Traumagnet HOF speech
Well here WE are Hall of Fame! (Saved my 1000th post as day to remember)You may be thinking, he said we does he have multiple personalities… In a way you would be correct when I was using I did have different personalities depending in what part of the addiction cycle I was in. If I had a chew in I was upbeat, or if I was running low on nicotine in my system I was ugly erratic pinging like a fiend. I needed a fix and wouldn’t quit til I got it. The word (WE) is because there is no way I would have or could have done this alone. I would like to thank each and every one of you for taking TIME out of your schedules to say hey Trauma (Todd) how are you doing, you got this bro. I would like to thank everyone that invested in my thread, PM, texts and phone calls. Thank you KTC you are a community of BAD ASSES!
Brother / Sisterhood, Accountability, Success
My story: I started dipping at a very young age when I was on a reservation in AZ. I started with Happy Days, then to leaf and then to another kid favorite Hawkins. I remember I couldn’t buy cigarettes but I could buy all the cans and bags of chew that I wanted. Strange smoking was bad for me and I was too young, but chew your face off pun intended. I left the reservation and had a stoppage. I had a stoppage until I joined the Army Guard and everyone was chewing. I remember trying it again and getting sick. I was so embarrassed for puking. Well since I knew a lil something about addiction and tolerance from PSA’s and school science classes, I remember buying my own can and putting a dip in until I started getting dizzy then I would spit it out. I repeated this a few times and by the end of the week I was back to dipping full throttle. I dipped off and on for years stop for this stop for that nothing fazed me until fast forward 29 years.
I got into some poison ivy on my legs, ya sure it itched burned got the blisters then they turned to scabs. No problem it will just run its course…well 10 months later I was still not healed I still had a few sores left. (My legs finally healed 60 days into my quit) I finally took a long hard look and had to admit to myself what was going on I was losing circulation to my lower extremities and that is why my legs would not heal. I knew this because I had seen it a 100 times I used to do vascular ultrasound. My mistress in the can had caught up to me I wasn’t invincible anymore. So when I went to bed on 15th of April 2013 I said goodbye to my mistress that was killing me.
The next day mid morning early afternoon I began to feel awful the aches were starting the hot and cold flashes started. By that evening I was shitting and puking my guts out. This went on until the next evening late. The third day I felt like death I was hurting and fogged out but not under gastrointestinal duress. She was whispering to me Trauma come back one dip and all the pain goes away. I wasn’t going down that road again. I knew I was up shit creek said a prayer asked for help, got on the net and found KTC. Not a super spiritual guy but whatever I put in the search engine got me to KTC on the first try. I posted and within a few minutes help was on its way.
I got schooled rather quickly that I don’t have a habit I am an addict, I don’t like chew I hate pain I had never quit before I just had a stoppage. I also learned we don’t quit forever we quit for the day. We don’t take kindly to others and their special way. We do what we can to stay quit and if we have more in the tank we help out others we pay it backward and forward. NAFAR and ODAAT are not just letters strung together they are a mindset that has to happen. We POST ROLL and give our word and we QLF EVERY DAMN DAY!
NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member traumagnet
