If you haven’t already, there’s one thing you can do to almost instantly improve your health in a multitude of ways: quit smoking cigarettes. I’m not talking about foregoing the occasional cigar or pipe — that sort of tobacco is not great for you but used in extreme moderation, it’s not going to potentially ruin your health like butts will. Cigarettes on the other hand are bad for your blood pressure, your heart and lungs, your skin and your hair, your eyes & eyesight, your mouth and your teeth, your stamina and sex drive and your circulation and digestion… to name but a few of their nasty side effects. And obviously smoking is one of the world’s leading carcinogens, increasing your cancer risk exponentially when used as directed. Remember: you might survive cigarette-induced cancer but you will not be unmarked by it.

If you’ve never smoked cigarettes in earnest, good for you. If you’ve already quit, congratulations for taking such a big step on living a longer, more healthy life. And if you haven’t yet I can only ask: why the hell not, dude? I know, I know, you’re young and tough and nothing’s going to harm you and you feel like a real man with a smoke in your mouth. Well, by the time you get into your 30s, that’s not going to be quite true anymore and your doctor will probably begin noticing some signs of mortality like higher blood pressure or diminished lung capacity, both directly attributable to smoking. I smoked throughout my 20s and quit when I turned 30 and now I can’t even think of a good reason why I ever used cigarettes at all. One too many Hollywood movies where the hero chain-smoked his way through the film (the links between Hollywood and the tobacco industry are deep and well documented)? The fact that my father smoked and so it connected cigarettes with an ideal of manliness in my mind? Either way, it was damn stupid and once I finally stopped I pretty quickly got to a place where I was never tempted to smoke those coffin nails again. Or should I say coughin’ nails?

Thankfully, once I decided to quit it didn’t take too long to put it behind me altogether. I will say that the toughest part of making quitting stick for me was de-linking it from enjoying a drink out at social occasions with other smokers. Alcohol and tobacco make a very seductive team! Nowadays, though, most municipalities have banned smoking in public establishments and that makes it easier not to crave a smoke in a bar or restaurant, as well as leaving you smelling infinitely better after a night on the town. And now there are even more options to use as aids to help you quit. Along with nicotine gum, patches and lozenges — I used the gum as it helped the oral aspect of the addiction — there’s now vaping and e-cigarettes, which did not exist when I quit and mimic the motions of cigarette smoking for those in love with the kabuki of it. Now, nicotine is not particularly good for you per se but the main dangers in cigarettes do not come from nicotine. They come from the particulate matter a smoker inhales into his lungs and the body’s interaction with the nature of cured tobacco smoke and the nasty chemicals tobacco companies add to their leaves to increase the high and also the addiction (if you must smoke cigarettes at least try to buy additive-free smokes like American Spirit — not great but better than Big Tobacco’s poisoned offerings). This is also why the occasional cigar or pipe won’t kill you — the tobacco is more naturally treated without chemical “boosters” and you don’t actually inhale the smoke into your lungs — at least, you shouldn’t if you’re smoking them correctly.

So when you vape or chew Nicorette you are certainly ingesting nicotine, which is like a more potent relative of caffeine and so can lead to rapid heartbeat, dehydration and increased blood pressure. But you are not taking the most harmful part of the of a cigarette into your lungs: that filthy, deadly carcinogenic smoke. Hopefully, after a while you won’t even need any nicotine-based aids to help you kick those butts. But even if you do, you’ll still be light years better off than if you were still smoking cigarettes. The way we see it, you owe yourself the best possible chance of a long and healthy life. Quitting cigarettes is one of the best ways to make that happen. So just do it already.