John R. Polito served in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service from 1973 to 1982. Home-ported in Charleston, SC and operating out of Holy Loch, Scotland, he made seven FBM submarine cold war patrols between 1975 and 1978 while serving aboard the USS Von Steuben, SSBN 632 (Gold), where he was awarded four individual citations.

In 1978 he attended Naval Instructor Training in Virginia where he graduated with honors and was assigned to FBM Poseidon and Trident missile systems officer and enlisted instructor duty. Aside from his teaching assignments, he assisted in piloting two new 26 week Trident missile training courses and was awarded the designation of United States Navy Master Training Specialist.

He earned a B.S. from the University of the State of New York at Albany in 1982 and his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1985 where he graduated Wig & Robe. In 1988 and 1989 he taught as an adjunct professor in the political science department at the Baptist College, now known as Charleston Southern University.

A thirty-year nicotine smoker, John had engaged in roughly a dozen significant dependency recovery attempts and failed at each. In May 1999 his daily nicotine intake had been at roughly 60 mg per day (three packs) for five years. His health was rapidly decaying with an audible wheeze on every breath, chronic bronchitis, recurrent pneumonia, deterriorating vision and a half dozen root canals. It was only after giving up all hope of ever quitting that his mind was able to let go of mountains of denial and he at last became free to look around without fear. His now open eyes would soon stumble upon an entire world of online support and cessation information resources. On May 15, 1999, with the help of online peer support, John reclaimed his life.

On July 15, 1999 he founded WhyQuit.com, a quit smoking motivational site directed at both teens and entrenched smokers, where he hoped stories of young tobacco victims would help dispel the myth that tobacco only harms old smokers. Soon the e-mail questions began to arrive and John found himself digging for resources to share.

WhyQuit's annual growth has been tremendous. It received 2.1 million hits in 2001, over 5 million in 2002, 7.7 million in 2003 and 21.7 million for the most recent 12 month period, 10/05 to 09/06.

On September 8, 1999, John, along with Joanne Diehl, co-founded "Freedom from Tobacco" an MSN message board quit smoking support forum. Studying under the expert guidance of Joel Spitzer of Chicago, who has been working professionally in the field of nicotine dependency prevention and cessation since 1972, Freedom quickly evolved into a premier knowledge-based online cessation forum. Freedom is a combination of education, skills development, counseling, serious and intensely focused group support, and long-term reinforcement follow-up.

In April 2001, John commenced presenting "Freedom from Nicotine" a six session cessation program spanning two weeks that closely mirrored the format and content of Joel Spitzer's highly successful Chicago based clinic program. He also started presenting single session seminars and speaking on nicotine dependency and recovery whenever possible. Since 1999 his work in youth prevention and tobacco control have grown with each passing year.

He sees the nicotine battle-fronts as being four-fold and remains actively engaged in each area: (1) attempting to motivate those dependent upon nicotine to open their minds to the possibility that they may totally missed the most effective quitting method of all - education, understanding, new skills and support; (2) motivating government to see and treat nicotine dependency on a par with other chemical addicitons; (3) youth dependency prevention programs that teach youth the truth about just how amazingly captivating nicotine is, while countering false and deceptive industry advertising proclaiming that smokers smoke for every reason except the truth - because they must, because the rising tide of anxieties hurt when they don't; and (4) challenging the pharmaceutical industry to be forthright about the dismal odds of quitting and staying quit by use of a continually expanding product line of highly touted magic cures.