How’s Your Quit?

“How’s your quit?”  It’s a three word sentence that means absolutely nothing to most people.  But it’s a question that to us smokeless tobacco addicts can quite literally be the difference between life and death.

OK, that may have been a bit of an overstatement, but not by much.  You never know when someone is struggling with their daily battle.  What if your question could save their quit?  Save their life?  Wouldn’t you ask?  You see, to me, my quit IS a matter of life and death.  My marriage is affected by my quit.  My kids are affected by my quit.  Just as my Kodiak used to define me, now my quit defines me.

I’m a firm believer in asking this question sometime during just about any correspondence that I have when it’s with a member of KTC.  When you’re early in your quit it will be easy to ask the question… it’s most likely what your conversation is about.  After all, when you’re in the early stages of your quit you’re fixated on one thing… your quit.

However, as time rolls on and you get some legs under your quit, life will indeed return to normal.  You WON’T be thinking constantly about fake dip, last night’s dip dream or the crave that brought you to your knees yesterday afternoon.  And that’s when your addiction will sneak up on you.  That is when your mind will start to justify “just one“.

It’s THOSE times where the question becomes all that much more important.

An addict will always be an addict.  I’m sorry if that upsets some people but I believe it more now than ever.  I’ve often said that I’m no more than $5 and a gas station away from my addiction.  Simply asking that question allows me to not only help someone else, but to focus for a moment on my quit.  That renewed focus even if for just a moment allows me to remember how far I’ve come and the foe that I continue to fight against.

So I’ve got to ask… How’s your quit?