I’m Done – CurtC HOF Speech
I will never forget the look of disappointment and helplessness on my dad’s face the night my mom caught me chewing. I had watched him chew my entire life. Why should I say no when I was pressured into trying a dip in the back of a school bus after a game? I felt cool. I fit in with my crowd. I didn’t think I was addicted, I just thought I just liked chewing.
Fast forward a decade. It wasn’t cool anymore. It was an addiction. My first son was born. The look on my father’s face flashed before my eyes. Luckily, I didn’t have to make the hard decisions. At that time, I was the assistant coach in my life. Nicotine was the head coach. Nicotine called the plays. Nicotine told me that I have plenty of time. My son won’t even remember his first few years. Two years later my son found a chew can laying around and asked me “What’s this?” Nicotine laughed and told me “he doesn’t even know what I am, we are good!”
The closest thing I had to a final straw was when I realized that I could not afford a decent life insurance policy for my family. Nicotine had all the answers to my problems. “Your blood pressure is only kind of high and all the sores in your mouth have gone away so far, so why are you worried about life insurance?” From there it took me two more months to finally stand up to nicotine and say “Thirteen years of listening to you is enough! I’m done.”
I’m Done
I’m done being a bad example for my son (soon to be 2 sons).
I’m done taking money from my family to buy a nasty plant.
I’m done forcing my wife to tolerate my nasty habit out of love for me.
I’m done worrying that every sore in my mouth is “the one.”
I’m done hiding my addiction from others around me because I am ashamed of it.
I’m done planning my day around when I could pack my lip full of carcinogens.
I’m done.
I am one of the weird people that successfully planned my quit. I weaned myself off nicotine by reducing my number of dips every 3 days until I hit 0 on May 31st 2024. I “whiteknuckled” my way through my first 44 days off of nothing but pride and rage. I told no one except my wife. I was running out of willpower and steam when I found this site. I was online looking for motivation on the KTC site when I clicked a link and next thing I knew Wayne and TSand1199 were talking to me. Little did I know that that click was going to be a quit-saver. The rest is history (and documented).
To anyone trying to quit or thinking about quitting, it is the 3rd best decision I have ever made, behind giving my life to Jesus and marrying the woman of my dreams. It is going to suck. Bad. and it won’t get much better for a little while. When you start to get better, it won’t be as quick as you want it to be. The difficulty in quitting is the consequence of starting in the first place. Below are what I believe are the two most important things to understand when quitting:
- Your brain is going to do everything possible to make you give it nicotine. It is just trying to do the job that you have told it to do for the entire length of your addiction. A problem + nicotine = 2 problems. The only problems that nicotine fixes are ones that it creates. You have to be stubborn with your brain. Every excuse your brain comes up with to get you to cave is a lie. You ultimately have to learn to hate nicotine with a burning passion.
- It gets better. You get back to being yourself. You get to a spot where you don’t crave dip very often at all, and when you do, it is weak and easy to brush off. You experience the same level of happiness (plus some) and you get to be much healthier and richer doing it.
Lastly, I want to include a few shoutouts to people who have helped me through my journey. First to my September Mud Wizards for the encouragement and comradery we have established. Thank you Nancy, Mak, Pops, Dexter, Cwb, and Ec! Secondly to our awesome conductors, Chuck and Ashton. Thank you for a memorable experience! Third, a thank you to some other people that helped me out on my quit: Wayne, Harry, Rem, MattyB, Pertrai1, EdT, JimTwat, and Jmedic. Lastly, I want to shout out TSand1199 for helping me through the hardest night of my quit, and for being a helpful, down-to-Earth mentor for me and other new quitters.
CurtC
NOTE: This piece written by Kill The Can community member CurtC
