Join The Most Supportive Quit Site on the Net
Apr 01 '03
The Bottom Line Quit Smoking Journals is the best on-line quit smoking support group. Try it!
About a year and a half ago I was faced with medical evidence that the time had come: quit smoking or face increasing health problems. I was only 42, but except for a few months of two pregnancies, I had been smoking full time for 25 years. High blood pressure, worsening asthma and chronic bronchitis, and chest x-rays requiring CT scan follow-up were enough to get me motivated to start researching quit methods.
I discovered that there are a wealth of quit smoking web sites. Some are excellent, some are powerfully graphic, and others are fair. The vast majority of them, I must say, are maintained by people who truly want to help other people. Such is the case with the Quit Smoking Journals.(www.quitsmokingjournals.com)
Quit Smoking Journals (QSJ) was started by a few former smokers who had met at a similar site a while back. Said similar site had been free, and supportive, but converted to a subsciption site early in 2002 and lost a lot of members. It lost so many members, in fact, that it no longer exists. But 4 of the members created Quit Smoking Journals, helped spread the word, and the best on-line support group for former smokers and smokers trying to become former smokers was born.
OK - So What is Quit Smoking Journals?
Quit Smoking Journals is a web community that helps people quit smoking and maintain their quits. Each member has a journal, like an on-line diary, where they can post entries. Some post great pose, full of inspiration and insight, jokes and humorous stories, others post personal updates, and some post a combination. Entries can be marked private, so that only the author can view them, or they can be public. Most people are there for support, so public entries are the norm.
Once an entry has been published, other members can post notes in response to it. It becomes much like a bulletin board with continuous exchanges of information and comments. Post "I'm having a really hard time today" in the morning and by dinner time you'll probably have 20 notes of encouragement. Post "I'm so thrilled to celebrate my first full month smoke-free" and you can count on notes of cheers and atta-girl (or attay-boy) messages. Post "I'm thinking about trying the patch but am worried about side effects" and everyone who has had experience with the patch will tell you what they've learned.
There's also a chat room. There are no regularly scheduled chats at this time, but stop in when you have a few minutes to spare and you never know who you'll meet!
QSJ members are predominately American and Canadian, but includes users from around the globe. Posts are almost exclusively in English, but that's not a requirement. Like most support groups, in real life and on-line, there are more female than male members, but male members are as active and supportive as their female counterparts. Members range in age from early twenties to seventies, with the majority in the 30's through 50's.
What's So Great About It?
What makes Quit Smoking Journals such a great site is the members. Created and maintained by former smokers, people gather there to encourage and inspire each other. For some folks the journey from smoker to non-smoker is a quick, direct trip - one day they smoke, the next they don't, and no matter how painful the process, they never look back. For many of us, though, it's not so smooth. At QSJ you'll get support and encouragement, and sympathy and compassion, but you'll never be disrespected or treated rudely - even if you mess up and smoke. I personally repeated the quit/smoke cycle more than a dozen times before I finally got it right four months ago. I did get a few reality checks, which I appreciated, but not once was I made to feel any worse than I already did.
The other great benefit, from my perspective, is that it's a web site - not a group I have to meet with or a meeting I need to attend. It's a web site - it's there when I have time for it and it's there when I need it. It works around my crazy life instead being yet another event I have to squeeze in somewhere.
The site is free, but it's moderated. QSJ does accept donations, but there is no subscription or fee required for membership. There are moderators who watch the journals and make sure people are being respected. I've been there since it was just a month or so old and have never seen any problems. I've been in other on-line communities where it seems standard operating procedure for one or two trouble makers to show up on a regular basis. QSJ is a safe place.
Why Choose a Quit Smoking Support Group?
There isn't an adult on the planet who doesn't know that smoking destroys health. Similarly, there probably aren't any smokers on the planet that aren't aware that quitting can be a difficult thing to do. A quit smoking support group can make a difficult task easier, a painful experience more pleasurable. Being surrounded by people who have been where you are and emerged on the other side can be empowering; being recently quit and encouraging others can have powerful benefits as well.
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Epinions.com ID:
KateTPZ
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Kate
Location: North Carolina
Reviews written: 126
Trusted by: 80 members
About Me:
40-something Mom of two great kids and aspiring author in my "spare" time.
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