Alcohol and tobacco: no longer slow killers

Alcohol and tobacco: no longer slow killers
A. Jayaprakash KOVILLOOR

The medical fraternity around the world and those advocates of human welfare and fitness keep us believe that alcohol and tobacco are slow killers. This is no longer true. It is really ironical and ridiculous to be under the impression that something that keeps you live longer is called something else and something that kills you much faster is a slow killer. I do not understand why people believe that these two are slow killers.

Who in this world is interested to die a faster death than what he or she is destined to live in this sphere? Is there someone who can say that ‘I do not want to live longer in this world, so I want to die faster than I would?’ In today’s world of sophistication and comforts, there will be hardly any one who would make a wish this way.

Eventually, I am prone to ask; need there not be a little reason when these advocates make a claim of this magnitude which is likely to affect the lives of millions of people around the world and a multi-billion industry which flourishes on the same? We need to. We need to have a strict regime of terminology in place to define and brand things as they actually are.

In my opinion it is our good eating habits, healthy life style practices, encouraging and rejuvenating hobbies, our sense of humour, medical awareness and above all our will to stay away from the temptations of drugs, tobacco and alcohol are the things that make us live longer, that is, they do not allow us to die faster. They are the real slow killers. Are they not so?

Is it not true that when we do follow a good diet and healthy lifestyle, we are likely to live to be octogenarians and nonagenarians? Such people do not face faster deaths the same way the ones who take alcohol, get addicted to drugs and take on tobacco do. They do die faster.

Therefore, it is unfair to call alcohol, tobacco and their allied products as slow killers. They are fast killers, or faster killers. We have people who get killed in their thirties and forties and fifties thanks to their association with these bad habits. So long live slow killers like healthy life styles, balanced diets, timely eating habits and similar health regime.

Healthcare watchdogs and advocates of human welfare, you may please take stock and brand alcohol and tobacco as fast killers, not the other way round. I am sure it would make great changes in the way people take on these habits. Let all people die slowly and slowly and slowly, living life to the full, or taking life to the dregs. Not taking their life by drugging and drinking.

Therefore, world Tobalccoholics, beware you are on a much faster way out. And all those ones who have a little love for life, may get chronically addicted to slow killers like good food and healthy life style practices. Anymore takers for a novel addiction???