I'm a quitter. A lowsy quitter, granted, but a quitter nonetheless. Kate's a quitter and so is Kelley. I quit for almost a year and a half back 'round '96 and Lovely Wife and I quit together for better than half a year in '01. I've tried quitting solo quite a few times over the past 16 years, never with any real success. Lovely Wife and I have also tried quitting together a few other times, also without success.

This time it's going to work. See, I'm quitting again. Lovely Wife already did and has been nicofree since Monday. In support of her courageous effort I've refrained from smoking around her or even bringing the deadly tempting cancer sticks into our domicile. This weekend will be the first days of my quitting for real since I'd be an absolute idiot if I started up again on Monday after going without for the entire weekend, returning only to this crazy half-smoker state where I get a mini withdrawal each and every day.

So I'm looking for support. Not moral support, financial support. Here's the thing - the absolute best I ever did was that year plus stretch. It was a year plus because I quit with my Dad, Brother-in-law and Brother-in-law's brother-in-law and we had a bet. Anybody who smoked again, even a puff, for the next year had to pay each of the others $25. The thought that my next cigarette was going to cost me $75 was instrumental to fighting down the urges when they hit. (Incidentally, Bro-in-law and I made it. Dad didn't make it and paid us our blood money. Bro-in-law's bro-in-law was a jackass and renegged on the bet.) So I'm going to go back to what worked and inviting y'all to come along. Here's the bet:

1. Open to current smokers and ex-smokers that quit in this calendar year.


2. If you sign on and you smoke any amount of nicotine, even a single puff, from March 15, 2004 (the Ides of March, pretty cool eh?) through March 14, 2005 you owe the other participants blood money.


3. Amount to be paid will be $25 to each participant with a $100 maximum liability. (If the number of people you have to pay is over 4 then you pay the $100 split evenly among them.)


4. Once a person flunks and pays out blood money they're out of the contest. They can smoke whatever they want but aren't elligible to get blood money from other failures.


5. It's all on the honor system. There's no escrow account or prepayment or any garbage like that.

It's open to recent quitters because they're still in the massive falloff stage. It's very easy to get back on the wagon even after several months of successful non-smoking. The whole purpose behind this bet is to help people quit smoking by giving them another incentive not to light up.

Why so strict with that single puff thing? Because people who are quitting smoking are not thinking straight. They will rationalize that hitting a butt or taking a drag off of somebody else's cancer stick isn't "smoking a cigarette". We're also saying "nicotine" instead of "cigarette" because things like pipes and cigars and hookas aren't allowed as substitutes for cigs. This doesn't mean you can't use a patch or nico-gum or whatever other real stop smoking aid you want to use.

The ceiling is there because if a $100 price tag isn't enough to make you push away that next cig a higher price isn't really going to make a difference. Also we're not out to bust anybody's bank account or anything. In addition the price of honor hovers just north of $110 for most people so we want a little buffer there.

The start date of the bet is March 15 because the Ides of March is cool and this'll give a bit of time for people to join up. This doesn't mean you can't quit earlier (I am).

Yes, the honor system. If you don't think you will be able to pay $100 if you don't make it then don't sign up. If you doubt that you would be willing to pay $100 if you don't make it then don't sign up. To paraphrase the words of the great John Wayne "It's okay to be an asshole, just don't do it on purpose".

I'll put up a sidebar section linking to all of the participants. That doesn't mean that you have to be a blogger to join up, it's just a benefit for the playas who have sites.

I'm in. Anybody else want a piece of this action?

POINTS: Why the heck not? All participants get 2 points but if you drop out you lose 4.

Posted by: Jim at 09:00 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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