HOF – SOFGAV HOF Speech

Before I get into my history as a dipper I just want to thank everyone on this site for just being there and while I have complained and bitched and fought with many of you I realize that most of it comes from a good place. I know we don’t agree on many things, politics, religion, sports teams, but i know we all agree that quitting dip was one of the most positive decisions any of us have made in our lives.

I want to give a special thanks to BBJ who actually called and sent text messages of support.

Growing up my parents were smokers, even though they tried to hide it my brother sister and I we were well aware that my parents smoked and we were totally turned off by it. I to this day have never smoked a cigarette.

I never looked at dip the same way and one day when I was about 16 playing street hockey I was approached with Skoal Long Cut Cherry flavor, I sad why not and tried it. Little did I know that I had just started a battle that would last over 10 years.

After that first experience I didn’t do another dip for about 5 years but the feeling was imprinted in my brain and after moving out to Arizona to follow a girl it was offered to me again, I said why not.

At this point I had a lot of people around me dipping, my roommates were dipping people at parties were dipping and it all seemed ok at a time when I was desperately trying to fit in and ingratiate myself into a place I clearly didn’t belong.
I was around this time that I bought my first “tin”.

When I finally escaped from Arizona, with my hair falling out and red circles around my eyes, I purged myself of some bad habits, I started eating meat again, I tossed my tin and started doing martial arts 3-4 days a week, but its funny how things change.

A year after I got back from zona I was accepted into a great 4 year college The School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, I was ecstatic all this potential opportunity ahead of me. When I got there some if not all of my bad habits came back.
Sometimes college can be very lonely I had a dorm room by myself and spent many nights working on my scripts and films with a fatty in my lip. It was around this time I switched from Skoal to Kodiak, and kodiak stayed with me till 100 days ago.

I never really thought about dip and that I had this disgusting habit, it was only after I finally settled my life had kids got married did I finally start to think about what a dirty disgusting habit it was. It took me a long time after I realized it to finally give it up, but I was always thinking about it.

I was thinking about it when:
I was waking up to a spilled dip cup
My daughter was finding my tin and asking me what it was
I was dipping in a movie theater
I would talk to people and they would take three steps back
My gums would hurt
I dropped my cell phone into my spitter ruining my brand new Treo
I would lie to my sister my mom my brother my kids.
I felt like a slave
I felt like I was addicted and had no control

This list can go on and on but I don’t that is the point to a HOF speech.

I think the point is simply this: I have over come an addiction that some scientists say is harder to give up than heroin, I have over come something that others spend a lifetime trying to quit. I have overcome an addiction that could take my life leaving my two beautiful daughters fatherless.

Without trying to sound a little to overdramatic I have overcome.
and it feels fucken great

thanks again to KTC

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member sofgav11