My Dirty Little ‘Not-so’ Secret

I am an addict. Not easy to say, but it is true. I have always viewed an addict as a heroin user, an alcoholic, etc. I never viewed nicotine as a drug – until I began this process on May 2, 2011. I have been addicted to nicotine in the form of chew/snuff tobacco since I was about 16 years old – over 20 years of my life I have been a slave to this addiction.

I vividly remember the 1st time I tried snuff tobacco – I was in 4th grade hanging out with local hooligans Derrick Clark and Mike Gordon near the abandoned tennis courts at the recently closed Ridgeview Country Club. It was Hawken Wintergreen, and it was truly awful. I remember puking profusely as those clowns laughed at me. I walked away from snuff tobacco that day . . .
. . .until as a sophomore I began experimenting again with chew tobacco in the form of Skoal Mint this time. I was a football player in a rural community – therefore I had to dip or so I thought. Everybody’s doing it, jump on the bandwagon. I quickly graduated to Kodiak Wintergreen and that was my drug of choice for the next 10 years. I switched to Grizzly Wintergreen about age 26 for $ purposes and dipped it exclusively for the next 10 years , right up until May 1, 2011 when I decided to quit.

I had only ‘quit’ 1 time before, for about a full year in my mid 20s. I had never truly wanted to quit until May 1, 2011. The trigger to this final, sustainable quit was truly the ‘secret’ the ‘deception’ that I practiced daily. The efforts that I went to at work to chew, around family events, during a Sunday morning church service, or while meeting with an employee at work. The fact that in mid 20’s, I learned not to spit and conceal the dip in my mouth so that no one would know that I was dipping made all of this possible. Mind you I have never kept this from my wife; she has been in the know after about 6 months of dating. She never nagged, but obviously she did not love my habit. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a beautiful 2.5 year old little girl asking “what it is” every time I went to pick up that can of Grizzly. My dear wife explained that it is a ‘long story’ to her. So she started calling my can of chew ‘a long story’.

I have known the dangers for years, I knew the $ wasted, I knew the wedge it created in my personal relationship with Jesus Christ. However, it was not until I started to hate the deception and the efforts I would go to have a chew that I was truly prepared to be quit. The place chew held in my life was a wakeup call.

I am thankful for KTC.org and the support, accountability, and education that came w/ it. I needed the accountability to get to this point and will need that same accountability to get to day 101.

Thanks to my fellow August Brethren and Sister – your quit encourages my quit. Thanks to those who reached out to offer a word of encouragement (kmarren, parry8587). Thanks to those who assisted in posting roll, or offered to help me post roll (Scowick65, Dante, sayrahanne, per034, Miles, csucomms1). Finally to the Jedi Masters of quit who offered encouragement, support, and a kick in the pants (Ready, Smokeyg, Cancrusher, TCOPE). Please forgive me if I missed anyone.

Brevity is not my strong suit (neither is sentence structure) however, all of this is why I am here, today at Day 100.

Working towards 101.

Stay Quit:
Brant (BTM99)

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member BTM99