Just One More Tin…

That’s what I kept telling myself for the past 20+ years.

“Just one more tin, then I’ll quit for good.”

But sure enough, some sort of life event (stress, beginning of summer, seeing somebody else packing a dip and thinking, “Hmm…oh yeah, dip would really hit the spot right now”, etc.) would have me hightailing it to the gas station or c-store and ponying up my hard-earned dollars on the counter for another tin of Skoal Cherry, or Peach or Copenhagen Snuff or Kodiak Wintergreen or whatever the hell else flavor I wanted to try. Didn’t matter. All I knew was that somehow a tin of crap would solve my problems or let me cope (pun intended) with the everyday problems we all face.

Well, those tins didn’t make anything better. In fact, they made things worse. Hell, I’ll say that they even RUINED my life in the form of wasted money, wasted time away from family and friends (I ninja’d dips aside from a few occasions where I dipped in the company of close, albeit thoroughly grossed out, friends), and high blood pressure. I went on blood pressure medication for 6 years but have recently been off them and living a healthier lifestyle with more exercise and better diet.

While dip ruined my life, KTC/QSX SAVED it. Not just the site and the forum. But all of YOU. Quitters AND cavers alike. Everyone who has ever posted on this forum or supported it anyway has helped my quit.

How?

Because I was skeptical when I punched in “how to quit dipping snuff” into a search engine and hit Return. KTC/QSX was one of the first sites I stumbled across, and I gave it a quick read. I never really seriously searched how to quit dipping, so I remember reading a few articles on KTC then lurking what I could on QSX and I noticed at that point it had about 9,500+ members registered and I noticed “last posts” were almost all that day and the chatter was definitely active.

I quit lurking and headed to bed, but I remember thinking about the site and how maybe, just maybe…it would be worth a shot. I’ve “stopped” dipping previously, but never with any sort of support group. Maybe I had a dental/doctor appointment coming up, or maybe the “grey gums” scared me enough to not dip for a month or two, but I’d always go running back to the can like I described earlier.

I grabbed my smartphone and searched for the site again and did more reading. I discovered “herbal snuff” as a method for quitting dip, which was a godsend. But more importantly, I saw the power of the daily roll call and being held accountable.

Before, when I stopped dipping solo, I wasn’t accountable to anybody but myself. I had no problem letting myself down as I’ve done it countless times, but I’ve always HATED letting others down. I decided to sign up for the site the next day, and after a few more months of dipping and lurking, I decided enough was enough and I finally threw out my tins and posted roll…Day 1.

Fast forward 108 days and I am nicotine-free. My blood pressure numbers are in good shape, and I am upping my exercise and eating right/in proportion. And I even decided to quit alcohol as well, since I had a tendency to drink to extremes and also eat a shit ton of junk food whilst boozing. Those days, as well as nicotine, are long gone. I am re-born, re-focused, and re-energized to live a healthy lifestyle. It took 33 years but I have finally woken up and am taking responsibility for my own health, because nobody else will do it for me.

Few quick but hugely deserved shoutouts.

First and foremost, my fellow 6/9/2011 quit daters: Mia, Z71ton and DennyX. It was our destiny to all quit on that date and reach the Hall together, and I want to see your names alongside mine on roll for many, many more days to come.

The OG’s: SamCat, TCOPE, Zaaa96, Scowick65, bigbamadan and signal31x. Thanks for taking me under your wing and all the PMs, texts, and guidance in showing me how it’s done. I want to help other quitters just like you helped me.

All of my fellow September ’11 Pirates. Thank you for posting roll and keeping things light and lively with various other posts. It was from the strength, humor, and general ball busting in this group that made me scared to death of caving and having to answer to you folks.

A few Pirates I wanted to shoutout in particular:

Bowman (your response to SmokeyG’s “September’s lack of HOF speeches” is one of the funniest replies I’ve ever read)

Slattern (loved talking herbal snuffs with you and happy to help your quit like you helped mine)

BreakingtheHabit (always willing to contribute to various threads and keep the discussions a-flowing)

Trey88 (spreadsheet maestro, thanks for putting in work on that)

ShawnNJ (for not caving when he broke up with his GF and hopefully a certain somebody makes good on their HOF coin bet)

Big H (for posting roll early…if none of my fellow quit daters posted yet, I knew to always key off of your day and subtract 1)

And lastly, I need to express more gratitude than I have ever comfortably given to another man…CHEWIE. Thank you for this site and all of the behind-the-scenes work you do running the store, shipping merchandise, and a lot of other stuff that we may not know about. Quite simply, you saved my life.

Anyway, that’s probably enough of my babble (for now). Please continue to post roll, whether you are on day 1 or day 1,000. Help out your fellow quitters, either in your own group and/or in a new group. Show them how it’s done and keep both this site and yourselves alive.

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