TLDR: a really unhealthy mate, at risk of heart attack, won’t change his bad habits. How to help him see the right way forward?
OK so the scenario is that one of my best mates was diagnosed with calcification off thr charts and that his heart related arteries are blocked and at risk of heart attack.
Setting the scene, he left school at 15, was never educated about health, worked as a bricklayer where the norm was a pie and sausage roll + a large chocolate flavoured moove drink was the norm, followed by a visit to the pub to drink beer. Evening food is almost always steak and chips or similar. And his habits haven’t changed much especially on the beer front. Drinking 5ish beers each day is the norm.
He dismisses any life choices as being responsible, and blames genetics and says the doctors told him there’s nothing he can do. I know that to be wrong.
So he is continuing to live this way and if I bring anything up about potentially changing, he immediately dismisses it.
How do you get through to someone like this? He has a young child and I’d like him to be around as a good friend and a father.
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you can’t MAKE someone change
THEY have to want to change
I mean, the doctors aren’t totally wrong, the calcification isn’t going away. Lifestyle changes will just keep it from getting worse. Unfortunately you can’t make him want to live a longer life, he has to want that for himself.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink.
Only your friend can make the change.
You don’t. He’s a growed ass adult, let him live (or die) by his choices.