Dating affects us all at some time or another. For many it happens during teenage years and twenties, before meeting love of their life and settling down to wedded bliss for rest of their naturals.

For more and more of us however dating revisits later in life, at a time when we're probably feeling pretty vulnerable, for all kinds of reasons.

Mixed emotions surface as a result of divorce - have I still got 'it', am I too fat hin/wrinkled/boring/uncool... It may be that after a serious of disastrous relationships we start to wonder if there really is something wrong with us as people and maybe we are simply meant to be single.

The good news is that it really is possible to turn things around, sometimes by changing a few basic rules or behaviours so that others can see fantastic personality lurking within.

These tips aren't written in stone but form solid guidelines for those scaredy cats who haven't dated for a while. They also work for those who have an inkling they may be getting it wrong.

- Yes, you will have to kiss a number of frogs or frogesses before you meet someone you really like. So don't take dating too seriously and be prepared for let downs.

I am a reformed alcoholic. I am a reformed chain smoker. I am an ex-fat person. I am also not selling anything. My only wish now is to help people by passing on my knowledge; I guess this sounds too good to be true. When you have really nearly died a few times, money takes on a sort of reduced role in your thinking. Make no mistake about it, we are all going to die, even you will die one day. When you are young this seems a long long way away, I'm fifty now, and it sure seems a little closer to hand than it did. So it makes sense to make time I have left quality time, free of drink smoking and obesity; after all it is easier to get older if you feel fitter, than if you are ruining your body daily. I wish I had started earlier in life, YOU CAN.

You may think I have superhuman will-power to quit drinking and smoking (and gambling and all other excesses). To a certain extent that is true; I have a great deal of will power, but I also have a method, a way of thinking, which helps.

For some reason, and it may have been a good  one at time, you have a craving, an overpowering addiction. You love something more than you love yourself at present time.

Think "myself or my health."

In this "New Labour" "Tony Blair" type world, certainly in Britain, everything is explainable in terms of something else more convenient. It doesn't detract from plain fact that Emporer really hasn't got any clothes on at all. In short, it's not stretching truth, it's really a very big lie(s).

This is what you are currently doing to yourself, you are living out a lie in order to placate yourself, in order to make what you are doing palatable. What you are really doing is killing yourself a lot quicker, and a lot more painfully than is really necessary; and by and large no-one gives a damn whether you do or you don't; they are too busy with themselves to really and truly bother about YOU. By and large this is correct. The few people that possibly do care either havn't a clue how to help, or are simply hampered by realisation that it is only YOU who can cure it.

There are really no excuses: If you are drinking too much you are a pain of a drunk. If you are smoking too much you are a pain of a smoker. If you are gambling too much you are a liability, just as you are if you are on drugs. You probably nodded to all these, and felt agreement, so why don't you realise that you are putting an intolerable  strain on people around you, to say nothing of strain on Health Professionals.

WHY?

Because you are too self-indulgant to stop for a minute enjoying yourselves to see if you are bothering other people, too wrapped up in yourselves to care about others. There is no magic formula to giving up an addiction: You stop doing what it is that is costing you, and every  one around you a fortune. You stop paying out what you havn't got on things YOU DON'T REALLY NEED.

To break that down further, in order to do this you will need to changeyour whole way of life, permanently. Make no mistake, if you are really and truly HAPPY with what you are doing, then fine, go ahead and do it, but acknowledge that most things you really enjoy overdoing kill you slowly, and painfully, and most things  done to excess bring attendant guilt. Stop reading now if you don't want to quit for good and all or else you are wasting someone else's bandwidth who has what it takes when you have not got moral fibre.

What it takes is a modicum of will-power combined with a hell of a lot of common sense. I have had a lot of addictions, I am an excessive natured person. I find first step in losing any of them is to look at them as a phase I have grown out of. I have matured to such an extent I no longer need their crutch to carry me onwards.

Generally speaking, most addictions are to make up for or act as a distraction from world as it is. We have to learn to face up to life instead of running away from it, and hiding behind false barriers built up on shaky foundations of fleeting happiness bought at great actual and mental cost via addiction.