June 15, 2015 Day 131
131 days ago I decided that I would quit again.....it was becoming such a joke that I had adopted the phrase, "quitting is easy, I've done this shit multiple times." I had convinced myself that this time would be different, it had to be. I was 41 now, I was tired of ninja dipping, tired of being a slave to the can, tired of putting the bitch first and my family second. I had first discovered KTC 2 years prior before another failed quit but just looked around and did not think I needed it. With this quit I came back to the site, signed up, wrote some piece of shit introduction page and posted roll. What I saw over the next few days caught me off guard, cavers coming back, posting a day one and being drug through the coals by vets for their "addict speak" and post after post by my Misfit brothers about how shitty their quit was going. My first though was, "What in the hell did I just sign up for?"
So the days of my quit start to add up and I feel good about posting up a +1 on a daily basis, not much interaction by me on the forum because my job keeps me pretty busy during the day and I don't have much time to sit and comment on posts so in a sense I felt like an outsider looking into the group. My fog and craves were pretty intense until I hit the 30's but reading the site at night after I got off work at night kept me focused on my quit. I exchanged some digits with some of my brothers and there were a few times that they saved my quit and quite possibly my life. I had a trip to New Orleans for work for a end of year conference, the first night there was the first time in my quit that I was brought to my knees to tears by the bitch. Thank god for my wife who helped my drunk ass get back to the hotel room and listened to me cry like a little baby about how tough this was and to Wassinik who kept in tough by text and kept me accountable. For those of you reading this, stay away from alcohol at the beginning of your quit, the only thing that saved me that night were the fact that none of my co-workers dipped, my wife who drug my ass back to the hotel and the texts from Wass. Alcohol and young quits do not mix, put your pride aside and listen to what we are telling you, put the booze away for the beginning.
When I really started to feel like part of the group was when I got involved with the SSOA and digit list for May 15. I put together a list so that we could see who had each others digits in the group and be able to hunt down each other and find out why somebody had not posted roll. I still was not really active on the forum, every now and then I would put my $.02 in but for the most part I felt like most of my work was behind the scenes working on the SSOA or Groupme chat. Many times the call would come out in the afternoon about who had missed roll and I would use the digits I had to help reach out to my May brothers and get their ass on roll for the day. My point here is this, to the newbies here, there are many ways to be involved with your month. Some will step forward and become the vocal leaders in the month calling out fellow quitters and racking up their post count on a dally basis and being very active on the forum. For me that was not me, it took me awhile to get involved but I love feeling like I am a rock solid quitter "behind the scenes" per say. I want to thank the vocal leaders in May who got me on board with the group me and helped to make me feel like I was part of the group.
After I posted day 85 I decided to order my HOF coin. It came several days later and I left it in the envelope, I dared not open it and touch it or even look at it for fear that I would jinx myself and not get to day 100. When that day finally came I can not explain to you how proud I felt. I carry that coin with me almost every day to remind myself how far I have come in this DAILY journey and so that I will not forget the struggle it was at times. When I hit 100 days I commented that this was only a drop in the quit bucket and that there was still a very long journey ahead of me. That is the one thing that can not change after you reach 100 days, never forget that this is a DAILY battle. Do not plan on being quit forever, plan on being quit today! Make your promise, keep it for 24 hours and start over. Every day will be another drop in the bucket.
To finish up I want to share a story. My 12 year old daughter plays competitive softball and this year has been a real struggle for her. Her hitting has held her back and has affected her playing time and it has been hard to watch at some points because it has been failure after failure for her and her playing time has started to go down because the coaches have lost faith in her. As a parent being quit I have tried to explain to her the idea of working hard at softball today, not worrying about tomorrow or her future in softball, just like we do here at KTC. She has worked hard this past few weeks and has had some good games and had worked her way back in with the coaches. This weekend she had a tournament in Steamboat Springs, the team made it to the championship game and her coaches let her start and play the whole game and she did great. Watching that game was the second time my quit brought me to my tears, I immediately thought of KTC and that because of my Misfit brothers and my daily commitment to them that I was able to be there watching that game and that if I continue to make that daily promise and keep adding drops in the quit bucket I will be able to live my life free of nicotine and be able to watch my kids struggle with life and succeed. To all my May Misfit brothers and vets who have helped me in my quit and have helped build the brotherhood in May I thank you all. To anybody reading this who is early in your quit, it can be done. This can be the last time in your life that you quit, just put aside your pride and surrender to the quit, these total strangers on the internet will help you to save your life if you let them.
