Testing Testing, Is This Thing On?

H-Hi, I-I-Is this thing on? Oh perfect, Hi my name is John and I am an addict. I have been blessed and cursed with an addictive personality just like you. (Crowd cheers) “SPEECH SPEECH SPEECH!”. Ok ok calm down guy I am not really prepared for this. Let me start with a number. 100!!!! What a large number. 100 days with no nicotine. I remember taking away though two zeros at the end and posting up day 1. What a hard day. I wanted to quit dipping and get back in shape since I am a reserve Police Officer and after having a foot pursuit I found I could not keep up with the perp and got out of breathe easily. So I knew the first thing to do was to quit the spit. After a very short google search, I stumbled upon this website. I admit I did not post my day 1 the first day I found this website because I was dipping when I stumbled upon this. I read all afternoon and continued reading into the next day. That’s when I saw the hardest words that I had heard before, but had a different meaning that day. Dump the can! I thought to myself, but I can finish this can because I don’t want to waste the money I spent on it and then I will start quitting after this can. I then flashed back to the many “Last” cans that I had finished which only led me back into the quick sand of nicotine. I will admit I almost cried when I opened my can and dumped my cow shit into the trash. I had half a mind to scoop some of it back together to have just “One more” dip. But instead I reached for the keyboard and mouse and just read thru this site. So many encouraging words and people going thru the same if not worse situations as me. I had to quit making excuses about when it would be the “perfect” time to quit. How many times did you make excuses to wait to quit? “Oh I will wait until it slows down at work so I am not so stressed out and won’t need a dip as bad” or “I will wait until it gets busy at work so I will be busy and not have to think about dipping” or maybe “I don’t want to waste money so I need to finish all of my cans first”. Really!?! waste money, think about how much I have wasted over 8 years dipping a can of Grizzly a day and a can of Skoal mint pouches every other day! How’s is that for wasting money? What is the famous saying, “Excuses our like buttholes, everyone has one, but they all stink”. I had to stop letting these lame excuses stop me from quitting. Probably one of the hardest decisions of my life, but life changing and saving.

(Man shouts from the crowd) “Why’d you do it”. Ah, a great question. So why did I start? Or why did I decide to stop? Well I started as many of you did. High school, I was offered a pinch and thought why not I am curious. Just glad curiosity did not kill this cat, although it did take up most of his life, but not anymore. (Woman from crowd) ” Stay on subject”. Damnit I always ramble. Ok, so the first pinch was to try, the second was to be cool in front of the same guy I tried it in front of and even the third was to be cool in front of other friends who smoked. After that I was hooked. Not because I wanted to be, I just was. I wasn’t even old enough to buy the worm dirt. Did you know that dip has tiny pieces of fiberglass in it and that is how the nicotine gets into your system is by cutting your gums open and going straight into your blood stream. Ouch! (Child in the crowd) “Your doing it again!” Oh dangit, sorry! Wait! A child was listening to all of this! That is horrible! But now thinking back I did it in front of little eyes all the time. My step daughter got to see the most. ” Is that gum in your mouth”, ” Ew what is that in that bottle”, “Why do you spit so much and why is it brown”. Wow, and to think of how many strangers kids had to see my do it in public. Trying to stuff a handful in my mouth with little brown pieces falling everywhere and the strong stench from the can and brown stains and brown strands hanging from my mouth as I scramble to brush my hands off and my mouth and set the dip in just right. How could I do something so disgusting in front of such young and innocent eyes. What a feening monster I was. (A blinding light strikes me in the eyes) Oh crap I am still on stage I must have spaced out. “Can someone please remove this child, I do not want him to be influenced by this and go down the same path I did.” (An adult grabs the child’s hand and starts to walk for the exit) “Wait!” I yell. Before you go, I want you to know why I quit. It was so I may get to spend more time with my family, because I love my family, myself and my body. God gave me this body and told me it was a temple of the Holy Spirit, so should I not treat it as such? So no more poison. I want a healthy future. (Child exits)

Ok back to where I was, where was I? I am such a scatter brain. I want to wrap this up, so I will take one last question. You, Woman in the beautiful dress. “So now that you are cured and don’t want it anymore, what now?”. (I chuckle out loud) I am not “Cured”. 100 days is not much, but it is something to celebrate by leaving my quit tools behind and returning back to normal, because this is my new normal. My old normal included dip. As far as me not wanting the dip bitch, Excuse my language ma’am, you are very wrong. I still want it, I am surrounded by dippers daily and I still think about sticking an oversized plug in my mouth. But what stops me is I have come this far. I used that on day one as well as can anyone else. I had made the first thirty minutes so why throw that away by putting one in. Then an hour, then two, and so on until I was up to counting days and weeks instead of minutes and hours. That as well as my promise to these BAQ’s (Bad Ass Quitters) I had met in my group. I owed it to them but most of all myself to not break my promise each day. There is no cure, maybe they will make one in the future, but as of now there is now cure for an addictive personality nor do I think there will be in the near future. This is the closest “Cure” there is. This site is the best tool you will ever use and it can stop you from popping that mouth rot in your little addictive lip sucker. I am proud to be on my day 100, and look forward to posting my other milestones as they come with my quit family in October 2017. I will leave you all with this, quit one day at a time, do not over load yourself with the whole future. One day at a time and eventually you will look back and realize how far you have come without nicotine cold turkey. Be a man, Kill the can! (Drops Mic)

Shoutout to RWBullet and Jacob who have been my biggest influences and closest brothers throughout my quit, but everyone in Red October have supported me thru this and I appreciate each and every one of you as well as the Vets with their old grey wiseness.  We have such a great group of diverse people.

Cool statistics that you won’t care about but that I do and that you will end up reading anyways (You’re welcome):
On day 100 I have:
Saved 596 dips
Saved $477
Saved 119.15 Tins
Reduced my risk for a heart attack by 100%
Returned my taste and smell back to normal 100%
Made my body 100% nicotine free
My circulation back to normal 99%
And cut my heart disease risk in half by 27%
(Stats courtesy of DipQuit App)

John
LEO
Thin Blue Line Family

PM me for my digits! I am not afraid to make more friends!

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member Jemerch1