Just the Beginning – 100 Days and Counting
I was a slave to nicotine for the entirety of my adult life. It all started with a bag Levi Garrett when I was about 15 camping with my older brother. I wasn’t the addict then that I became the nicotine demon had sunk her teeth in the first time I put that wad in. I didn’t really chew much at all during that time, but I did romanticize it and love every opportunity I had to chew. Then I was introduced to the can at around 17 and it was a whole new ball game. I lived to have a cat turd in my mouth and what was a can every week quickly became a can every day or two.
I don’t know how many times i stopped using. I started smoking cigarettes for awhile instead of chewing, then I tried to ween myself off with a vape pen. All of you probably know how well that worked, because as soon as I had to take a long drive I grabbed a can and right back to shoving the cope in my lip. All my friends knew i dipped, but I always tried to keep it from whoever I was seeing. They would always find out though, but none of my girlfriends ever had a clue how much I actually dipped. It became much harder to ninja dip when I moved in when my now wife. But I kept it up. She would find a can or a spitter every now and then but it wasn’t a big deal in my head because she thought I was barely chewing when in fact I was taking a dip everyday on the way to work and the way home, sneaking dips on toilet, sneaking out of bed when she fell asleep or making excuses to stay up later to have a chew before bed. It finally set in what I was doing. I was cheating on my wife with nicotine. It was terrible. I had to stop. I tried. We went on a ten day sailing vacation with her parents and some family friends. I didn’t chew the entire trip, so I thought I was good to go. That lasted about 3-4 days after we got home until I had “just one more dip”, which cycled me right back to where I was. Finally I had to enough. I had to stop making excuses and lying to everyone. I had to get nicotine off of my back, so I tossed the can for the 100th time.
Except this time I am quit. Solely because of this site. I started as a ninja quitter for about one month until my wife saw one of the daily joke texts from SAMRS while we were at a concert. So I had to come clean about quitting. As funny as that sounds it was such a relief. She had no idea what I was going through and no idea how much I was actually chewing. It was the most important point in my quit. She told me that she always knew that I would quit, but she also knew it had to come from me and just assumed it would be when we had our first child. That’s why she never brought it up, but she was happy and proud that I finally had brought it up. It made quitting a whole lot easier as I had now dug by far the deepest portion of my quit hole to date. If I ever caved I would have to answer to her and I couldn’t let her down again.
I know for a fact that without this site I would have caved again and again just like I had before. I also know that I can stay quit for good as long as I keep posting. It’s been said before, but this is just the beginning. We all need this site and the participation of the members. Not only does the site help us all stay quit, but the brotherhood/sisterhood of this site keeps the quit strong.
I had forgotten to WUPP one morning last weekend and started freaking out about how it was late and I needed to post my promise for the day. My wife asked me how long I’m going to have to post on here. I said forever. When she looked shocked, I parroted the phrase “I think I will be fine not posting at some point, but I know I will never chew again as long as I keep posting”
Although it is only the beginning, this is the longest I have ever gone without some sort of nicotine poisoning my body, and I will stay true to the site. I will keep posting every damn day, because it’s not worth it to give that demon an inch. She will use it and manipulate you. Because we are all addicts and we all need help.
NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member Tpassala
