If you had been here for awhile, you would know that I have been particularly harsh on doctors who berate patients for lifestyle issues. I've even written letters to some of them regarding the manner in which they dealt with a particular patient. You are right, it serves no purpose. But where it is important is when a patient CONTINUES during treatment to engage in a known risk factor for the disease. Those patients have to be turned around, as we know that it diminishes survival rates in both the short and long terms significantly. Ideally this takes place by offering them a nicotine replacement therapy like inhalers or nasal sprays. These are prescribed far too little in my opinion. Harm reduction is essential.

As to guilt feelings, we are all the architects of our own situations in life. If I had known I was going to live this long, I wouldn't have treated my body like a rental car for as long as I did. That being said, I still likely could not have side-stepped a viral caused cancer. Guilt can be a useful emotion. Speaking only for myself, I have felt guilty about some of my past actions, and curtailed/reined in that part of my personality that allowed those events to take place. Fear and guilt, while negative, can often be pathways to growth. I am particularly thick skulled, and I can tell you in my own life, I sometimes only change when the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of change itself.