[Magrus]

I hate cigarettes with a passion. I do not smoke them, but I've always been curious as to how many cigarettes worth of smoke I happen to inhale a day. Most of my friends and family (90% or more) smoke, and therefore I deal with them smoking around me if I wish to have their company. If any one of them were smoking, went to the hospital with a problem, and it was true it was caused by smoking...I would expect the doctor to act as mentioned above. If my little brother went to the hospital for a broken leg, and the doctor refused to treat him because he smoked, I'd hire a lawyer and take his house if he still did not fix my brothers leg.

Getting away from the smoking thing, I drink a lot. I'm not an alcoholic, I don't drink every day, yet when I do drink, there are times I put away enough alcohol in a night that puts me at risk of alcohol poisoning. I know this, and yet, I still do so. If in the event I happened to have said risk occur, personally, I would not expect medical assistance. It is my choice to do what I do, and I recognize the possible risks and accept them. I am not ignorant, and I am not forced to do what I do. It is my choice, and I do not expect any doctor or anyone to pay for medical treatment for the results of that.

Also, I, myself, have provided what I would have to consider as the services of a therapist/psychologist. Unlicensed, voluteer, and only to those who know this as the truth of my situation. Anyone who comes to me for help is given my time and caring in seeing they get better. I have gone out of my way to see to it people didn't kill themselves, and in fact saved lives. Given those experiences...some people do not care what happens to them in what they do to themselves as long as they get to whatever goal they had in mind. If someone wants attention and pity, sometimes they are willing to do anything to get it.

Not only that, some people ask for help, and do not truly want to be "fixed". You cannot fix a person who does not want to be fixed. Someone who wants to die cannot be convinced to change their mind, not for anything, until they come to grips with something profound and on their own that is worth changing their mind. You cannot force someone to want to make themselves better. So, in light of my experiences dealing with young people who cut themselves, try to kill themselves, down household products for attention, yada yada yada...sometimes I've had to cut them off, and tell them I cannot under any circumstances help them unless I lock them in isolation so they cannot do such things.

Sometimes you must draw a line with those who seek help in order to truly help them to help themselves. I believe there should be a line. If, as Hill mentioned, you have a person who nearly killed themselves by smoking, and continued to smoke without a care in the world I wouldn't treat the person if he came back to me with a life-threatening problem directly caused by smoking if he refused to quit. Why? Realistically, no matter what you to the patient, if he is inflicting harm on himself, and refuses to stop doing so, no matter how many times you patch him up, he will still keep harming himself until he has a reason to stop.

After dealing with multiple suicide attempts with a friend of mine, and helping her through them, I gave up. I told her to call me if she wanted help to get away from such thoughts and avoid doing such a thing ever again. I told her not to bother coming near me in any way with another threat of suicide, or informing me she was bleeding and going to die. No matter how many times I rushed to bandage her up and call 911, she still continued to repeat her actions. No matter what I tried to do to help her, she continued to do so. The way I saw it, until she met me half-way, my time and effort weren't wanted and were being wasted. I can't imagine it being any different with a regular doctor. If you inform a person "what you are doing is causing your problems, quitting will help you get better" and the person rejects your advice time and time again, there isn't much you can do.