Can You Walk In My Shoes? You Only Need To Believe In You!

As the old saying goes, let us not judge one another until we have walked in their shoes.

So… Could you? Or perhaps maybe I should try walking in yours? It would be nice to take a look into someone’s life just by slipping on their shoes. Oh, how exciting? hmm.. Think again maybe not. No two people can feel the same emotion/reaction towards a reward/challenge within their life and that holds true as well with quitting an addiction. Yes, we may have similarities through our quit to help guide each other but ultimately no one is walking in your shoes. Just you!

Hi, my name is Nickie. And for over 20 years, I have attempted several times to quit smokeless tobacco. I let Copenhagen consume me and honestly towards the end I felt like a prisoner to nicotine. Today, I’d like to share a part of me with you; to bare my soul, for the sake of helping someone realize addiction in any form or caving is not the answer to life’s problems.

If after reading this you feel a sense of inspiration to quit whatever addiction you have; or if this helps renew you in your own quit then I’ll know the reason for all this insanity was well worth it.

So let’s see, how many times have you ever said this to yourself?
“If anyone needed Copenhagen ( insert your brand name here ) it was ME.”

Yep! Every time a conflict or problem would arise I’d fall back on the good ‘ole belief that I needed Copenhagen in my life in order to help with my problems. “If I just use Copenhagen until I get through this major obstacle it will get better than I can stop.” But you see, when we’re in “our better moment episode” we’re selfish. We don’t quit instead we let our addiction consume us to the point of not caring about our family and friends but most importantly not caring about ourselves, about our health.

The following is an outline of my stepping stones to this point in my life. In no way am I seeking sympathy or pity just trying to serve a point.

• I didn’t have the greatest childhood. My father physically and mentally abused me until I was almost seventeen. I was belittled to the point that still to this day I have very little self esteem about myself. He was and still is an alcoholic. It got so bad that twice as a teenager I tried to commit suicide. A few days after graduation I found out my father had actually adopted me when my mother married him. My biological father, who only saw me once at two days old, signed all his legal rights away to someone who just wanted to beat the crap out of me. Nice start .. eh?

• When I was around fourteen, one of my girlfriends stole her grandfathers’ Redman. As a dare we each had to try it – talk about nasty!!! After a few weeks we thought about upgrading to her older brother’s tin can of Copenhagen. It is here that I started my reasoning for using tobacco. “I do it because I need it to help me cope with my Dad.” It’s kinda of sad looking back at those moments and seeing how pathetic I sounded but little did I know just how pathetic I would actually get.

• In ’92, I was about to marry my high school sweetheart and yet he hadn’t a clue to the extent of my addiction, heck he didn’t even know I had an addiction and to my amazement neither did I. “Oh, I’ll quit when the wedding is over. My nerves are just too strung out planning this with my husband being in the Army over in Kuwaiti for the first battle with Iraq.” By the time I said I do, I had been using snuff for almost 8 years. A few months later I was pregnant with our first son, morning sickness so I quit it long enough until I was out of the hospital. A total of 7 months with no tobacco and BAM! I am right back on the Copenhagen train again! CHEW! CHEW! Why did I start back after not using for several months? I suppose I was still in denial that I could quit any time I wanted to and that I needed it to cope and get me through the problems I faced.

• By this time, my husband had found out and we had numerous fights over my “disgusting habit.” Too many to count, multiply and divide by. All I could think was .. “If he loved me why couldn’t he love me for who I am? Why does he want to change me?”

Hmm .. let’s see tobacco up until now has helped me out a lot in my life, in my marriage and with my problems .. don’t you think?

• My husband cheated on me when I was pregnant with my second child. My heart broke that day. A few months after that he was born and rushed off to NICU. It would be two days before I would see him and another two weeks before I could bring him home. He would stop breathing several times throughout the day and night besides a list of other problems. He finally came home on an apnea monitor. Today, he is an amazing boy! I just knew that I was going to quit this time. I told God, please Lord help my son I’ll do anything .. anything you ask of me. I’ll quit, yes I’ll quit if you’ll help him. God kept up his end of the deal, unfortunately, I didn’t. I continued to dip.

• My mother by this time had been dating a gentleman for about 8 years and he became a huge father figure in my life. His love was unconditional. No matter what wrongs I did he never judged me. He always encouraged me. At this point, he is only the other man besides my husband to know that I used Copenhagen. He was diagnosed with cancer in April ’98 and left us July ’98. I swore at his funeral I would quit. Guess what? That didn’t happen.

• Pregnant with my third son, only three months after giving birth to my second. I was scared and confused. My husband had done the unthinkable – could or would it happen again? I used Copenhagen more so with this pregnancy then I had with my last. By now, I knew I was addicted but my husband only saw weakness. He saw me as being ugly and unwomanly for what I was doing which led me to try to quit for him! Only I never did actually quit – I’d only hid it until he found out. Yet another disappointment in his eyes.

• My youngest son was diagnosed with ADHD the same year I found out I had ADD and temporal-lobe epilepsy. My epilepsy isn’t that severe. I actually received this condition by an attack from my father. One evening he had thrown a dinner plate at me hitting my right temple. It knocked me out. I was hospitalize and later would realize after all these years why I had such bad headaches. By now, I told myself .. I’d like to quit but I need this now more than ever. Just how bad did I need it? If my husband found a can he’d throw it in the garbage. Later I would dig it out.

• The year Hurricane Francis and Jeanne hit Florida, our house was destroyed we lost just about everything. I think it was here that I honestly started to realize that my dipping wasn’t “making” my problems go away. But I dipped more than ever almost a can a day. I was at my lowest. I spent most of my time figuring out how I was going to get my next dip without anyone knowing and I spent the other half concocting lies to cover up what I was doing.

• Life seemed to finally turn normal. We had a house built. We both had pretty decent jobs. Life seemed ok for once. I told myself when we get into our new house this will be my new beginning. I am going to quit for good. Yep! That quit would only last a week. A few months after we moved in I had severe pains. That night I went to the ER and had a miscarriage. After being in the hospital for a week and almost sent home, they saw that I was hemorrhaging internally. I almost lost my life that day, Nov. 14, 2005; due to misdiagnoses. I had twins. One was a miscarriage, the other a tubal pregnancy. While on medical leave from work I was harassed about when I was coming back. I stepped down from my position and later quit the company altogether. I was in deep depression. I broke down and told my Dr. about me using tobacco for almost 20 years and that I wanted to quit. He told me we’d deal with my depression first but my tobacco use was the least of my problems. He wanted me to use it to cope for now. Wow! Someone actually wants me to dip. So I did but the truth was I didn’t want to. It felt more like a burden now than anything. An old chore that I hated to do. Sometimes I would only have it in a few minutes just to spit it out. It tasted nasty. I felt so ugly but how could I ever overcome this addiction – this sickness?

My New Years Resolution 2007, like many new years before I promised to quit and well Jan 1st came and went. But what happened next is something totally unexplainable, Jan 4th; I decided I didn’t want to be a prisoner anymore. This time I was at rock bottom with my addiction. Four days into my quit I knew I needed information and resources to help me if I was going to win this fight. The day I found this site is the day I found myself.

When I started my quit I felt like this was the beginning to the end of a long nightmare but yet now 135 days tobacco-free I feel as if it’s truly the end to a new beginning in my journey with life.

I didn’t realize I held this power the whole time. I only needed to believe in myself that I could do it. The power of forgiveness and freedom. (Forgiving myself for all the things my addiction made me do and freedom of the ties that bound me at one point to that tiny little can.) I’ve reflected a lot during my quit and I will continue doing so.
We need to accept the fact that we’ll always be addicted to tobacco.
We’ll have easy days during our quit but to remember harder days may follow.
But no matter what happens there is NO good reason for any of us to pick up that can and throw away our power.
We can deal with our problems through other avenues. Tobacco will not be one of those easy streets that we take.
We’ll do it starting today. Starting this very moment we promise to ourselves and each other to stay quit.

So now my question to you is not can you walk in my shoes but could you be a friend and walk beside me?

-mylilsecret

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