What if someone you care about has bad health habits?....

Today's post: Monday, 2-23-2009

Sunday’s Dear Abby had a letter from a woman who was understandably concerned that her husband would die from his bad health habits.

He smokes and makes no effort to eat better. She gives no details about what he actually eats. But smoking alone can produce the problems that sparked her worry & that she lists.

They’ve been married 32 years; he is only 55; and he has survived five heart attacks so far!

Jeanne Phillips who writes Dear Abby’s answer was to focus on enjoying the time left with her husband. The answer points out that spending time focusing on her worries would get in the way of that. The answer also suggests reaching out to a member of the clergy or a therapist for counseling and emotional and morale support.

This answer is OK but extremely incomplete. Indeed, why not enjoy what she can now of her life with her husband that she still has left? That’s wise advice.

But, it’s too bad that the whole column couldn’t have included the other points I think this woman needs to hear and postponed the other letters for another time.

So, here are my efforts to answer those points.

A. She clearly needs to have already set up her plans for what she will do if he does die in the next 2 to 10 years. He sounds like he is fixing up their house. Will she be able to keep it or keep it long enough to avoid selling soon in the middle of the recession? If he keeps the records of real estate taxes or house payments, does she know where they are and how to proceed? Does she have a way to get an income if she isn’t working now? Does he have a will or life insurance policy? And, if so, does she know where the paperwork is? These kinds of issues can be worked on now while he is still around.

And, other than that he’s survived his initial 5 heart attacks, it doesn’t sound promising that he will live more than 10 more years. Smoking speeds up aging and directly causes heart attacks, strokes, and erectile dysfunction -- & more. So this part is crucially important. She may well need to be set up to do these things. Why not get ready just in case?

B. She needs to find out what SHE can do to become less exposed to second hand smoke. She may develop some of the same problems from that alone if she does not do so. (Second hand smoke often causes the same problems as smoking if you get enough of it.)

Smoking IS a hard habit to break in general; and for people who are nicotine dependent or who get a dopamine rush from smoking, it can be even harder.

But smokers CAN give up the 40 % of the cigarettes they smoke by giving up those they only want to smoke some instead of a lot. And they can smoke outside instead of inside. Her husband might be willing to do either or both if she asks him to even if he can’t quit.

HER life might depend on having him do both even if she doesn’t smoke.

C. She might be able to do some good in improving his health habits. Clearly what she had tried, and likely his doctors have tried, has not worked so far.

Here are some ways she might do that.:

One of the extremely valuable strategies I’ve learned from football is to “Take what the defense gives you.”

The idea is to find what will work -- even though you know some things won’t -- and do all the things that WILL work. Sometimes doing that energetically will produce so much gain and so many positive effects you can get to your desired end result in spite of what will NOT work.

1. If she fixes foods in the categories he likes and he eats what she cooks, she can make small tweaks in what he eats so he eats better even though to him it seems the same. She can feed him grass fed steak with caramelized onions and some onions just cooked until soft in extra virgin olive oil instead of cooking grain fed steak with baked potato and sour cream or she can feed him a Chef’s quality recipe wild caught salmon dish that has a lot of flavor if he likes salmon or is willing to try it. She can learn some ways to make decent tasting vegetable dishes and serve him small servings of those. She can get him walnuts and pecans or dry roasted almonds with his favorite beer instead of junky snacks while he watches TV. She can make him his favorite salad with extra virgin olive oil and garlic instead of a dressing that uses corn or soy oil and high fructose corn syrup. He’ll eat about the same as he’s used to or close to it. He even may really like the new dishes. But the health impact on him will be dramatically different.

2. She can ask him to smoke outside when he possibly can and be really nice to him if he does. She can ask him to try only smoking the cigarettes that he most wants and skipping those he can just as easily pass up.

3. Or, she can ask him if he got the medicines that make it five times as easy to quit if he’d be willing to try that. Incredibly, his doctors very well might not have suggested this. Or, she can ask his doctor to suggest it. He might listen to the doctor if the doctor suggested it while he might not if only she suggests it. (It can be easier to try something hard if you know you’re using a method that is proven to load the dice in your favor. Maybe her husband doesn’t know these meds are available and do help.)

4. Or, she can let him know that if he only uses matches to light up and NEVER uses a lighter, it slashes his risk of getting lung cancer. Who knows? So far, he’s survived the heart attacks. If he can avoid lung cancer, he may live longer than 10 years.

5. She can have him try supplements. 100 mg a two times a day of CoQ10 sometimes gives people with impaired heart function better heart function and more energy.

She can also have him try the supplements that lower his risk of heart attack. If he took those, he might go longer between heart attacks or survive the next one instead of dying from it.

(Our post tomorrow will have some good news about one of the most effective of these supplements and why it works even better than once thought to prevent heart attacks.)

Lastly, even if many of these ideas don’t work, if she does as many of them as she can that will work and does them in a practical and loving way, she’ll be more in control of her life and will FEEL more in control. And that will help her no matter what happens.