re: What say the OT? How can I help my wife stop smoking?

You should give up trying to help and just assume the length and quality of her life will be reduced; the final period of her life will be physically and emotionally grueling for both of you; that promotions and raises will be compromised and thus the household income will fail to grow, now and in the future because many people are biased against smokers especially in health care and premature death will hurt the retirement planning; survey the top cancer centers in the nation and prepare plans and budgets that allow you to move next to one of them, may be good to sell the house or move to smaller rent immediately, save that money and be ready to get rid of and sell everything quickly to buy an RV to make it easy to go to one of the better cancer centers; that you need to construct a plan to liquidate all assets because once the major health issue hits, all that money will be needed; prepare power of attorney for her to sign so you can make decisions and take actions necessary when the moment arrives; look at how do-not-resuscitate orders have to be drafted; and start buying books on how to deal with spouses that have terminal diseases; and begin evaluating options for home health care, hospice, etc.

You need to do a lot of contingency planning. She will shrug off the risks now but people tend to change that stance when the risks become realities and the reaper is knocking at the door. Anticipate a lot of abrupt, dramatic changes. You need to starting cut back on trips, or hunting, or game tickets or whatever your hobbies are, and put more money aside in order to help respond to these changes. Get her in the loop too, so she knows things have to be cut back and money saved. Creating a separate 'road to death' savings account would be a good idea. Understand that road is one way, so when the process starts it's not stopping so don't worry about planning for her post-recovery life because that doesn't happen.

Make lists of all of this, dust off your project management skills or get a small book on project management so you can get through all of this efficiently.

Just be sure to make some space in your home office or another location so she can find these materials. It'll be good for her to know you're planning ahead and she can contribute too. Most of the upcoming burdens on you and the rest of the family will be due to her actions, so it's not unfair to ask that she share responsibility in planning.

When you're getting ready to take a long trip, you put gas in the car, check the tires etc. No different here. Start preparing now. While she's still able, she can help.