strength.
- New evidence around the health harms from regular drinking has emerged in recent years.
- There’s now a better understanding of the link between drinking and some illnesses, including a range of cancers.
- The previously held position that some level of alcohol was good for the heart has been revised.
- It’s now thought that the evidence on a protective effect from moderate drinking is less strong than previously thought.
No "safe" drinking level
If you drink less than 14 units a week, this is considered low-risk drinking.
It’s called “low risk” rather than “safe” because there’s no safe drinking level.
The type of illnesses you can develop after 10 to 20 years of regularly drinking more than 14 units a week include:
- mouth cancer, throat cancer and breast cancer
- stroke
- heart disease
- liver disease
- brain damage
- damage to the nervous system
There’s also evidence that regular drinking at high-risk levels can make your mental health worse.
Research has found strong links between alcohol misuse and self-harming, including suicide.
The effects of alcohol on your health will depend on how much you drink. The less you drink, the lower the health risks.
Read about alcohol units to work out how much alcohol there is in your drinks.
