Quit For Today – Halldogau’s HOF Speech

My story starts the same so many others here. I had occasionally dipped and smoked an occasional cigar in high school and college but it wasn’t with any regularity. It wasn’t until about eight years ago that I started a daily habit. It started out as only when I was on the course… Then it was when I had a stressful day… Before I knew it, I was a slave to my Kodiak can. The bitch kept me in her grasp, but I did not care because I was an addict. Almost out at 11pm? Come up with an excuse to go to the store. The gas station is out of my brand? Go out of my way to check three more and almost make myself late for work. Need one last pinch? I would wait until my wife went to bed so I could sneak one last one in. Visiting with family? Spend extra time in the bathroom. In retrospect, it was all very pathetic.

The first time I said that I would quit was when my wife found out, after all I was a great ninja dipper! After three years of deceit and lying to her, my wife found out about my habit after I left a can in my pants pocket when she went to do the wash. She just told me that she wished I did not do that stuff. I told her I would try to cut back and just went on put the cancer shit in my lip.

A couple years later, what used to be something that I would just do to relax was not as fun or enjoyable anymore. I was going through a can+ each day and had grown to despise this disgusting habit. I visited this site but did not sign up or look at the forums. I thought about quitting, but was too stupid to actually try to do it. I tried quitting on my own several times but never made it more than a week. I would set a quit date in the future. When that day would come, I would always make some sort of pathetic excuse about why I couldn’t quit on that day: stress, going tailgating, big week at work, etc. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. Last December, I finally said enough is enough, sacked up, signed up for KTC, posted roll, and proceeded to spend the next week in a fog. The worst part of that week was always driving to and from work that week, after all, that is where I always threw in a fatty. After that first week it slowly got better, I just took things day by day.

Sure there were times when I craved… but I remembered that I posted roll. The accountability was the first key. By posting roll early in the day, I had given my word to literally 100’s of people that I would not use. If I was faced with a crave or a trigger I thought of all of those who would be pissed off/ disappointed if I gave in to it. It also mean that my word would not mean shit anymore. The second key was my safety net. I knew that if I needed to, that I could immediately get a hold of several people who knew exactly what I would be going through and help me through a temporary crave.

There are many people here who help me through these first 100 days: Taz, Mike_Land, sportsfan, all of my March brothers, and everyone on here! Your accountability and support were critical to my first milestone.

I know that I am an addict and that my 100th day is just another +1. It is a milestone, yes; but in the end, it is still just another day. I will still be addicted to nicotine tomorrow, the day after that, and the day after that. The best thing I could do to battle this addiction is to use the tools provided to me from KTC and take it day by day.

I hope to be quit with with you for many years, but for now, I am quit for today!

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