 |
 |
Welcome to World No Tobacco Day 2008
Ready to quit smoking? Ready to come home to "you"? Welcome to WhyQuit, a totally free all-volunteer labor of love that sells nothing and declines donations.
Imagine life without the need to constantly replenish falling nicotine levels. Imagine allowing an addicted brain time to heal, to down-regulate and rid itself of the millions of extra nicotinic receptors it has grown. Nicotine addiction is about living a lie. It's about brain "pay attention" dopamine pathways (our mind's priorities teacher) being taken hostage and forced to falsely convince us that smoking nicotine gives us our edge, defines who we are, and that life without nicotine just won't be as good. Welcome to WhyQuit, home to thousands of the most knowledgeable ex-smokers on earth. We hope you'll use World No Tobacco Day 2008 to explore the possibility of joining us.
We cannot promise that quitting smoking and coming home will be easy but we do promise to stand beside you every step of the way. It's our hope you'll use this time to explore the motivation, education, counseling and support tools we assembled in anticipation of your arrival. They were built with you in mind and are our gift to you. It is our hope that once you've tasted freedom and reside on "Easy Street" that you'll share what you've learned with smoking friends, co-workers and loved ones, as not discovering or being taught the Law of Addiction is a horrible, horrible reason to die.
Yes you can!
WhyQuit.com - Our site's main entry page and your guide to three key cessation ingredients - motivation, education and support. You may want to bookmark this link in your favorites folder.
Joel's Library - Joel's Library is home to the core curriculum taught here at WhyQuit. It's a collection of nearly 100 short quit smoking articles, over 60 video quit smoking lessons and "Never Take Another Puff," a free quit smoking book that is approaching a million downloads. These materials were written and produced by Joel Spitzer of Chicago, one of the world's leading, full-time, professional smoking cessation counselors. Joel serves as WhyQuit's director of education. He started his career with the American Cancer Society in 1972 as a volunteer smoking prevention speaker. Today, aside from his free online work, he presents regular live clinics and seminars for the Evanston and Skokie Illinois Departments of Health in the Chicago area. Each article contains a pearl of wisdom. We hope you'll collect them all. A good starting point is Joel's Daily Quitting Lesson Guide.
Freedom - This link will transport you to the primary message board of what may possibly be the most effective nicotine cessation forum anywhere on the Internet. Here you'll find more than 300,000 messages archived by subject on 21 message boards. Highly focused, it is believed to be the world's only 100% nicotine free forum, where the price of posting privileges is a nicotine-free body (72 hours) and where any relapse - even one puff of nicotine - permanently revokes group posting privileges.
AskJoel - Do you have a question you'd like addressed for free by a professional counselor who has taught more than 350 six-session, thirteen-day, quit smoking clinics? There are very few questions that Joel Spitzer has not fielded in his career. You may visit AskJoel and discover that your question has already been addressed. If not, ask away!
Nicotine Addiction 101 - How does nicotine physically alter and enslave the human brain? How does it compare to other drugs of addiction? How is addiction defined?
How Long Does Recovery Last? - This article shares the timing, sequencing, phases and symptoms associated with the amazing temporary period of adjustment and healing that will transport you to a rich sense of calmness and new expectations of going your entire day without wanting to put nicotine back into your bloodstream.
Navigating the First 72 Hours - Nicotine's half-life inside your body is about two-hours. Within 72 hours your blood will test nicotine-free and 90% of nicotine's metabolites will have passed through your urine. It is here where withdrawal normally peaks in intensity and then begins to gradually decline. This link is a roadmap to help you navigate early withdrawal, the most demanding phase of recovery.
Topic Index - This is an alphabetical topic index to over 400 messages from Freedom's more than 300,000 member posts that are archived under 21 different subject matter message boards.
Freedom's 22 Message Boards - This link is to Freedom's subject matter message boards.
How to Join After 72 Hours - Please be sure to include the four (4) requested items of information in the feedback box appearing with your application or we'll have no choice but to deny your application. As you'll learn, we're very protective of the nicotine-free environment that our members enjoy and have come to expect. Thanks!
Let World No Tobacco Day 2008 be when you discovered that the most empowering tool of all, toward permanently arresting your addiction to smoking or chewing nicotine, is an educated mind. The next few minutes are all that matter and each is entirely doable. There was always only one rule ... no nicotine just one day at a time, Never Take Another Puff, Dip or Chew!