Hello, thanks for setting up this site, the encouragement is fantastic! I quit in June of this year after 20+ years of a can of Cope per day. And I loved it... I quit because I hated being mastered by a small can. Even though I'm about 4 months into quitting, the past week or so has been tortuous. I even dream about dipping. I had reckoned that it would be pretty easy after the first month or so... wrong. Is that normal? I've been chewing gum, crunching mints, started seeds, and have gone back to fake dip. Prayer and stubbornness are keeping me clean, but my goodness. Can I anticipate fighting this way for the next good while? Have you long term quitters reached a point where dipping is no longer dominant in your thinking?
I am in the same boat. I am approaching six months and figured this all would have been in the rear view mirror long ago. While I am proud of myself for making it this far I might be more disappointed that it is still such a struggle.
Yesterday might have been my closest to caving yet because I was so trashed. I think I fully intended to buy a tin but dumb luck might have saved me that it was several blocks away and I didn't make it there.
I never really bought into the posting roll thing because in my mind I would have won this war when I stop thinking about it -and waking up every day where the first thing I do is promise not to chew seems counterproductive to that goal. But maybe it does make sense because I am going to live the rest of my life as an addict, constantly a couple blocks away from throwing it all away on just one Kodiak.
Not thinking about dip is not the answer. You got one thing right: as an addict, you will never forget about dip. As such, you have to retrain your mind to "think" about it in a different way. That's EXACTLY why posting roll works. When you do that, you promise that no matter how much you think of dip that day, you will not under any circumstances go back on that promise (accountability).
By making that promise public, I don't have to worry about the creeping thoughts of "no one will know," or "it's only one dip, it can't hurt me." That's addict thought and the only way to get through those thoughts is to confront them head on. The side benefit of posting roll is you have at least 20 other quitters going through the exact same thought processes (brotherhood).
When you add the first paragraph to the second paragraph: accountability + brotherhood = success. It's the foundation of this site and it's the only reason I posted day 480 this morning. Some days are better than others. Most days I don't even think about dipping after I post roll, but it's because I've trained myself to believe that there will never be a good enough reason to cave and betray the guys I've posted with for nearly a year and a half. It's not because one day I magically stopped thinking about dip. It's because I no longer give myself an "out" with dip. That takes a lot of hard work and constant retraining of your brain. It's not magic. It's hard work, but it's SO worth the freedom you gain in return.
King, EXACTLY!
Guys, encouragement is all well and good, but the cornerstone of this site is accountability. Accountability is what drags you through when things are especially tough. That promise means that no matter what the hell is going on in your life, or how painful/ hopeless it seems, nicotine is just not an option for you today.
I'm sure we'd all love the option of moving on like the addiction never happened, but that's just not how it works. The shitty, dragged on, day to day struggle to stay quit is just the price we've gotta pay for starting in the first place. Yeah, it gets better, but I've not heard anyone say that it completely goes away.
I tell you what though - I'd much rather pay THIS price than the price of continuing to feed my addiction. Because that cost involves lies to the people I love, degradation of my health, inability to control my own behavior, financial burden and ultimately death or disfigurement.
Posting roll keeps me aware, but it also means that I can't possibly use because I gave my word that I wouldn't. That's a fair trade in my opinion.
