John's Background

A father of two daughters, John R. Polito served in the U.S. Navy Submarine Service from 1973 to 1982 and made seven FBM cold war patrols, earning four individual citations. He earned his B.S. from the University of the State of New York at Albany in 1982 and his J.D. from the University of South Carolina School of Law in 1985, where he graduated Wig & Robe. In 1988 and 1989 he taught as an adjunct professor at the Baptist College, now known as Charleston Southern University.

Hooked by age 15, John engaged in roughly a dozen significant quitting attempts. By May 1999 at age 44 his daily nicotine intake had been in the neighborhood of 60mg per day (three packs) for five years. His health was rapidly decaying with an audible wheeze on every breath, chronic bronchitis, recurrent pneumonia, deteriorating vision and a half dozen root canals.

John unconditionally surrendered to his addiction after one last miserable attempt in early 1999. At last he admitted to himself that he was a "real" drug addict and swore he'd never put himself through withdrawal again. He fully accepted his fate, that he'd die an addict's death. It was then that John discovered that he no longer needed the laundry list of excuses he'd invented to explain why he'd smoke that next cigarette. He smoked it because he had to, because a rising tide of anxieties would begin to build if he didn't.

Unexpectedly, accepting his addiction and fate freed John from the need to run or hide each time the word "quitting" was mentioned. Whether chance or fate, on May 13, 1999, for the first time ever he stumbled upon and found himself reading at an online quit smoking support group peer message board. He sat amazed as scores of ex-smokers reached back in helping new quitters get started and remain focused. It was then that John decided to post his own message praising them while explaining how he didn't need support, as he'd sworn he'd never attempt quitting again. Almost immediately he was overwhelmed with replies encouraging him to jump into the quitting pool and join them. Two days later he accepted their offer, arrested his dependency and has had zero nicotine since.

John founded WhyQuit.com on July 15, 1999. A quit smoking motivational site directed at both teens and entrenched smokers, he hoped stories of young tobacco victims would help dispel the myth that tobacco only harms old smokers. Soon e-mail quitting questions began arriving and John found himself digging through medical journals for answers.

On September 8, 1999, John, along with Joanne Diehl, co-founded "Freedom from Tobacco" an MSN based quit smoking support forum. Unqualified and floundering badly, on January 20, 2000 Joel Spitzer of Chicago arrived to save the day. Joel had worked full-time as a professional in the field of nicotine dependency prevention and smoking cessation counseling since 1972. Under his guidance Freedom quickly evolved into the Internet's premier knowledge-based online cessation forum. On January 18, 2009 Freedom moved from MSN to Yuku and changed its name to "Freedom from Nicotine."

John started presenting "Freedom from Nicotine" during 2001, a six-session cessation program spanning thirteen days that attempted to mirror the format and content of Joel's highly successful Chicago based clinic programs. He also started presenting single-session seminars and speaking on nicotine dependency recovery whenever possible. He presented bimonthly free seminars at the College of Charleston from 2003 to 2006. During 2007-08 he presented 63 nicotine cessation seminars inside 28 South Carolina prisons. He released the free PDF version of "Freedom from Nicotine - The Journey Home" on January 1, 2009 and on August 3, 2009 held the first commercially printed copy in his hands.

Key Influences Upon John's Work

John devoted the past decade to mastering the science and psychology of nicotine dependency recovery. Clearly, the educator having the greatest influence upon his understanding is Joel Spitzer, his mentor and WhyQuit's director of education since 2000. Joel has devoted his entire life, full-time to helping smokers break free. Since 1972 he's presented more than 350 six-session clinics spanning two weeks and over 690 single-session seminars. Joel may well be the most accomplished stop smoking counselor in history. Author of the free PDF e-book "Never Take Another Puff!," John relies heavily upon the lessons Joel taught him in writing this book. John was honored that Joel assisted in editing of the book.

The only educator whose work comes anywhere near Joel's is that of the late Allen Carr of the England, who died of lung cancer in November, 2006. John and Allen crossed paths shortly before his death. It was then that John discovered Allen's book "The Easy Way to Quit Smoking." Although Joel had written articles exposing the core falsehoods used by smokers to deny chemical dependency while Allen and John were still smokers, John couldn't help but marvel as he watched a fellow ex-smoker on the other side of the Atlantic systematically destroy key smoking rationalizations.

Allen's final book was "Scandal." Prior to quoting John, Allen writes, "I read an interesting article in the British Medical Journal recently by someone not on the payroll of the pharmaceutical industry. It caught my eye because it was entitled: "The NRT cessation charade continues". The author is an American called John Polito who works as a nicotine cessation educator, which means he is honest about trying to stop the source of the addiction, rather than maintain it."

John was also heavily influenced by the nicotine toxicology insights of retired University of Arkansas pharmacology professor K.H. (Heinz) Ginzel, M.D. and the ethics lessons of Boston University School of Public Health professor Michael Siegel, M.D. Dr. Ginzel's insights are seen in a 2007 paper entitled "Critical Review Nicotine for the Fetus, the Infant and the Adolescent?" on which he served as lead author and John was a co-author. Dr. Siegel is tobacco control's self-appointed ethics watchdog. He's fearless in his "Rest of the Story" blog and has repeatedly attacked pharmaceutical industry financial influence for undermining U.S. cessation policy.

Additional influences include the thousands of ex-users over the years who collectively compelled John to accept the fact that every journey home is unique. There's also the high quality Reports of the U.S. Surgeon General published prior to arrival of replacement nicotine in 1984, the work product of hundreds of researchers dedicated to battling America's leading cause of pre-mature death, and the lessons taught by a rather interesting cast of colleagues John met through GlobaLink, an international tobacco control forum.