Endurance Nine Weeks In

Tomorrow will be nine weeks that I’ve been quit. Nine weeks. I still can’t believe it really. One day at a time adds up.

I’ve been a little introspective and reflective lately as the days of quit go by. I’ve taken a look at how I feel, the events (drama) that’s gone on, the arguments, the laughs, the FU’s, words of wisdom and words of banter. It’s been one of the greatest stretches of time in my life. I’ve grown as a man. I’m not just a quitter, I’m a better man. It’s what my quit is about. It’s my original intro – to become a man of integrity. It’s happening one day at a time.

Each day when I was growing up, my dad used to tell me a little proverb. He would say, “to earn a good name, it takes a lot of hard work. To keep a good name, it takes even more hard work. To lose a good name, it only takes a second.” As the adrenaline and emotion of the new quit has worn off and the drudgery of getting through one more day goes on, I think about this a lot. I had a caver in my group this last week that brought it to the forefront of my mind again. I just can’t believe it really. It makes me sad and it makes me super mad. I truly hate the idea of a cave. I hate it with everything within me.

I’ve had someone tell me, don’t let it get to you like that. To them I say Fuck Off. You have no idea what this quit means to me. You have no idea how big a deal it is, it is a huge gift. It’s a gift given to me by the thousands of dudes that have quit before me and have posted on this site. It’s the gift of millions of posts, some a promise to stay quit, some words of wisdom and yep, even the dreaded three questions and day 1 posts. It’s the gift I gave myself going through those first two weeks of hell. This quit is mine but it was bought and paid for with the stuff money can’t buy and then it was given to me to grow it, nurture it, and guard it. It was given with a promise that if I faithfully took care of it, I would be a better man, and it would add to the beauty of it for the next guy that gets this gift.

When I first joined the site and I would see the some of the posts following some guys admission to caving I thought, dang, these guys are a bunch of dicks. It didn’t take me long to understand the importance of it. There must always be, without fail, a mindset and heart set of a zero-tolerance policy. There can be no wavering in the resolve of the members of this site that the basic tenant of giving your word and keeping your word is sacred. I cringe at the idea that we become a site where we’re giving guys a pat on the ass and a “you’ll get ’em next time tiger.” Tolerance in the slightest form, demeans, devalues and depreciates our quit. It is the cancer that will metastasize and render useless a powerful force that makes this a bad ass effective quit site. Tolerance leads to acceptance. Acceptance is the world we lived in. To get from tolerance to acceptance, we have to accept lies. Lies that make what is wrong, be OK. And after awhile of a lie being OK, then we end up living in a world where a lie actually becomes truth! There wasn’t a single quitter that has come through these virtual doors that hasn’t been delusional. And all of the people in the life of that person, are also delusional, because they’ve had to figure out ways to accept a lie to be around an addict and be OK with it.

This site works because it propagates truth. It is hard hitting, 100% concentrated truth. It’s difficult to take because we’ve accustomed ourselves to living lies. But it is true what is written – The Truth shall set you free. There are thousands of posts about the nic bitch’s lies. That isn’t a fairly tale. That is the truth. Every single one of those posts is a statement to remind us that there is a difference between reality and the lies we lived in. The greatest threat to this site and this group of people is not a virus that would take the site down or even the loss of members. The greatest threat is an apathetic tolerance that is shrouded in a lie which is called compassion. I think of this often because we have bought that lie in our society that somehow being truthful and upfront is contrary to compassion and empathy. It is not. We can be compassionate to the caver – but never ever ever ever ever ever ever, can we be OK with it and say it’s OK. If we do that even once, then what we effectively do is say that a man’s word really isn’t that important..well, it’s mostly important but not always or sometimes it’s not important. Bullshit. Our word is everything. It’s the foundation of truth. It’s honor. It’s the name we’ve worked so hard to achieve. We must pay attention to that and press forward.

Well this is turning into quite the sermon, but I suppose I’m mostly making sure that I document this for myself as I go into the dreaded days of the 70’s funk next week. I’m armed now. I’m grateful to you all that post on here. I’m a better man today because of you. I thank you once again for this beautiful gift you’ve given me. I promise you, I will guard it vigilantly today. Most sincerely, Bronc.

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member Bronc