So in this blog about helpful hints for quitting smoking it seems oddly appropriate to speak about my dad, who passed away last week. He was not a smoker, so that was not the issue. But the one thing I have to say is that for the past few years he was truly not enjoying his life.

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.

I have some answers to some questions- questions like “How do addictions work?” and “Why do people in general do what they do, in the way that they do it?” And I can make a good stab at helping people one-on-one to shift their behavior. But in the final analysis it is you and no-one else who will or won’t quit Stlth smoking.

So in this inquiry about quitting smoking I have to take note of the fact that for my dad, and for a lot of people who leave us, it is often true that the heart and soul, or a person’s will to live, is gone. And even though my dad struggled over the idea of leaving the people he loved, there was certainly a large piece of him that was done with the whole business.

So I take this into the realm of our inquiry by saying that if you are struggling in your life for some reason, or if you have terminal and ongoing upsets and pain in your life- if you are in short unhappy- how much chance will there be that you will actually quit smoking? You will be living, like my dad, in the confusion, with conflicting desires. And one can hardly argue that smoking is one easy, socially acceptable way to fulfill on some hidden wish to die.

Now I would be the last one to say that all people who smoke are fulfilling death wishes. Smoking is an addiction and it is pretty hard to conquer the physical and emotional cravings. However I do say that it is probable that my blog on helpful hints for quitting smoking will not be useful to those who are actually living lives of misery. There would almost have to be some latent, or blatant, desire to stop the pain, somehow.

So if you are someone in this kind of situation it becomes vital that you A) Be honest with yourself about your unhappiness, and B) Take the steps to begin to create your happiness. This will in turn give you the will to live. And you can do this while you are doing your Neuro-Linguistic Programming, or hypnosis, or whatever you like. You can start the process by visiting my other blogs. My dad, by the way, loved life and he lived to be happy before he became so desperately ill. And you can live that way too, I’m sure.