Cwkae30 HOF Speech – My Hall of Fame Journey

Ok so this may be a little lengthy but I will start from the beginning of my dip and basically life story. I put my first pinch in when I was 15 years old. I was with my older brother at my moms house and was working on a project for geometry class when my brother said “do you want to try this Skoal Wintergreen my buddy gave me”? I said sure, why not. I had heard that dip was really strong and heard some people puke the first time but I wanted to show my older brother that I was the man. I sat there and felt almost drunk while working on my project but I did not throw up and my older brother did. I felt like a badass!

at the time I didn’t dip everyday as I didn’t have a means to buy it for myself but then something happened that changed my life forever. My mother had been battling breast cancer for about 3 years. she had surgery to remove the cancer from her breast when I was around 15 years old. Everything looked to be ok after the surgery but the cancer came back when I was late 15/early 16 and this time it was wrapped around her aorta (the main vein to her heart). The doctor said they could not do surgery as it was too dangerous where the cancer was located. She had to do chemo and radiation and finally go to the point where the cancer was microscopic and no longer a threat. Again, we all had a huge sigh of relief. let me tell you that I was a mama’s boy and loved my mother more than any human being on this earth. She literally went back to school at 43 years old while going through chemo and radiation and got a 4.0 and got her masters degree in teaching and started teaching mentally handicapped students at my high school. She was the most amazing loving person and literally everyone that knew her loved her as she had a huge heart and was always thinking of others. My parents were split up since i was 12 and I didn’t really get along with my father as he was a hard ass kind of guy. I was dipping a little more when I turned 16 and would put a dip in on the way to school and on the way home. One day i got home and my mother said she was not feeling well, as she often times did not as the chemo made her weak, but this time was different. She collapsed and we had to take her to the emergency room. She had pneumonia and it was serious as the chemo kills your white blood cells and makes it hard for your body to combat any sickness especially something as serious as pneumonia. My little brother and I stayed with her for a week and each day she got worse and worse. I didn’t shower at all that week and eating was scarce. 5 days later a doctor sat my family and I down and said she was not going to make it. It was the absolute worst thing i have ever heard in my life. how could she be gone in less than a week? it was December 13, 2003 and nothing was the same after that day. I started dipping a ton after that day but didn’t realize I was using it to suppress the loss i had just encountered.

move forward and through the years I went to college and I was dipping all the time. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal and only my close friends knew I dipped because I was a damn good ninja dipper. I was pretty fat kid but then decided to start working out and dieting and lost 100 pounds! (285 to 185). Of coarse the dip was a crutch I would use to surpass my appetite and as long as I had a dip in I couldn’t eat. I kept on dipping through my college career and then started working for the family mortgage business. I would sit at my desk all day and if I wasn’t eating or sleeping I was dipping. I would leave a dip in for 2 hours at a time to control my appetite and just because having a dip in was so much better than not. I would constantly think when I would take my next dip even with one in my lip. I stopped dipping for 1 full year when I was 26 but I just started smoking E-cigs which were even worse as they gave me terrible feelings in my chest and I was puffing them like a crazy man. Then 27 rolls around and I put in a dip and I just remember the feeling that came over me. it felt like an old friend and my whole body got warm. I moved in with a buddy of mine who dipped and we just made each other worse with dip but at the time it felt awesome. I was in the best shape of my life and ripped and we would go out all the time and grill and go to the pool. Then him and I had a falling out so I moved out. I still dipped like crazy and then met my now fiancé. I wanted to quit dipping so bad but the thought alone would give me anxiety. She and I moved into together a little over a year ago and she told me that she didn’t want to be married to a guy who dips as she wanted us to grow old together and if I continued dipping I more than likely would die young. this hit me hard and I told her I would stop on July 4th, 2017. I did stop on July 5th, 2017 and haven’t had a dip since. that is when I joined this site but didn’t really get what it was all about. I started smoking cigars on weekends a coupe weeks later telling myself (my father also told me this) that smoking cigars on weekends wasn’t that big of a deal and that I could control it. Well one weekend we went fishing and I smoked 5-6 packs of cigars in a single weekend also drank a whole bunch. On the way home from fishing, I had the first anxiety attack of my life. I was sitting in the line at Whataburger and literally thought I was having a heart attack. I started hyper ventilating and couldn’t catch my breath and my heart was going a mile a minute. At that time I knew i couldn’t do this to myself any longer. i got back on KTC and started asking people about anxiety and attacks and why i felt this way. Some of the guys here on KTC slammed me as I still smoked cigars and didn’t realize what kind of site this was. I would come on KTC and vent because i was going crazy but then i was told to update my quit date to show the correct date I stopped all nicotine. It was August 20th (sunday) a day before my 30th birthday. I had told myself after the weekend i was done with nicotine for good and wanted 1 last bang before i did. the 3 days (august 21st was my actual birthday) were absolute hell. not only was i coming off nicotine, i was coming off alcohol as well. I didn’t want move on my birthday and stayed in bed all day long. It was the worst birthday i have ever had but it was so worth it now. I couldn’t relax and felt worse than i have ever felt. i was depressed and had major anxiety. I started posting to get some insight from people at KTC and then realized that all you guys have gone through this and i needed to buy in.

Fast forward to today. It was been some up and down throughout these first 100 days but I am so proud to be quit with all of my brothers and sisters. i can honestly say I couldn’t have made it through without the support of my Fiance and my KTC family. Thank you all so much for being here for me and each other. this site is truly amazing and it can be such a great weapon against the NIC bitch. I will forever and always stay quit and will always have a place in my heart for my quit family.

Thanks you all again and ABQ!!!!

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member cwkae30