Slightly Different HOF

I felt as if I hadn’t been a good KTC member. I never reached out to my quit group for phone numbers and I never offered my number to anyone in the group. I never really had any kind of ‘electronic’ connection with any of the members of my group other than a couple of comments, PMs and of course, posting roll. I was never a proactive member. I think that’s partly because I couldn’t quite grasp the complexities of communication over a web site. I couldn’t figure out how to get into the ‘chat’ area or how to post roll from a cell phone, I don’t have a twitter account and don’t know what I’d use it for if I did. In fact, I’m still not sure I did anything according to the KTC rules other than post roll and stay quit.

Don’t misunderstand me, it’s not that I wouldn’t have done anything I could to help someone in the April ’10 quit group (or anyone else for that matter) stay quit. I read the posts, I followed the debates, I vicariously shared the joys and pains of the quit process with the group, I just didn’t know how to appropriately make the individual connections.

I think the reason I had so much trouble figuring out how to use the site is that I’m one of the oldest guys out there. I turned 60 a couple of weeks ago. Messing around on the internet is as foreign to us old folks as setting the dwell on a 260 V8 would be to you young guys. Remember, I started dipping Skoal Straight Long Cut before there was an internet or a cell phone. I started smoking cigarettes when JFK was president and moved on to dip somewhere around Nixon. I’ve been under the spell of nicotine for a very long time. And to think a bunch of internet avatars (that’s all I really know of you guys) could create an environment where an old fart like me could find the support I needed to quit is amazing in itself. What’s even more amazing is that you guys, you bunch of quitters, you mildly deviant gang of perverts, offered this supporting environment and asked nothing in return but my promise to stay quit.

I don’t know you guys. I probably never will. I don’t know how to know someone over a computer screen. But what I do know is more than enough. You, collectively, have helped me do something I have wanted to do for a very long time. You have helped me quit dip. And for that I will be forever grateful.

Now that I have reached the Hall of Fame milestone I must admit I was mildly surprised that on day 100 and every day since I have felt the same. I still crave dip. I still think about it, I still want it, I still fight it. So I feel like I need to put aside my ambivalence about doing the whole KTC process correctly (or incorrectly depending upon your point of view) and ask politely if I can continue my fight on the quiet sidelines of the April ’10 quit group. Because as far as I can tell there’s no better bunch of quitters to be be quit with.

Thanks and stay quit

Jim

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