MarylandQuitter

When I was a kid I would get migraine equivalents and after testing, my pediatrician narrowed the cause down to the preservative, sodium nitrites which are found in soda drinks, hot dogs, lunch meat etc. My Mom removed all of this from my diet and they went away. I never had the actual headaches but experienced the "aura". My parents first discovered I had this when I told my Mom that everybody looked like Alice In Wonderland when she ate that cake that made her neck stretch. As an adult, I really limit foods with this preservative as much as I can. Several years ago I drank a glass of red wine. The next morning I had a problem with my vision being distorted. I looked on the bottle and it contained nitrites that are natural to red wine. Needless to say, I haven't had red wine since. A lady that I used to work with, her husband suffered from cluster headaches and they have about be the worst possible pain somebody can be in and nothing helps. I watched this documentary about this guy who suffered from them and the only thing that helps him not get them is the Psilocybin he harvests from the mushrooms that he grows. Never one to use drugs, he was very hesitant but he said it was either that or he was going to kill himself. They were that bad and nothing would help him. I can't find the full documentary but it's pretty interesting.

This was one of the first things I read at whyquit.com and it was one of the things that stuck to my grey matter. :)

We have to believe in ourselves that we can quit because if we don't, quits only last a few minutes or hours at best.

No matter how happy, sad or angry you are, "you just don't" pick up that first cigarette. Love it.

What search words did you use?

Yep, just keep doing what we've been doing. :) Anything else that needs done on the admin side we'll continue to stay on top of. We're on Google, Bing, Yahoo, MSN etc.

I love this thread. It realistically sums up what an online support community consists of. The ups, downs, unexpected twists and turns, disagreements, laughter, conversations over coffee (perfectly brewed coffee is free on the Train) and friendships are all part of the process of ridding our lives of this deadly addiction. Kind of reminds me of the Polar Express.

We have been steadily rising on the search engines. We are #1 if you type in Quit Train. Same with Quit Train Quit Smoking. This was far from the case just one month ago. We were not to be found. Yesterday when I typed in various phrases that someone might do a search for when wanting to quit smoking, we were anywhere from page 1-3 and the of course lower in the rankings but as we continue to grow, we will rise with those as well. The longer we're here and with such an active posting community, it won't take long before newbies start arriving. Please keep in mind one thing. We do not pay small companies or individuals who specialize in jump starting new message boards or add traffic to existing boards by creating members to give the appearance of activity or new membership. This is a hotly debated topic among message board owners and unfortunately, a lot of upstart online communities do this (as well as established ones). Obviously, we have not. Our community is genuine. We don't believe in creating any fake newbies because it's a moral issue with me as well as the moderators. Who wants to spend time helping somebody who doesn't even really exist? We're talking about serious issues when it comes to quitting smoking and is literally life or death. This was a gamble that I took when I started this forum. It was either going to take off on it's own merit or fail on it's own. It's taken off and then some. To be frank about this, we are so far ahead of the curve you have no idea. With us, what you see is genuine. What we have in place is a seasoned group of quitters, quitters in the middle and those new to quitting. We already have in place what all other new communities desperately want and are willing to pay in efforts to create the illusion of having. As we stated from the beginning, it was just a matter of playing the waiting game with the search engines. George (TAC) and I did everything and then some to get things "in the basement" done regarding the search engines. As always, 3 minds are better than 2 so I retained a very good programmer who is highly skilled in this particular message board software who made some tweaks specific to our community and search engines. I'm starting to see where this is paying off in a huge way. Again, we already have a very, very, very active quit smoking community and once future quitters stumble upon us, that is what they will see; an established, mature quit smoking community that is open to everybody, is free and is uncensored as much as we can possibly be while maintaining a friendly, open-minded community. We're working on adding some exciting additions to the site, one of which should be implemented very soon... I would like to give a HUGE THANK YOU to all of you. I've said that this is your community. Make it count for something. This, my friends, you have done and done very, very well.--MQ :good3:

Very, very funny. Lol

Sad to see you go Markus, but I understand. Stay well and please know that you always have spot here if you pass by our little town again.

Congratulations! PS, The Baltimore Orioles coffee mug is in the mail. Air mail. :pilot:

:hi: Top of the morning to ya! Took the words right out of my mouth. No smoking for me today.

Driving is such a common trigger for so many of us. Now, as far as "The cup holder. Because WHO puts cups there?!", I do! Each cup holder in my truck always has a coffee cup in it. I'm not very good at brining them in the house when I get home from work and so they just keep piling up until the passenger seat is full of empty coffee mugs from my perfectly brewed cups of coffee. Usually at the end of a shift rotation I have enough empty coffee mugs to fill the dishwasher. :focus:

Great job, Evelyn. Sometimes going to bed early has it's rewards. :lazy:

That's great news, TAC! Just don't turn into cousin Eddy when he had to pump is his RV in Clark's storm sewer. lol

:spruce_up: :search:

:negative:

Yes, it was moved to a more appropriate forum, if we even have one. Nevertheless, it's now in the OTR forum.

:shout: :popcorm1:

Added a bunch. Over 150 of them. :spiteful:

Congrats on the engagement and well done remaining a non-smoker. :)

Just made my day reading this, Action! :) I bet you're on cloud 9 about right now. NTAP!

I'm glad you quit smoking, Beth. Some docs have ya one foot in the grave. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Your throat and lungs are healing and it's very common among quitters and is referred to as a non-smoker's cough. :) Yes, I had this as well and it lasted for quite sometime after I quit. My throat felt very sensitive and I could really feel it when I tilited my head back and stretched my throat (if that makes any sense). Some people will get it and some won't. Some get it instantly like I did while others get it months down the road. Some never get it. Whether it's related to smoking, who knows. Could be allergies, a virus etc. When in doubt, see a doc to get some peace of mind.