I will break into this week’s helpful hints for quitting smoking by telling you about last week. Last week was one of my roughest weeks in that my father passed away quite unexpectedly. As I look back I can see the signs in that the last few years of his life were not very happy ones. He did not have much of a life, as all that he enjoyed had been taken away from him.

By the end of his life my father had lost most of the things that had always formed his very happy personality. He could not tell a joke or sing a song. He could not be silly, jump about, or play with the grandchildren. In short he could not do anything except doze in a chair all day and sleep all night. He had all manner of ailments, not the least of which had been diabetes, so even the food he once loved was no longer his to enjoy.

Now this is a blog about helpful hints for quitting smoking. So why do I mention all of this here. Well first I would like to say that this blog is more along the lines of an inquiry, and I don’t have all of the answers.

No, I never claimed to be the world’s foremost specialist on quitting smoking- if there is such a person. But I am pretty highly trained in why people do what they do, and how people can shift that. And I know a heck of a lot about addiction. And that is all very well and good, but neither I nor anyone else can quit smoking for you, no matter how much we know.

So as an inquiry, I mull over the fact that my dad had in some ways lost his heart and soul, and in fact his will to live. Now it is true that he struggled about leaving the rest of us behind. But in the final analysis, his will to be ‘done with it all’ won out.

And also as an inquiry I have to wonder how much success a person would have in quitting smoking if he or she were not very happy in life. I have to think that if there is terminal upset, chronic pain or sadness around one’s life, or if one is in some unhappy situation, the drive to fulfill some background desire to end it all might be quite strong. And smoking is certainly a socially acceptable way to do it without looking like you are.

Now I don’t claim that everyone who does not quit smoking has a death wish. Far from it. I know the physiological and mental pull that an addiction, any addiction, has on a human being. But I do claim that if your life is not happy, loving, and content- if you are living in some terminal upset, or pain- you’d better deal with it if you want to be successful- regardless of all of my helpful hints for quitting smoking.

And one could argue that to conquer an addiction- any addiction- the drive to live must be strong, huge, and urgent. So as you do your Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or whatever method you use to begin to quit, do not miss the opportunity to take a good look at your life. And shift your life if necessary into a space of happiness. Now I could certainly do a hundred articles on how to do that. But a good place to start is by looking at my other blogs. My dad, by the way, was a terminally happy person, and not a bad example to follow when he was in good health and fully functioning.

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