Five Years Smoke Free!

Yay! Yesterday, June 23, was my non-smoker five years anniversary. I smoked my last cigarette on June 22, 2004, at 23:51. :-)

Quitting smoking is one of the most difficult things I ever did. I was extremely addicted to cigarettes. I remember that I had to smoke three of them first thing in the morning before I was able to do anything else. Sometimes I even smoked them while still lying in bed. I avoided places where smoking was forbidden, and even a bus ride made me anxious, because I couldn't smoke on the bus.

It took me 320 days to be over it. The two first months were uninterrupted torture. I thought it'd never stop. After that, it went up and down. I remember once sitting in a bar and crying my eyes out, because the cravings were so unbearable. At other times I was perfectly fine and barely thought of it. On day 275, I almost smoked again! On day 320 I had my last significant craving. After that, I sure got the occasional "I could smoke..." thought, but nothing serious. Now, I never think about smoking anymore.

Except on June 23, of course. :-D

What really helped me is that my friend Tom quit smoking together with me. That's how we became friends in the first place. During the first year, we checked in on each other regularly, talked about how we were doing, and congratulated each other. It helped me a lot to know that I had a partner who counted on me and that smoking again would pull him down as well. Thank you Tom. :-)

The other helping factor was rfo. Rfo is a German website called rauchfrei-online.de dedicated to helping people quit smoking ("rauchfrei" means "smoke free"). The site is great. If you happen to speak German and want to quit smoking, check it out!

On rfo there was such a nice community of people supporting each other that I felt I just had to succeed. They were so encouraging and believed in my success so much, how could I prove them wrong? Some there also admired my persistence, especially beginners and some of those who slipped up often. I knew they were looking up at me and that it would be very helpful for them to see it IS doable. Being a shining example gave me a lot of strength.

There also were a few people there who clearly did not like me. Those were even more helpful. The one time when I was sitting in the bar crying, the only reason I did not smoke was that those people would be happy if I did! :þ

I want to create something similar to rfo, but in English, for people all around the world. This site helped me so much. I believe that without rfo I would never have quit smoking. What a pity it's not available in more languages! I asked Dietmar, the creator of rfo, if he allows me to copy his site's idea and structure and to create my own version of it in English. Not only did he agree, he was even happy about it.

I already have the entire website in my head, I know exactly what I want to do. It will be a closed community. Each user will be able to write a public diary. There will be a forum and a chat, and a hall of fame, where every ten days or so, the happy non-smoker gets a loving cup. Every day, the members will get tasks to complete to keep them motivated and help them on their journey into freedom.

All this is just like rfo. The big difference between rfo and my project is the content of the tasks. Rfo is based mostly on traditional psychology, whereas my website will be an intensive personal development coaching program. Of course it will be targeted specifically at breaking the nicotine addiction, but I hope it'll be of some more general value as well.

I'm very excited about this project. As soon as I can afford to hire a programmer, I'll implement it! :-)

EDIT: Oohhhh!!! >:-( I just wanted to visit rfo to proudly claim that I am still smoke free... and saw it doesn't exist anymore! :'(

Well, now I REALLY have to implement my idea.