OK, this is going to make me unpopular but here goes. We all fall off the waggon sometimes, and it is important for a forum to have threads where diabetics can confess their failings and encourage each other to get back on the waggon. I suspect Andy was responding to the fact that this thread seems to have a different, defiant tone – of diabetics saying that they choose to smoke, eat badly, drink a bottle of wine every night, and sounding as if they are proud of the fact, and daring others to take offence. That is certainly how I have read these posts. If the posters concerned did not mean this, then they should say so, so that other forum users do not pick up bad ideas. Having occasional lapses is one thing. But setting out to be a ‘bad diabetic’ doesn’t mean someone is being naughty, or that they are a daring free spirit – it just means that that person will die more quickly. In that context, I think that ‘each to their own’ is not a compassionate response, but a callous one.