100 Day Journey For Rocketman

Ok, the basics. I started out dipping like the rest of you…. forced by friends holding me down, my teammates in the locker room and my brother having me in a headlock….all stuffing my lip with dip. B) I was a ninja dipper (hid it from almost everyone) for about 20 years over a 30 year span. I became a damn good liar hiding that dip.

Part of my early quit was learning I was a nicotine addict. I had read other posts about the addiction, but denied the term addict defined me (see my intro post). Once I realized and admitted I was a nic addict, my quit became stronger. About four weeks later when chatting with another quitter about his addictions I came to the realization there were other addictive traits I had in my life, but never thought of them as addictions. I certainly didn’t expect any of these realizations to be part of my quit.

So I have quit triplet brothers, Bomanquit & JWClev, which is nothing more than three of us having the same quit day. Of course when JW realized 80 days into his quit he was off a day, it left Boman & me scratching our heads how momma could have delivered one bro a day early. LOL. Anyway, June 2011 had some organization where we posted in ascending quit day order, so it was easy to get to know the timing of the quit brothers post as well as create a bond between us. When Boman, JW or I didn’t post by our usual time, the text messages started to make sure we were okay and our quit was protected. Texting and finding out why a bro did not post is quit bro law!

I also had some support from brothers in other quit months. Lots of private messages on the site and lots of text messages, of which three early texts stand out. Two texts were from Gmann. One when he realized I was late in posting and was checking in on me to make sure all was well very early in my quit. I was taken back that a bro from an earlier month, even though we had exchanged numbers for support, really checked up on me! Gmann’s other text was a support message, which coincidentally happened to be in the middle of a crave / withdrawal meltdown I was having. Talk about excellent timing! The third message was from Pep, a newbie. We supported each other in chat and he noticed I was late posting one weekend morning and his text messages started hitting my phone. At that point of my quit, I expected support from the vets, not the newbie. Little did I know support texts would be the norm rather than the exception. You can’t buy support like this!!

As a ninja dipper my accountability for anything related to dip was zero. I had many previous quit attempts lasting weeks, months and years. When life got stressful or I got pissed, the nic bitch was right there and it was easy for me to rationalize a cave because I didn’t have to tell anyone I failed. After all, who would know or care? It was just between me and nic bitch. Many of the quitters here posted about coming clean with their spouse and kids. I had not even admitted to my family I was dipping again (yes, I had been caught several years ago, quit for a few months & went ninja again), so telling them that I had quit meant I needed the balls to tell them I had started dipping again.

Telling my wife was difficult. I took a “freedom from failure moment” with her and explained what was going on…..50 days into my quit. She was very supportive. Kdip had shared his story of coming clean with his family and we chatted online, texted & talked several times about accountability with the family. With Kdip’s encouragement and help, I came clean with my 19 & 20 year old kids on day 91. As a dad, admitting I was an addict, too weak to stop and was selfish by putting dip ahead of them was one of the hardest things I had to do with my kids. Accountability to the family sucked, but has been worth it.

Through this quit journey my KTC brothers and sisters have been my primary lifeline, which is something I did not have in my previous quit attempts. All of them I got to know in chat. Now I text with several of them and a couple I have conversations with on the phone. They have been with me when the quit was good and held me up when the quit was bad. These people essentially were total strangers 100 days ago and now I have a brotherhood among these quitters.

One thing is for sure, I can call any one of the brother numbers I have and get immediate support. I also know if I were to cave, my Texas quit bros would more than likely hunt me down and kick the shit outta me, then pick me up and support me on starting Day 1 again. Of course that will not be necessary as I will not cave because I make my daily promise to stay nic free and will not let my quit brothers down. On a positive note, I do look forward to meeting some of my Texas quit brothers this summer!

So 100 days ago I never thought I would have learned so much about myself, met & formed a brotherhood with some incredible quitters and come clean with my family. Each of these have strengthened my resolve to stay quit. The KTC coin has three tenets on it: accountability, brotherhood and success. I will continue to maintain my accountability and brotherhood to remain successful in my quit.

Thank you Chewie for being the leader of this site. I know you, the admins and moderators put in countless hours for thousands of us to be successful. Thank you to all the brothers and sisters that have reached out and supported me along the way. The slaps upside the head telling me to get with it, the probing questions that really made me do some serious self-evaluation and the words of encouragement have all been instrumental in my success. I’ll be around a long while to keep my quit strong and to pay it forward to the newbies.

For those of you reading this who are contemplating quitting, what are you waiting for?

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member rocketman