Some of you remember me! Some of you don’t! I used to live here! At midnight tonight I will celebrate 14 years of FREEDOM! On the eighth day of my quit I found this site! I joined because I figured it was a bunch of liberals that wanted to tell me how to live my life! And I was ready for a fight!
Off and on during the next 40 days I looked for a fight! Could not find one! Just a lot of mostly down to earth people who tried to help me stay quit! Some of those same people are still here today! Many are gone! Dale I see you here! Sheri I see you too! Sootie who I call Aunt Lucy after my favorite Aunt who was a no non-sense good common sense person! Sootie and I will be polar opposites for ever! But we became best friends!! Giulia always the truth! No sugar coating! RickM a steady constant force! Mike@tlanta. More than I can name! So many are not here anymore! Many gave all they had to give. And moved on! A lot left with the major change and when Mark became the Admin! I eventually left because of that! I do not always do well with change! Of course we all know how that worked for the dinosaurs!
At any rate I want to look back for a minute at how things used to be! Back in the day we had our own pages! There were message boards there! If one of us discovered someone struggling we would tell others and we would all go to that persons board to encourage and help them! It worked most times! And there was never a time when there was no one there to help! Dale caught the late night one from California! It was very personal and life long friends were formed! We used to have bonfires where each person virtually contributed the number of cigarettes they had not smoked since their quit! Bonfires were for the weekend and at least once we exceeded Two Million unsmoked nasties! We used to have a Freedom Train that was a daily blog celebrating people’s milestones! Many boarded the train! We posted pictures of food and links to music and honored people’s success! The motto of the train was “ If you are not riding with us, you are missing the Train!” We made a lot of lifelong friends! For 7 consecutive years we had a get together for those who could and would come! The first one was in Las Vegas! It was described as the place “Where Avitars Came To Life”! The people we only knew online became real! It was weekend of laughter and tears and memories that will last forever!
I look back to all of this because I want to say “Thank You” to this site and all the people that made it great! Dr Amanda Graham! You are an Awesome person!
There is no way I can list all the people who contributed to my quit. But you know who you are! And for better or worse I am still alive 14 years later because of you! So a big THANK YOU to all of you!
I have not been a part of what makes this place work for a while, but people like Marylin and Youngatheart continue to share the message and the support that saves lives and makes life better! Giant Kodos to all who continue to do Gods work here!
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!
LIVE FREE!! SMOKE FREE!!
LOVE TO SO MANY OF YOU!!
Just Me, Tommy
