This is a Good Milestone – I Will Never See my Goal

This is gonna be long. This is gonna be REALLY long.

I was debating posting an HOF speech. I figure my introduction is just as good as an HOF, but there are a few points I want to make in my HOF that belong here.

First of all, hitting 100 days is a good milestone. In fact, it’s a tremendous milestone. Every other attempt at quitting never lasted more than a few weeks. Maybe longer. But it’s just a milestone. My goal will never be acheived. Scratch that… I will never SEE my goal. My goal is death before dip. I will acheive THAT goal.

The difference with this quit is, this wasn’t an attempt. This was a commitment. It was a commitment to myself and, perhaps more importantly, it was a commitment to you. Whenever I’m asked what motivates me, the one thing that always tops the list is fear. A special kind of fear. Fear of disappointing those who are relying on me. I’ve never had a problem letting myself down. But for some reason you strangers were the motivation I needed. I was afraid of letting you down. I knew if I let people I know down, they’d forgive me. You…. you people would not forgive me. And that fear was a critical motivator in my quit.

Now I am quit. I’m 100% convinced of that. I’m not “Quitting” anymore. I’m quit. Because of you. You people who don’t know me. You people who come from hundreds of different walks of life. You people who held me accountable for 117 days so far. I will never ever be able to repay the commitment you’ve made to me and the impact you’ve had on my life. How do you repay someone for saving your life?

My speech is not about me. It’s about you. It’s about this site. It’s unbelievable that there’s an entire cottage industry surrounding nicotine addiction, and all we really need is a kick in the balls. A free kick in the balls, at that. This site needs to be on 60 Minutes or 20/20 or something. Whenever I see someone buying a tin, I want to hand them a card that says “You can quit – do it here.”

I’m going to start naming names now. Consider this “the credits” – feel free to walk out now becuase this is where it gets really lengthy. I’m not going to name everyone. That’s just unrealistic. But there are many that I want to mention becuase of the tremendous impact the’ve had on my quit.

First and foremost, I have to thank Cancrusher. He turned that spreadsheet over to me and it was the most influential element of my quit. Thank you Austin. I will never be able to repay you for what you’ve done for me. You still check on me periodically and I follow your comments throughout the site. You’re wise beyond your years and you have a motivating voice that hundreds, if not thousands, of us rely on daily. I look to you as my moral compass. And I will never be able to repay you for that.

Though my quit is 3 months old, I don’t want to forget a critical influence early on. NOLAQ showed me how this was done. I don’t know if I’ve even communicated with him one-on-one. Maybe once or twice. But in the beginning, it was his words that kept me strong when I was at my weakest.

Somewhere in the middle of my quit… somewhere in the 50s… I received a message from someone who I didn’t really know. I saw some posts from him, and respected what he had to say… but I didn’t really think much of him. When Souliman told me that my quit motivated him, that motivated me so much more. Who was this guy? He’s ahead of me in the pecking order… who am I to motivate him? Knowing that my quit had an impact on someone who had more days under his belt than me really locked me in to this site.

For some reason, Cornwallace starting posting support for me in August. I don’t know why. I thought it was random. He just picked a name, I thought. Then he made a point of reaching out to me in chat one night. Seems he liked what I brought to the table. Ok. Great. Thanks. Why does that matter? It mattered to me because I always felt that whatever I wrote was for ME. If it helped someone else, great, but for the most part, it was for ME. After the message I got from Corn, I started to make a greater effort in supporting others. I’ve dialed it back a lot in the past couple of weeks because of work, but I wouldn’t have done it at all without simple comments from Corn.

There are many other vets I can thank, but I’m already WAAAAY long and haven’t even gotten to the quitheads yet. (and, I might add, this is MY HOF, so I’ll make it as long as I want!)

There are 38 of us in August now. I know each and every one of you in some way. I know when you post, when you don’t, and – many times – why you don’t post before you don’t post (Does that make sense?). There are some Quitheads I have to recognize.

Parry, for calling me out on the Casey issue. I was pissed, but you were right.
Dchogs – thanks for always checking in from time to time. It keeps me honest.
Dante – let’s go Mets. Sometimes there are people you keep your eye on and for some reason you’re one of them.
Marj – Dunno why. Just feels like we’re on the same page most of the time.
Closer – You’ve always been my go to person when I can’t post roll, and you’ve always been there for me. Thank you.

That’s not everyone. Not even close. But I can’t keep naming names. I’m getting exhausted and, frankly, I’d be surprised if anyone read this far. So thank you to my fellow quitheads. Thank you to everyone who made this site happen.

Finally, there are two people I have to thank because of their weakness. BigRubberDucky and JParis. They were early quitters in August and they caved. They were the two people I latched onto early on and they let me down. They made my quit weaker. I hate them for that. I will never forget the trust I placed with them and the trust the violated by disappearing. So thank you cavers. You were the prime example of the fear I mentioned earlier. I was relying on you and you let me down. Your failure magnified my fear. You made my quit weaker initially, but so much stronger in the end because I so badly did not want to be like you.

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member per034