Author Topic: Aumegrad Intro  (Read 27530 times)

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Offline Capital70

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Re: Aumegrad Intro
« Reply #3 on: October 02, 2018, 11:34:47 AM »
Never gets old reading your stuff!!!
Capital70
Quit Date May 27th, 2018
HOF September 3rd, 2018
Intro/Quit Journey
HOF Speech- I Get To
"The more I sacrifice, the harder it is to surrender"
"F#*k man, just post roll and keep your promise" -batdad
Quitters I've Met- 69Franx, Wiesman71, McDave, Jeidi1991
Bad asses quit....everyone else stays addicted

Offline Aumegrad

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Re: Aumegrad Intro
« Reply #2 on: October 01, 2018, 12:03:38 PM »
Further Xfers from Tapa: Originally posted 9/12/18

Aumegrad: Some general quit observations and thoughts from my quit on day 52:

- The first 3 days, a couple days during week 3, and days 49-51 I experienced the following:
   o Extremely tired i.e. I am in bed and sound asleep by 8:30pm
       * 9:30-10pm typical bedtime
   o Real twitchy when sleeping and occasionally wakes me
       * Wife notices them too when I'm sleeping and claims they are like an electrical jolt that starts at my head and works its way down my body
  o Wake up multiple times during these nights and sometimes hard to get back to sleep
  o Wake up groggy, zero desire to work out
       * Just force myself to do some jumping jacks, sit ups, and pushups to get blood flowing
  o Feeling of "I'll just get to work when I can today", very much like Eeyore
  o Cravings and constantly convincing myself that nicotine won’t help anything
       * I love a good challenge and I am down for the quit, I have simply come too far, I am mentally tough and powered my way through a lot and this is nothing!
  o I am very short tempered and would appreciate if the movie "Purge" was real life, just for a few minutes at a time
       * Snap at wife, snap at kids. Gotta be very cognizant here. Acknowledge your actions and correct them quickly! We can't take our aggression out on the ones we love.

- Then all the sudden, it goes as fast as it came. Today on 52, felt like:
  o Woke up rejuvenated, got a good workout in (chest and tri's today)
  o Got to work on time (only road raging once ... seriously, just get the f outta the fast lane ahole)
  o Ready to take on the world
  o The Hulk has converted back to Bruce Banner and he is glad the movie "Purge" is not real life

It's just interesting how all this plays out. I told my wife last night how bad the past couple days have been. Her response was "oh I can tell and I can't believe it is affecting you this far along". But it got me thinking, nicotine was more than crutch when everything hit the fan. It was always my "light at the end of the tunnel". Not only when the day sucked but even on the good days too. No matter what I looked forward to, I always added to it "and then after that, I can get a dip". So hypothetically, even if I had won the lottery, I would have been elated and then my immediate thought would be "oh can't wait to get a dip now". Nicotine was so pervasive in my life, it attached itself onto every thought I had. For emphasis, that is EVERY thought between 12 and 38 years old. I say all of this only to say, it is immeasurably foolish to assume that this could quickly and easily be corrected. It has only been 52 days of correction for a drug that controlled my brain for 26 years.

So, nicotine, I get that. I get that I will have great highs and I will have lows. I get that it will just take time to slowly erase you from my life. I get that during this time, you will taunt me, and you will try to convince me that the easy way out is just to cave. That one little dip won't hurt anything or that one cigar to chew on while playing golf will be harmless. But please know this, my resolve is much stronger than any hold you ever had on me. Sure this will continue to suck, but I consider it a pleasure and an honor to endure this pain just for the satisfaction of knowing that I can look into your eyes and with great gladness and a smile exclaim "you have NO control over me and are as effective in my life as a rose petal on a turd" ... BRING IT.

AppleJack: Oh. Hell. Yes. This ^^^... THIS^^^!! ... Is one of THE most important attitude components to ANY success here!
No whining.
No looking back.
No romanticized "love lost" bullshit.
Owning ALL of the good and bad and using every damn bit of it as momentum.  Well said, sir!  Bro, there WILL come a time when your attitude will show you a freedom you didn’t know was possible. Trust me. I say it all’a time because the truth of it is profound: Get involved... Stay involved. It works. Ask me how I know...
AJ... Day 1,975


kickin-wing: Rereading your intro today was laughing at this:
    wrote:
    I would hide it from my wife by frequent bathroom breaks, quick runs to the store for random crap no one needed, ... etc.
Not only is your nic vector of choice expensive but how much money have we all wasted on these "store runs!" Glad to be quit today.

« Last Edit: October 10, 2018, 06:53:50 PM by Aumegrad »
Who is Aumegrad ???? ...

What were his thoughts at 100 days ???? ... [url=http://forum.killthecan.org/index.php?topic=722.0]HoF


Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. (1 Corinthians 9:24)

Offline Aumegrad

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Aumegrad Intro
« on: October 01, 2018, 12:00:11 PM »
Xfering from Tapa ...

Aumegrad Initial post on 9/11/18:

I am currently 51 days quit and realized I have never posted an Intro. Here we go …

Hi, my name is Johnathon and I am a 38 year old Mechanical Engineer who lives and works in the lovely state of Alabama.

I have been a nicotine addict since I was 12 years old (Marlboro Lights). Initially starting with cigarettes, I later picked up dip at 15 (Skoal Wintergreen Longcut). Everyone in my family at the time used tobacco in one form or another, it was the norm. So, I continued to hide it. The only people who knew I dipped were close friends and golf partners (and this held true till my quit 7 weeks ago). I met my future wife at 23, a nontobacco user, who knew I smoked however never complained and never asked me to quit. Coming to grips with the reality that smoking would indeed kill me someday, I decided to quit before we got married. Mind you, she never asked me too, but I realized that if I didn't do it then, I would never quit. Once I started building habits in a new house with this new life, it would be infinitely harder for me to quit. I assumed that smoking what be more difficult to quit than dipping (ignorant). My plan was to get through all the smoking withdrawals while continuing to ninja dip, then quit dip at some point in the future. I would hide it from my wife by frequent bathroom breaks, quick runs to the store for random crap no one needed, ... etc. I made a conscience decision at that point to not let my wife know I dipped because she would have one of two reactions:

A) She would accept it and I would start dipping more routinely around her and make that many more habits that I would at some point have to break.
B) She would not accept it and continue to nag me about. Being the spiteful person I generally am, constant nagging would not have been a good situation for our marriage.

Because of these reasons, I moved forward with my plan. I quit smoking the day before our marriage which was a terrible decision.  8 days in Hawaii with a new bride and nicotine withdrawals ... stupid, but I did it. Fast forward over the next 12 years, it went by amazingly fast. We had three beautiful children who unwittingly appeared to try and "out" me daily by playing about my hidden "stash", seemingly determined to uncover my dip cans. It's funny to look back and see the effects of the hidden dip. I literally would choose vacation rentals based on the privacy of the master bath. Was it large enough for me to keep my luggage there so I didn't run the risk of being caught taking cans in and out? Did it have doors I could lock to keep people out? Sadly, there were certain vacations that I simply wouldn't even consider because I knew how hard it would be to sneak a dip. This even included not staying with my in-laws when we visited them because the house wasn't "Ninja Dip Accessible". Think of the affect this had on my marriage?!?! These are just a couple examples of how nicotine controlled my every thought and action.

So again, years went by and at no time did I even ponder quitting my 1-2 can/day addiction. It was a part of my life and I unknowingly just accepted that this is the way my life was intended to be. All that changed within a matter of weeks, where my blissful ignorance was transformed into fearful rage. I started experiencing what so many of us have before, jaw pain and mouth sores. While I wasn't overly concerned, I began to realize that if I continued dipping, those pains could at some point turn out to be the big C. Then, how would I explain to my kids that because of my selfishness, I will not be able to be there for them to help guide them in life. Because I chose an easy way out, unable to better manage the stress in my life, they could be fatherless? Because I was blindly going through life, refusing to face reality, they may at some point call another man "dad", and what if he is a terrible person? I know all this sounds emotional and a bit dramatic, but these thoughts instantly filled my mind and enraged me. These thoughts could become reality if chose to continue to dip. These thoughts then began an avalanche of thoughts as a curtain being drawn back, revealing the ugly truth nicotine has been hiding from me. If I am a MAN, why in the hell am I sneaking around my house and keeping secrets from the people I love? What do I want in life, what is my end goal? Do I want to be the honest, attentive husband my wife deserves? Do I want to be the devoted, loving father my kids deserve? The answer to all of these is YES. So, the next logical question, how do I make this happen? While the answer seems straight forward now, I still had a hard time seeing clearly through the nicotine fog. Until one day I was preparing a Sunday School lesson for the book of Colossians. In preparation of this lesson, I was studying various points including idolatry. It was at this point, it hit me like a ton of bricks, nicotine was my idol. It was no longer a harmless habit that could potentially influence my worldly life, this was an unconfessed sin that has a very real and negative impact on my eternal life! It was literally within 24 hrs that I found the KTC website, realized what needed to be done and within only a few days of facing all the items outlined above, on July 23, 2018 I quit, I quit being a slave, I eliminated an idol in my life that I placed before God, my family, my friends, my life, I quit telling the convenience store clerk "no no, I said LONG cut", I quit worrying about how many cans of dip I had stashed in my sports coats and how many more I could transport, I quit having my kids look for me when I disappear for 20 minutes, I quit ensuring ALL dip cans and spitters were removed from my laptop bag before important meetings or teaching Sunday School, I quit vacuuming all the loose dip grains in my car seat and floorboard, I quit letting a dead plant dictate where we vacationed, I quit worrying every time a sore arose in my mouth, I quit letting everyone think I had IBS because I went to the bathroom so often, I quit hiding cans of dip in my sock and worrying someone would see its outline in my pants, I quit being controlled by a drug that has no true redeeming qualities, I quit, I quit, I QUIT!!

I had my last dip at 6:30am on the July 23rd. While at work on the same day, I wrote my wife a letter explaining much of what I wrote above. I knew I would mess it up if I tried to verbalize 12 years of lies. I was tired of it, I needed to come clean and I needed her support. On the way home, I spent ~$100 on gum, seeds (pumpkin and sunflower), beef jerky (sticks and chew), various Smokey Mountain cans, mints, hard candy, you get the picture. Got home, hugged the kids, took my wife outside and told her to read the note. First sentence in, she looked up and said "I knew you dipped". What the hell, I thought I was stealthy?!?!? You can't hide it gentlemen! I encouraged her to keep reading. She stood up, hugged me, and has been in my court ever since.

Frankly, the quit hasn't been as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been fun either. In fact, Oliver posted several weeks ago about the woes of ~ day 50 and he was right. Days 48-50 have been as bad as Days 1-3 for me, no joke. But I know it will get better and frankly, my craves just piss me off more and makes me want to skull drag nicotine! It strengthens my quit and helps me direct my anger towards it rather than loved ones.

I know this is long and drawn out, however before I found this website, I thought I was unique. I thought I was the only one that faced these sometimes silly and often serious issues. However, because many of those before me took the time to outline their experiences and the positive affect they had on me, I write this in hopes that it helps someone out there who may have a similar story but still holding to the nicotine. You are not alone, you are not special, and your life isn't any harder than anyone else's. If I/we can quit, you can too, just QUIT. You are not here by accident, QUIT. It is one thing in life that you won't regret!

I will also note, writing this is helping me through a crave  ;D

Thanks for reading,
Johnathon  Lets Go Rawkstars!

Capital70: That was freaking amazing! So many parallels to my own life! Pretty sure I sent you my number once before but I am doing it again because I really like you!!!

BBQchips: Just read thru and wanted to say “thank you” for sharing all of that. Feel very similar to you in the “what ifs” and doubts I constantly have. That and the ninja life. Proud to QWYT.

CLEalt: Great intro. I too was a ninja dipper. Until I saw the end I was thinking to myself, "no way he never got caught." Lol. Congrats on quitting. You'll never regret it.

copequits: Thanks for that! It was just the right time I needed to read something of that nature. Those are some great references to what so many of us have been through. Proud to have you as an October brother.

skolvikings: Well..... that was freaking awesome.  I hope you keep writing, these words will definitely help a new quitter, it strengthened my quit. Great job paying it forward :)

gottadoit: I agree with all of the other comments. Spelled out most of my ninja habits to a "T". Thanks for the reminder of how I used to be so stupid, that I couldn't see how it was harming my family so much.

Aumegrad: I thank you all for your comments. While I would love to say writing this was completely selfless, it was quite therapeutic for me to air it all out. It's really not till one starts to pen his actions, that he can truly see how foolish he is. Seriously, how foolish were we all?!?! This has been an experience like no other and I'll be damned if I freely let others go down the same path.  Also meant to add ... I am awaiting a response from Doofus. His avatar has NOTHING to do with it 'Popcorn'

Doofus: Lol, I'm not one to judge or deny anyone a desired pleasure....but now you can study my avatar up close.  As far as your intro, you are ahead of me, I waited until 66ish to write an intro, everything changed at that moment because it was then that I knew I was not alone, the similar stories, the dudes saying, "I did that shit too!", all the same addict behavior, repeated over and over and over. All because of a dead flavored weed. 3 tins a day of Skoal LC mint was the suicide poison that I was addicted to for 30 years but the form didnt matter honestly....a drug is a drug.  I dont post a daily journal always, life gets in the way sometimes...... but writing and communicating is part of the treatment. It helps to know that you aren't alone and life is truly ok without the dead weed. Do not be afraid to over communicate here on KTC.  If you browse my intro, you'll see a post from a vet (Dundippin) which said, "It sounds like you have your mind made up on this quit and that is the entire battle. Once you stop the conversation in your head about whether to do one more or not, then the rest is easy." I'll pass that wisdom along to you courtesy of Dundippin, a total stranger who lent a hand in saving my life. .....and give you some words of my own.  Learn from others, this site is exactly what you just shared above. You will make mistakes, there will be fights and arguments, people here you dont like or agree with but the one constant is that we are all addicts. Once you strip addiction of its secrets, its lies, bring it out into the open, shine a light, study it....it withers and dies. WE may never be "cured" but WE get control back, WE take back our freedom.....post, share, give back and always learn. As complete strangers here, we can do each other an ETERNAL favor ( A KINDNESS) of providing accountability and support to be quit and save lives. I know you will be happy with the result. And be happy with this Avatar, she is here to support you:)  As always, PM me if you want to be added to my daily text roll, I post support in Rawktober with a few of your bros. Pleasure to meet you, ODAAT!

« Last Edit: October 01, 2018, 05:08:56 PM by Aumegrad »
Who is Aumegrad ???? ...

What were his thoughts at 100 days ???? ... [url=http://forum.killthecan.org/index.php?topic=722.0]HoF


Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. (1 Corinthians 9:24)