There are no harmless addictions – they can be very dangerous even in minimal doses and have a sudden powerful effect. Experts revealed that smoking even one cigarette a day could seriously shorten your life.
According to The Daily Mail, experts estimated how much time a person spends on harmful addictions. These calculations are based on the official statistics provided by the United States and Great Britain.
Experts have found how much the habit of smoking just one cigarette a day may cost a person. It may take a smoker almost 14 minutes of their life. The project manager Jake Tri said that the methodology gave an estimated rather that definite number, and it is impossible to say precisely how much time is spent on smoking a cigarette or drinking one serving of alcohol. Nevertheless, chronic users of a certain substance can consider the results rather accurate, the expert says.
What has been found in particular? The experts calculated that:
- people who smoke 20 cigarettes a day lose 10 years of their life;
- regular use of alcohol takes away 23 years of life;
- those who chronically use cocaine lose 34 years.
Chronic use of a substance makes even a single dose increasingly risky – the longer the contact with the substance, the riskier it is. So, one cigarette robs human of 13.8 minutes of life, a single dose of cocaine – 5.1 hours, one serving of alcohol – 6.6 hours, a single dose of methamphetamine – 11.1 hours, a single dose of methadone – 12.6 hours, one dose of heroin – 22.8 hours.
If we take into account the average data on smoking and drinking, the statistics will be as follows: a smoker loses 4.6 hours of life daily, an alcoholic – 14.1 hours, a cocaine addict – 33.7 hours, methadone, methamphetamine and heroin addicts – 50.4, 58.8, and 68.4 respectively.
