KillTheCan.org Accountability Forum
Community => Introductions => Topic started by: klark on November 04, 2009, 12:50:00 PM
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I am now 14 days into my quit and figured I had better do an introduction before I get called out. I was a dipper for 23 years, started out just when I was playing baseball. It had slowly crept into different parts of my life until it was a part of just about everything. Other than my wife and close friends, not many new I was a dipper. I did whatever I had to to be sure I had something to spit in no matter where I was. About two months ago I had lost a tooth from a very old root canal. I had stopped going to the dentist a few years ago because I got really tired of being belittled and being told how bad my habit was. I went to see a dentist who I knew and told him the story. He did not judge but did offer help if I wanted it. I went to the Oral Surgeon who assumed I smoked because the form I filled out asked about tobacco use. He told me I could not use for a week after surgery. I decided that if I was going to quit this was my quit, not someone else's. Why quit for a week when you can quit forever.
I spent my final day as a dipper removing everything from the house that would encourage me to dip. My last two weeks have been just wonderful, days filled with naseau, dizzyness, and that over riding feeling of choking the fuck out someone. On day 7 I was on the live chat board because of a particularly bad day while enjoying the quote from my wife, "it;s been a week, it should be out of your system." Being a man I knew the right thing to do was not punch her in the mouth but just go walk outside.
I am on day 14, my mouth is clean of sores, rawness, and feels good. I have removed cans and cups from my office and replaced them with strwas to chew on. My quit is only successful because I want to and I know if I don't check in the verbal beratting I will get will be awful.
Thanks to my new brothers for helping me with my quit. My next long post will be 86 days from now.
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I am now 14 days into my quit and figured I had better do an introduction before I get called out. I was a dipper for 23 years, started out just when I was playing baseball. It had slowly crept into different parts of my life until it was a part of just about everything. Other than my wife and close friends, not many new I was a dipper. I did whatever I had to to be sure I had something to spit in no matter where I was. About two months ago I had lost a tooth from a very old root canal. I had stopped going to the dentist a few years ago because I got really tired of being belittled and being told how bad my habit was. I went to see a dentist who I knew and told him the story. He did not judge but did offer help if I wanted it. I went to the Oral Surgeon who assumed I smoked because the form I filled out asked about tobacco use. He told me I could not use for a week after surgery. I decided that if I was going to quit this was my quit, not someone else's. Why quit for a week when you can quit forever.
I spent my final day as a dipper removing everything from the house that would encourage me to dip. My last two weeks have been just wonderful, days filled with naseau, dizzyness, and that over riding feeling of choking the fuck out someone. On day 7 I was on the live chat board because of a particularly bad day while enjoying the quote from my wife, "it;s been a week, it should be out of your system." Being a man I knew the right thing to do was not punch her in the mouth but just go walk outside.
I am on day 14, my mouth is clean of sores, rawness, and feels good. I have removed cans and cups from my office and replaced them with strwas to chew on. My quit is only successful because I want to and I know if I don't check in the verbal beratting I will get will be awful.
Thanks to my new brothers for helping me with my quit. My next long post will be 86 days from now.
Be glad you walked outside. As long as you staty quit - You can come rage on me any time she pisses you off.
PS: Just a little more reason to stay quit:
Be glad thats all the dental work you needed. That is nothing!
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I did not think my brothers of Jan 2010 needed me to fill up our forum with this so I thought I would come back here which this may be a good place. I lost a friend today, 40 year old mother of 2 after a 8 year fight with ovarian cancer. Background: I coach 7th grade basketball and her son was on my team last year. She was diagnosed at 32 with Stage IIIC ovarion cancer, underwent an emergency hystorectoomy and fought for the last 8 years to survive. I consider it an honor to have known this woman and her family, her spirit to fight this was amazing. At this point you are probably wondering what ion the hell this has to do with dipping? Let me tell you what I think.
I posted roll for day 48 this morning. In my roll I said I lost a friend this morning, nothing more. I got lots of support and reminder not to dip. I will tell you this, stopping to get a can never crossed my mind. It won't make this feel any easier, she will still be gone. Her kids will still not have their mother and her husband without his wife, my dipping isn't going to change that. The more I thought about it, let's really think about what it would have done: It would given me a better chance of getting cancer. Here is a woman who never asked for this horrid disease and yet I spent 23 shoving my pie hole with something that could give it to me, and I am doing this voluntarily. WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING?
If you are having a bad day or thinking about quitting but think it might be too hard, well guess what, putting that dip in your mouth did not alter ANY OF IT.
To the everyday roll posters of January 2010 and all the people who have voiced support for me whom you have never met, THANK YOU!!!!
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I did not think my brothers of Jan 2010 needed me to fill up our forum with this so I thought I would come back here which this may be a good place. I lost a friend today, 40 year old mother of 2 after a 8 year fight with ovarian cancer. Background: I coach 7th grade basketball and her son was on my team last year. She was diagnosed at 32 with Stage IIIC ovarion cancer, underwent an emergency hystorectoomy and fought for the last 8 years to survive. I consider it an honor to have known this woman and her family, her spirit to fight this was amazing. At this point you are probably wondering what ion the hell this has to do with dipping? Let me tell you what I think.
I posted roll for day 48 this morning. In my roll I said I lost a friend this morning, nothing more. I got lots of support and reminder not to dip. I will tell you this, stopping to get a can never crossed my mind. It won't make this feel any easier, she will still be gone. Her kids will still not have their mother and her husband without his wife, my dipping isn't going to change that. The more I thought about it, let's really think about what it would have done: It would given me a better chance of getting cancer. Here is a woman who never asked for this horrid disease and yet I spent 23 shoving my pie hole with something that could give it to me, and I am doing this voluntarily. WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING?
If you are having a bad day or thinking about quitting but think it might be too hard, well guess what, putting that dip in your mouth did not alter ANY OF IT.
To the everyday roll posters of January 2010 and all the people who have voiced support for me whom you have never met, THANK YOU!!!!
my mother in law is in her 4th year of fighting that terrible cancer, you are in my thoughts and prayers
and you're strong, dip doesn't change any of that and possibly cause more suffering...
you get this
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I did not think my brothers of Jan 2010 needed me to fill up our forum with this so I thought I would come back here which this may be a good place. I lost a friend today, 40 year old mother of 2 after a 8 year fight with ovarian cancer. Background: I coach 7th grade basketball and her son was on my team last year. She was diagnosed at 32 with Stage IIIC ovarion cancer, underwent an emergency hystorectoomy and fought for the last 8 years to survive. I consider it an honor to have known this woman and her family, her spirit to fight this was amazing. At this point you are probably wondering what ion the hell this has to do with dipping? Let me tell you what I think.
I posted roll for day 48 this morning. In my roll I said I lost a friend this morning, nothing more. I got lots of support and reminder not to dip. I will tell you this, stopping to get a can never crossed my mind. It won't make this feel any easier, she will still be gone. Her kids will still not have their mother and her husband without his wife, my dipping isn't going to change that. The more I thought about it, let's really think about what it would have done: It would given me a better chance of getting cancer. Here is a woman who never asked for this horrid disease and yet I spent 23 shoving my pie hole with something that could give it to me, and I am doing this voluntarily. WHAT THE FUCK AM I THINKING?
If you are having a bad day or thinking about quitting but think it might be too hard, well guess what, putting that dip in your mouth did not alter ANY OF IT.
To the everyday roll posters of January 2010 and all the people who have voiced support for me whom you have never met, THANK YOU!!!!
my mother in law is in her 4th year of fighting that terrible cancer, you are in my thoughts and prayers
and you're strong, dip doesn't change any of that and possibly cause more suffering...
you get this
This is liberated from another site but the guy is a hell of a good quitter and this speaks to what you guys are talking about. This is also the foundation of my own quit. Its by SpongeBob
For over 2 decades, my best quit efforts lasted maybe 10 or so days. Finally, asking myself the right question changed my attitude and made it possible to quit. This quit is not easy, but it is finally in MY CONTROL and (I firmly believe) FINAL.
Previously, I always asked "how can I find the strength to break this addiction? In particular, how can I get through the crushing brain fog that always leads to my demise. I can't stay quit or start quitting right now because I get too brain-stupid to get any work done." THAT QUESTION ALWAYS LED ME TO FAIL because (a) it gave me the choice to fail, and (B) it said I had other priorities that I would allow to interfere with quitting.
This time, I asked myself a different question. "IS THERE ANYTHING I WILL NOT DO IN ORDER TO QUIT? IS ANY COST TOO HIGH?" Since nobody was asking me to give up my family, I decided the answer was "NO." I therefore decided that I WILL INCUR ANY COST WHATSOEVER TO QUIT. If I must, I will use up all my vacation time to get away from the office until the fog lifts. If I have no vacation time left, I'll call in sick (and I consider addiction withdrawal to be honestly sick). If I run out of vacation/sick time, I'll ask for unpaid leave until my head clears up and while I practice handling fewer stresses without opening a tin. If I can't get unpaid leave, I'll let that job go (and go find a new job AFTER I SAVED MY LIFE). If I can't afford being on unpaid leave or unemployment, I will swallow my pride and ask for help from family friends, and I will sell my stupid car/house/stereo while I SAVE MY LIFE.
WOW, once I decided that NO COST WAS TOO HIGH TO SAVE MY LIFE, and that I would GLADLY INCUR THOSE COSTS, my whole mental attitude changed. No longer were there any impediments to quitting. Once that was my attitude, quitting was easier than I had experienced in prior efforts. I did have to cut back on my office time (and incur some temporary pay reduction), but nothing drastic. And in the long run, who gives a damn?
See, the real barrier wasn't quitting tobacco -- the real barrier had been what I had not CONSIDERED doing, or had not been WILLING to do, in order to make quitting the absolute #1 priority.
Another example: does quitting make being around the house unbearable? Negotiate leaving for 2 weeks!!! "Honey, I need these 2 weeks in order to give you the rest of my life. This isn't a vacation, this is the old 'stick with me in sickness and in health thing.' It's unfair to leave you with the kids, but I will make it up to you, and you will like the new me much better, and I won't go and get cancer on you.")
I came to this "At What Price" attitude after my wife died. She had been given a terminal diagnosis from hell with no hope whatsoever (Lou Gehrig's Disease). We had wished there was something/anything we could do, but there was not. And she had done nothing to deserve it (no smokes, barely drank, exercised regularly, young).
Now here I was, 14 months after she passed away, giving myself my own terminal sentence. But this was a sentence I had the power to stop. My wife had been denied any such power. So, every time I CHOSE to fill my lip, I insulted the memory of my wife. My wife and I would have paid ANY PRICE to save her: sacrificing job, house, friends, etc.
Once I asked "What Price" to save myself, the answers became rather obvious and easy. This quit is not easy, but now it is only a question of time. The fog still lingers some, but now I just ride it out rather than fight it or let it scare me back to the can.
Hey guys, don't fill the boards with condolences. It's been 15 months and I've come to terms with my loss. But I wanted to share this story to prompt you to ask yourselves, "Is Any Price Too High?" Are you putting artificial barriers (like the job, or conserving vacation days and sick leave, or keeping secrets from your wife) in the way of accomplishing THE MOST IMPORTANT GOAL in your life right now?
Would you quit your job, sell your house and move to a desolate place where you have no friends, all in order to save the life of your child, wife, or father? Of course you would. Now, do whatever you have to do, at whatever cost, to save your own life.
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Good stuff in here, as expected. Quit, don't "try".
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1,700 days is awesome. Congrats Klark.
'BanDog'
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2,000 That's huge man!
Comma 2X Congratulations!
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Congrats on your 2300 the other day. AND
'Birthday'
Today. Cheers and thanks!
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superman,
congrats on 2500 days!
that is some nice quit!
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Klark.
Congrats on 7 years!
That is Badassery in action.
Thanks for leading the way.
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Congrats on the 26th floor superman!
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Congrats on the 26th floor superman!
Congratulations on 26 badass floors
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Congrats on the 26th floor superman!
Congratulations on 26 badass floors
Congrads!
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Congrats on the 26th floor superman!
Congratulations on 26 badass floors
Congrads!
Thanks, would have not made it at all without this place.
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26th floor. that is awesome. congrats to you.
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Congrats on 8 years quit klark!
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Congrats on 3,000 days quit!