I don’t like funerals and I especially do not like going to funeral for someone dying before their time. Before people ask “who’s dead”, let me say no one that I know, well not yet. The funeral I am talking about is one that may occur sometime in the future, sooner than later based on a choice.

Smoking is the principal cause of preventable death and disease, contributing to more drug-related deaths and burden of disease than alcohol and illicit drug use combined.

On average, people who smoke lose 10 years of life expectancy compared to lifelong non-smokers (Doll et al., 2004).

In Australia, tobacco smoking accounts for around 15,500 deaths each year. The majority of smoking-caused deaths are due to lung cancer (41%), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (27%), heart disease (13%) and stroke (4%) (AIHW, 2007).

What is chilling is that you could choose to stop smoking and decrease you likelihood of an early slow sickening death. I love my brother, no shame in that, I just don’t watching him die slowly day by day. The signs of an early funeral are not yet apparent, but I listen and I watch. Wet coughs, strange marks, shortness of breath, all signs and they hurt a lot when I see them.
If I could help him make one choice in life it would be this. I would like to grow old and know that I could visit my brother rather than his grave.

Stats sourced from http://www.smphu.health.wa.gov.au/Utilities/BinaryDownload.aspx?BinaryField=DocumentBinary&BinaryTable=TBLEDCMSDOCUMENTS&BinaryID=DOCUMENTID&BinaryIDValue=15178
Though no matter how you look at it, you will die when a choice could have prevented an early funeral.