tales from the quit
tales from the quit is a collection of stories, essays, rambles, and rants written as part of the process of winning back my freedom from my addiction to nicotine. i was diagnosed with an advanced case of emphysema on november 12th, 2001, and quit smoking a week later with the help of the american lung association's freedom from smoking program.
one of the features of that program is a series of message boards tied to the program's various "modules", where participants are encouraged to post their questions, concerns, observations, etc., as they work through each module's lessons. most of the pieces contained herein were originally posted on one of those message boards.
the (largely) positive response i got to these postings encouraged me to continue writing, and that reminded me that writing had always been one of the ways that i dealt with life changes, especially the ending of long-term relationships (and my relationship with cigarettes was one of the longest i ever had). choosing to break off that thirty-five-year relationship, and dealing with the consequences of that choice, has totally altered the trajectory of my life.
the "tales from the quit" collected here are the chronicle of that process.
there's also a quit-smoking support community (in the form of a series of message boards) here; it's free to join, and it's open to anyone who's in the process of quitting (or who has successfully quit). you can reach it through the "message boards" link in the menu above, or by clicking the following link (or typing the URL into your browser's address bar):
http://quit-smoking-support.woofmang.com/
kevin - grateful to be in my 8389th day of freedom today!
how many days have you been free? find out with the "quit calculator"!
