Why The Rough Treatment?

Rough treatment. There are times when people think we take this quitting thing a bit too seriously.

The following question was asked in our forums:

There’s something that I don’t understand about this site. How is everyone all supportive of someone until they fail? Isn’t that when they are going to need your support the most? It’s naive to think that every single person who posts roll everyday will never fail in their effort to give up nicotine. So why, when they fail, they are banished? or at least ridiculed to the point where they leave? I’m new here, so there may be something I’m just not getting, but it seems like the problem is being dealt with wrong. The point should not be to be perfect in your quit, but to be actively involved in the quit. Each day we refuse to use tobacco, we are making ourselves better, whether or not we screwed up and used the day before. I’m not trying to start shit here, I’m just questioning where the whole “brotherhood” attitude goes when someone slips up.

Rough Treatment? Here’s Why

jost2brown provided the following (epic) answer:

Great question. Here is why cavers get the treatment they do – being quit is a choice. Things get bad? Sweat it out, sac up, get into chat, get on the phone, and stay quit. Whatever it takes.

There is NO good excuse for caving. People have stayed quit when their children have died, people have stayed quit through divorce, marriage, drunken binges, Super Bowl parties, and every other situation you can imagine.

If you fail, its not because someone else didn’t answer the phone or support you – it because YOU chose to fail. Tobacco cant drive your car to the c-store, it cant buy itself, and it cant pack you lip for you. By taking all the above steps, you have crapped all over the people who have stood side by side with you for however long and promised “nothing that happens to me today can make me go back to using nicotine.”

We know this is hard. We know with ever fiber of our beings what the rage, craves, sleepless nights, funks, and all the other shitty symptoms feel like. More importantly, we know they will pass. Cancer will NOT. We know this is life and death, and when someone chooses death it hurts us a little bit more. When someone with a lot of days behind them slips back to the can, it can cause all sorts of shit with a group. It burns out those who have supported and makes them feel stabbed in the back.

However, all of it serves a purpose – that purpose is to get the caver to realize what mistakes they made, identify why they made them, and develop a plan to prevent them from happening again. This is not a site for coddling failure or weak resolve – this is a site for saving lives.

Watch though what happens once someone does show they see what went wrong and executes a plan to fix it. There are some BADASS quitters on this site that HAVE caved, did the necessary self evaluation, and now are living proof that the methodology works. If you cant handle a little online ruff-housing, my gut tells me that quitting nicotine is gonna flat out whup your ass (again).

There is a place for those that do not want what KTC provides. That way may work for others, but when you sign up here all the bullshit and excuses go out the window. We are addicts, we speak the same language.

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member jost2brown