Battle To Quit For Good

I would like to say before you read this; this is the truth, all the mentioned things have happened to me over the course of my life. The one thing that got me through it was my faith in God and the feeling that it would all work out. Kicking the habit of the can was I have to say one of the hardest things I have ever done. It was always there for me to comfort me and let me know life was normal (I know that comment sounds messed up but was what felt like the truth at the time). I started dipping when I was 14 a year later I found out I had Leukemia. The dip helped (or so I thought) helped me get through the chemo and all the crap cancer brings. I beat cancer and found a new love rodeo in particular riding bulls and bareback horses. I won the state high school rodeo finals and a college scholarship for doing that. I also had another one of those times that should have killed me. I had a bareback horse fall on me and I broke 45 bones at once, had to be airlifted to a hospital and it did not look good. Once again I came through it and there was the dip (doing what I thought was helping).

I then met my wife and proceeded over the next 15 years making excuse after excuse to quit. When we get the farm profitable Ill quit, when we have a kid Ill quit, act. Both of these came and went our oldest child was born in 1994 the 2nd child in 1997 and the farm and everything else was lost in the May 3 1999 tornado. None of these was the wake up call I needed to quit. I was a church deacon that secretly dipped in church. When got the job I have now I had to go to 18 weeks of basic training at the federal law enforcement training center, again I kept dipping.

I guess what finally made me decide to quit was my 40th birthday is coming up and I figured enough is enough and finally quit. A lot of you are going to look at this and think what a lucky guy. I do not consider myself lucky (if I did I would have won the lottery by now); I look at it as a series of tests. All of which I have passed. And looking back now I learned something from each of these things. I look at quitting as another test. I would not have been able to have made it without the help of this site. I owe a big thank you to Caveman and Mule both of which just gave me enough encouragement to not redip. Even now at 100 plus days I still get that “empty” feeling in my mouth, and probably always will, but I will not be a slave to that can anymore. Look I know what you are thinking I can’t quit. But YES you can, suck it up and do it. I figure if I can anyone can.

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member painthorse68