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I'm Johanna. I'll Come and Go. What can I say? I try.

One thing I LOVE to do is to analyze dreams. Just tell me about a dream you had, and I'll help you understand what it means. :)

advice

I have had this friend for 6 yrs. She told me that she had started smoking and asked me to also. What should I do to help my friend

No I did not start smoking.

You are very smart to not start smoking. Never give in to what anyone says, even if they are your best friend. You may get in trouble, or the other person may see you as pathetic, that you give in to everything. So it is good that you do not smoke, and do not start!

As for your friend, she's probably not addicted yet to smoking. You need to stop her before she does. Have a strict and serious conversation with her. Say in a serious tone, "Do you WANT to DIE?" and if she tries to say, "It's no big deal..." you need to have evidence to back up your statement about how smoking is bad.

Did you know that smoking....
-Slows down your heart rate, which means it is very hard to lose weight/exercise
-Bad Breath & yellow teeth which is unattractive to most guys
-Smoking increases chances of many types of cancer, heart attacks & strokes
-Smoking affects the ability to have a healthy baby
-weight gain (up to 5 pounds)
-Stuffy nose, and more colds
-cause asthma, and if she already has asthma, she could die
-damage voice box

You need to tell your friend about all of this effects that smoking could have on her! Is your friend a teen? Well, when you smoke and you're a teen, it can deform your body, and cause you not to be able to grow.

Below, I put some sites that might give you more details on what else to say to your friend. If she still won't believe you, try looking on google for some pictures of smokers' body parts. It may be gross, but it might put a little bit of common sense into her.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/quit/canquit.htm
http://www.youngwomenshealth.org/smokeinfo.html
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_10_13X_Guide_for_Quitting_Smoking.asp

Ultimately, the choice is up to her. You can't force her to quit, but you can try to help her. I've had smokers in my family who used to smoke, and they developed bad health problems from it because they quit too late. Don't let that happen to your friend.

P.S.- That's very young to start smoking. She might just be saying that to impress you, but it is possible that she could of. She probably still can quit easily, but as you get older, it gets harder to quit, so hopefully you can convince her to quit now.

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(Rating: 5) Thank you so much. She's 12 and she told me she had been somking since she was 4 any advice on what to do then. I will use the other advice but I didn't know if the advice could change. Thanks agin.
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