Getting to the comma, passing through the drama - By Frazz

[Evil_Won]

Getting to the comma, passing through the drama

Nine days ago, I hit my comma, and it was a huge accomplishment. I'd like to add my perspective to how important brotherhood, daily commitment, live chat, and making connections with new quitters and paying it back strengthen my quit. A lot of this material can be found in my intro, but I will condense it here...

I found this site on day 2. Like so many before me, I was thinking I would taper down and use the nic lozenges, and was convinced by Tarpon, klark and Redtrain to just go dump that crap out and get my wife to do the same at home. I did it, and a day later, I no longer had nicotine running through my system. I had cleared The Suck, and was doing ok. I got some really weird PMs from TCOPE, MikeA, Smokeyg, and I was confused but felt welcomed and knew I was in the right place.

We had a great core group in April 2011. Then the shit hit the fan, and our entire group were challenged by the drama going on around us. There was serious drama in our group. I suggest you read some of the "dark ages" where we had a group break off into their own sub-camp. Neither of those guys post with us anymore.

And I was fighting with another demon - the fact that my wife still smoked occasionally. I could smell the smoke on her breath, on her clothes, in her hair. It brought my mind back to the first time I ever took in nicotine, the first time I packed down my first pack of Marlboro 100's, how I switched my addiction from smoking to dip. I was given advised to try to form Team Frazzled, with my wife dumping her smokes and getting Quit herself. More on that story later...

As we passed our HOF, there were so many brothers and sisters who stopped posting, stopped replying to texts or Facebook messages. We had one guy who planned to cave because he was just quitting so he could be ready to meet his fiancee's parents. Our group grew smaller and smaller.

And then something magical happened. We had a small group of committed quitters who started paying it forward, reaching out to new quitters, supporting them as best we could. I wrote a lot about brotherhood and the need to stay close to your quit-mates because they would look out for you like you would look out for them. We formed a stronger bond, we posted every day. We hit floors 2 and 3, and finally got back to a single digit at the 1 year mark. I took part in a lot of beatings for those who had caved once, twice, thrice...

And then the most magical thing happened. I had just hit my first year, and my wife and I were talking one night. I told her it was time to just give up the smokes, and she had been thinking about that for a while - because smoking 2 or 3 cigs a day wasn't doing anything for her. And then she took the first step - we crushed her smokes and flushed 'em, she signed up on the site, Team Frazzled was formed as she joined April 2012. Today she is on the 6th floor, looking forward to freedom again tomorrow.

Was there drama in her group, and every other group? Absolutely. Did we surpass it and work towards the common goal of being quit? You bet. But what was the most important lessons I learned?

Brotherhood - develop common bonds with friends that you will keep for as long as you choose to stay.
Drink the Kool Aid - don't try to change the methodology here. It is time-tested and true, and it works for everyone who works it.
Don't Cave - but if you do, suck it up, take your punishment, and develop a new plan about how you're going to face what caused you to cave in the first place.
Chat!! - use it to rage, use it when you feel like giving up, use it for keeping the sense of brotherhood alive.
Don't get too close to gmann or ERDVM - they have weird tendencies that you want to avoid.

And most importantly, stay close to the site. The only known way to stay quit is to post your promise every day, and be a man or woman of your word.

Quit on.

~Frazz