Why a Speech?

Read my “Contract To Quit”

I have dipped snuff for over 30 years. I started out stealing Copenhagen from my brother who used to sell it at High School rodeos. I switched later to Happy Days and Skoal then eventually only Skoal because one of my rodeo heroes, Walt Garrison and a favorite artist of mine, Charlie Daniels, dipped Skoal according to the TV commercials back then.

Later the wintergreen started to give me heartburn so I switched to the original, Copenhagen. When that got too expensive, I switched to Longhorn @ $1.00 a can.

I decided to quit dipping ……. so I started smoking. Smart huh?

I had a heart attack on August 10, 2000. 10 days in the hospital without snuff ……. this will help me quit tobacco, right? Nope ….. a week after recuperating at home being told I need to sit and rest. Don’t do that, don’t do this, just sit there and do nothing. Well one day I got tired of doing nothing and drove to the quick stop and bought a can of Longhorn.

My daughter is my hunting buddy. My son is my sports buddy. My son never really said anything about my dipping through all the years of soccer games and travel to and from tournaments. My daughter however always had some weird face to make when she would realize that I was taking too much time to climb in the deer stand because I had to have a dip before we could get to hunting or before we could get on the 4-wheeler to go back to camp.

The price of tobacco steadily going up and the cost of living going up. The price of gas sky rocketing. Two kids in junior college and both headed to senior college soon. My health weighing heavy on my mind. I decide it’s time to quit.

I start searching the web looking for the perfect “As Seen On TV” answer to “Tobacco Cessation” and all that comes up pertains to smoking. The University Medical Center here has a great program for tobacco cessation …. “The program is only for smokers not for dippers” they tell me. So finally I type in the words “STOP DIPPING SMOKELESS TOBACCO” and up pops KTC on the search.

So I’m looking around the site checking it out, as well as other sites that popped up and I see the LIVE CHAT. So I click the link and i’m asked for a nickname ….. I give a nickname and all of a sudden I ENTER A CHAT ROOM THAT’S FILLED WITH PEOPLE BITCHING EACH OTHER OUT IN WORDS!!!!!

Then someone types my nickname and ask me if I’m quit. OH SHIT! No one was supposed to talk to me! I just wanted to observe, check it out. When i tell them not yet but thinking about it, these guys start raking me across the coals giving me a lot of tough love type talk. When I tell them I’m considering quitting and maybe I’ll quit this weekend ….. then one of the guys introduces me on the chat room as “Meet WayneBo, a father who doesn’t give a shit about his wife or kids and doesn’t mind dying from cancer and leaving his wife a widow and his kids as orphans”.

I quit Sunday March 30, 2009 and joined KTC Monday April 1, 2009

Posting roll got really old after about 4-5 weeks. I mean it really sucked. I don’t normally get on the computer on the weekends so why would I turn it on just to post roll? Because if you don’t you’ll get bitched at Monday when you do post roll that’s why. Then this guy in my quit group gets the bright idea of starting quit buddy groups so if you’re not able to post roll, then text a buddy in your group and they can post for you OR if you were late in posting roll that day they could text you and check up on your ass. Made sense and I think that it worked for several of us!

The chat room really helped me several times. People you don’t even know that can talk to you who have been through what you’re going through at the moment or maybe it’s somebody in your quit group that is wondering if they’re they only one dealing with the cravings.

Bottom line is that this site and the people that log onto it daily, weekly or every once in a while really helped me to get through 100+ days without dipping snuff.

AND I THANK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU.

I am not going to try and name names because I will leave someone out that; made a difference, advised me, helped me, coached me, cussed me, talked to me, talked about me or just plain listened to me.

100 days and the KTC Hall Of Fame is a milestone, but not my goal. My goal is to stay quit for me, my family and my friends.

Umm …… AMEN

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member Wayne Bo