How many years is drinking, drugs and smoking shaving off YOUR life?


  • New website has calculated the cost of an addiction in years and hours
  • Smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes a day cuts ten years off a person’s life
  • Drinking two or more alcoholic drinks every day cuts 23 years off a life
  • Cocaine addicts lose up to 34 years, with each dose costing 5.6 hours
  • Methadone users cut their lives by 38 years, and die at an average age of 41
  • A heroin addiction will cut 42 years off a person’s life, killing them at age 38
  • Lifetime methamphetamine users lose 42 years, each dose costing 11 hours

Madlen Davies for MailOnline

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You might think that just one cigarette ‘can’t hurt’. But it could in fact cost a smoker almost 14 minutes of their life, according to new calculations.

A new website has worked out how much time a smoker, alcoholic or a drug addict will lose, each time they use.

For example, regularly smoking 20 cigarettes a day cuts ten years off a person’s life, the website claims.

Alcoholics cut their lives short by 23 years, while chronic cocaine users lose 34 years, it adds. 

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Each time a heroin addict takes a normal dose of the drug, they cut almost 23 hours off their life. Methadone cuts almost 13 hours and cocaine cuts 5 hours, the website claims

The calculations were made using data from official sources including the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Treatment4addiction, a website providing information people with drug and alcohol addictions, has calculated how many years an addiction to cigarettes, alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, methadone and heroine are cutting from their lives by continued use. 

Mephamphetamine addicts live to an average age of just 38, while heroin addicts don’t fare much better, dying at on average at just 38 years old.

The website’s creators have also worked out how many minutes or hours each single dose will cost an addict.

One line of cocaine takes a chronic user five minutes closer to death, while a single methadone pill costs a user almost 13 hours. 

Treatment4Addiction.com is a ‘resource for people looking for help and support in regards to drug and alcohol addiction’, its developers said.

All the data came from official sources including the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Jake Tri, project manager for the website said it was formed after the developers heard comments about how much time smoking a cigarette costs a person, and wanted to find out the exact figure.

Heroin addicts cut their life the most, followed by chronic mephamphetamine and methadone users. The estimates are for addiucts where negative effects would be cumulated over time

He told MailOnline: ‘The initial inspiration for this project was from hearing a statement many of us have come across in passing… Something like “Smoking one cigarette takes away 10 minutes of your life”.

‘We then wondered about other drugs and applied the same methodology using statistics from several reputable sources.

They checked their methodology against statistics from the University of Bristol, and found they were very close, with differences attributed to the fact they were using U.S. government sources rather than U.K. statistics.

He added that the methodology gives an estimated number rather than a definite number. 

He said: ‘There are far too many factors to give a 100% accurate assessment of how much time one loses after smoking a single cigarette or taking a single drink.

‘However this methodology does provide a good estimate for those that are chronic users of a certain substance, as it is based on average usage and life expectancy data.’

treatment4addiction.com for more information.

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