How this all started.

I quit smoking on January 8, 2002. That's 3087 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes and 11 seconds ago, according to the Quitnet gadget.

Much of the first year was quite miserable and I wanted to smoke almost all the time. The reason I didn't, lay in the online community I got to know on Quitnet. It was a rough and ready bunch back then, not the polished site it is today. Being newly quit, we were an irritable group, not afraid of profanity or flame wars. After a while the most diverse group of anti-hug, anti-cutesy, combative/cynical/funny people found their home on another Quitnet forum called This 'n That. It was an odd mix of politics, music, opinions, general chatter and food polls, liberally filled with zinging puns, this sharp and fast banter diverting us all from our nicotine addictions. We all found the help and support we needed without drowning in a pool of sweetness.

After a while Quitnet gained corporate sponsors and as these things usually go, they wanted to clean up the place. At that point, the most rebellious and raucous people were on an unregulated This 'n That (well, they had their own set of rules but these were not exactly fitting to any corporate image!) and they did not take kindly to the profanity filters, the new rules and the rigid enforcement of the latter. After a lot of sputtering, anger and flouncing, there was a general flurry of banning (called death by fuckicide) and a large group left the Quitnet for a newly created forum called Oz (because it was situated in Australia).

Oz was a forum created and hosted by a Quitnet This 'n That member's husband. This forum took off like a runaway train and became home to the refugees from Quitnet. Over the years there were some upheavals, set-to's, flounces, flame wars and general mayhem but the general community spirit remained strong. After a server fire the forum was taken over by another OZmember for hosting and shepherding (in Utah this time, but the name Oz is entrenched and remains). At this time it's a closed forum but anyone is welcome to knock on the door - we admit all who are quitting, want to quit, are thinking of quitting and have quit.

After all this time Oz has shrunk into a smallish online community, bound not only by the wish to quit smoking and remain quit but by a shared history and affection. Most of these forum members live in the USA and have met each other at one time or another (these meetings are called Vests and it's a long story where that name came from!). Over the years I have also met a few members - some European members and also a few Americans, when they happened to visit Europe - but most are still unknown to me even though i know them well on the forum.

This summer of 2010, I plan to visit the USA & Canada, and travel across that great continent to meet up with many of them. This is my first visit to this part of the world and I will be covering a LOT of ground in nine weeks.

I leave in 57 days.