Accountability and Honor
I have read a lot of Hall of Fame speeches on KTC and today I get to do my own. I would like to do something a little bit different though. My quit has been about myself and always will be. The way a real quitter’s mentality should be. So I would like to recap the things that have happened with KTC and the people in the past 100 days, because without all of these people I would have a dip in right now and not be quit.
The first day or maybe day 2 I virtually walked through that chat door and I don’t remember anything. You could have told me the sky was green that day and I would have believed you. The fog was heavy; the stress level was at 1000 percent but it wasn’t just because I had stopped dipping. I had just started a new job, have a baby on the way, building a new house, and to top it all off I stopped dipping. There were multiple people in chat and I remember two vividly. One was Jeffrey Dolfie and the other was Steph Larowe. THEY were more excited that I was in there than I was! How is this possible that these 2 people that I have no idea who they are be excited that I am on day 1, or day 2…who the hell knows what day it was! The comments directed to myself were “day 2 is baddass fluck” “day 2 is awesome congrats”. I am a pretty social guy but this welcoming was just unheard of. I sat in chat all day talked about how much I paid for dip, how I missed it, how my life sucked, how the world was crashing. You name it I thought about it and I couldn’t see ANY silver lining anywhere, but I knew one thing I always had the people in chat to have my back. I got PM’s on the forum, I had cell numbers, my phone was blowing up, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to stay quit. My girlfriend was supporting me and she said anything you have to do to stay quit do it. I had so many numbers and people texting me to make sure I was good, Im sure she thought I was seeing someone else, and I kind of was, It was all of Killthecan.org.
A week went by of me frequenting the chat day in day out from 7:30am to 4:30pm. I met new people played around in the fog still asked questions, but most importantly started to gain friendships. Dolfie and Steph would be busting on each other, I would just sit back and read what was wrote and something put my hand on my head in disgust. But it kept me quit. It kept my mind off of what I had done for 10 years, and unknowingly start to grow a bond of KTC chat family. I had my routine down, I would get into work, log into my PC, hit up killthecan.org forums post roll and then jump into chat only to find myself alone until everyone started to come in. The friendship was building and I was slowly gravitating to specific people who I started to get to know.
Week 3 was an interesting week. I had started to feel good about my quit, my craves were subsiding. It didn’t feel like the end of the world and I started to understand that people are going to come in and out of chat. Chat platform changed a couple times but always stuck out the changes and it was fun listening to everyone bitch about the old platform or how bad the new one was. But one thing stood strong was that I was quit and anything I needed someone was there. My mornings started to consist of getting to work, posting roll, logging into chat and johnnodip and I would sit in chat and talk about everything and anything. From guitars, to precious metals, to gardening to stock market. Whatever the hell was going on John and Eric in the morning would always happen. (It still happens to this day). I sat back one night almost getting ready to approach week 4 and said to myself. Damn I actually have some close friends that I talk to every day and never met them!
Week 4 I was getting more comfortable. Learning new names, screen names, everything under the sun. At this point Dolfie was telling me I needed to go to the Nasty 9th meet, so I can meet all the people we talk to. Of course I was very reserved and just said sure not knowing if I would really go. I mean these are people I met on the internet, can I really trust them? I said I would go and typically I don’t go back on my word although this time I wished I didn’t commit to something I wasn’t comfortable with.
Nasty 9th Annual PA meet. Where do I start. I remember driving down to the meet nervous like it was a first date I was going to. Sweaty palms, devouring sunflower seeds, scared shitless to go to someone’s house that I had no idea who it even was. Sure I made a couple texts back and forth but who knew who was on the other end. I did the only thing I knew at this point and I texted one of my chat friends Chickdip. Of course she answered the text and she said to me that this will completely solidify my quit and I will feel as though I have known these people my entire life. (I thought to myself yea okay, rolled my eyes and thought that’s not possible). I arrived and was IMMEDIATELY greeted by Boelker. Luckily I knew who he was because I had friended him on facebook. I grabbed my stuff and entered the back yard of Erin and David’s home. There were lots of people there already and I felt a little uncomfortable but I started to use my social skills and just start introducing myself. Most had no idea who I was unless they went into chat but those from chat knew I was the duck killer (I work on a Duck Farm). I was meeting people and trying to put them with their screen names. I was totally overwhelmed at this point. Then I got to the point where I met someone who had become a very good friend and someone I talked to a lot in chat. This person came up to me and said he Flucker and I had said hi but I had no idea who it was. I said whats your screenname and he said I’m KDIP. I said no really who are you (I had got my people confused and thought that KDIP was 19). He said no really I am KDIP and we had a laugh and then had some more of the beer we were drinking. It was at this point I knew that I felt at home and I was with the people who were all going through the same thing that I was. Fighting nicotine one day at a time. About 2 hours later and a couple beers later, (you had to hydrate yourself as it was 100 degrees that day) Dolfie walked in. He had facebook messaged me to let me know he was on his way but I was knee deep meeting people and trying to make some sort of sense of what the hell was going on. Dolfie finally showed up and it was so amazing meeting the person who I claim to be my KTC sponsor. KTC doesn’t have “sponsors” but I had labeled Dolfie as my sponsor. Meeting someone who actually cares about your health and really doesn’t know you is special. He is a true inspiration and I could not be quit without him and his support. It was truly inspirational being at the quit meet and it will be something that I will be a part of for life. It made my quit so much stronger and gave me full accountability for staying quit.
I can honestly say in the last 100+ days that life has been challenging, rewarding, awkward, trying, you name it I felt it. But I owe my entire 100 days to the people that have been there for me. Guided me through tough times, showed me the way, taken my mind off of it. I cannot thank them enough for everything that everyone has done in the KTC community.
My goal moving forward is to be the person(s) that these people have/were to me when I was new. Make new quitters feel welcomed. Feel accomplished after a couple days quit. If I can change one person’s life and have them quit and stay quit, then this has been a success for me and my quit.
Thank you to everyone for the support and to this website. I quit with all of you today.
NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member ericfluck
