I began dipping in college.. very infrequent, it gave me something to do to help the long hours of studying pass. It came into and went from my life - it would show up during allergy season (oddly, it seemed to help more than any medicine), during long hours studying for professional exams, road trips, etc. But I was never an addict, so I told myself. I enjoyed lots of social time and friendships and generally rejected the seclusion that accompanied a new tin, because it was so stupid and I felt so shameful about what I was doing that it was always kept a secret.
I met the love of my life in the summer of 2005, just before I was heading to graduate school, and she was headed to Spain. The long distance was intimidating, but we made it in the end. What happened then though was the start of a slowly spiraling pattern into personal reclusion, introversion, denial, and deception - one that ultimately cost me my first marriage.
You see, in graduate school the temptation to do something during the long hours of work returned. I would dip at home while doing computer work, and would even dip at school while huddled into a private study room - which I sought out at most opportunities. Because my girlfriend was overseas, our interaction was a naturally reclusive activity as well - meaning I didn't need to be out and social to make it grow. I just needed lots of time in front of my browser composing emails to her.
I had a job lined up halfway through my second year, however while abroad in Spain it fell through; in the early summer of 2007 I returned home with no job, and she returned shortly thereafter, and in the fall we moved into her father's house while he was away. The idea was that I would soon find a job, and in the meantime she was teaching english and waiting tables. Left alone to search for jobs and do research to prepare for interviews, the temptation of dip quickly returned. She caught me once, and I was mortified. She wasn't as upset with what I was doing, more that I had lied about and tried to hide it from her. Looking back I was probably in the midst of a mild depressive episode, and despite several best intentioned attempts to get focused on finding a job and avoid dip, I ended up spending as much time playing an online game and dipping as I did searching for a job. There was more hardship, more tins, and more self-loathing before I was finally rescued by a phone call from someone in my professional network with a job opportunity in NYC in the Spring of 2008.
I had become good at hiding it, at least I think so. Over the years since then, my longest period without some Skoal was probably 5 months, and since 2011 that's probably closer to 2 months. My girlfriend's departure for graduate school out of state gave me plenty of opportunity to dip in private, and when she returned I was definitely hooked. It was part of my resistance to moving back in with her, and when we finally did I did my best to conceal it with late nights "working on stuff" and when she was out of town. When I couldn't dip at home, I dipped at the office, often staying late to do so. There were more bouts of self-loathing, unable to come to grips with my need to quit in order to become the man I needed to be proud of to ask for her hand in marriage. She has caught me on two or three other occasions, and IÂ’d always immediately minimize what I had done and apologized profusely. I bargained with myself, cut back for awhile and proposed, and in August of 2013 we were married.
We moved out of our apartment into a house outside of NYC, and this gave me more opportunities to be alone in the basement or in my separate room at night. I continued to stay late and even arrive early to work in order to dip. It wasn't a daily occurrence, but certainly frequent enough that it was only a matter of time before the negative impacts forced their way into my life.
Instead of engaging people at work into supporting me and my leadership vision, I closed the door in the name of individual productivity and focus, which lead my co-workers to view me as emotionally detached and insensitive. The opaque outside of an Arizona iced tea bottle, the seclusion of my corner desk from the hallway, and the cleaning lady's ability to whisk away the evidence every night allowed me to perpetrate this for years, despite the incredibly stupid risk I was taking at being discovered.
At home, as the magic of the early years of our courtship and relationship waned, intimate connect and communicate with my wife became increasingly difficult. I'm not suggesting that dip was the driving factor in that, but it contributed on some level. This becomes very poignant now.. one of my driving needs in a relationship is for quality time and presence, and as my wife began to spend more time in her career in the past year and to the point that she enrolled in a coaching program this past January meant that instead of finding a responsible voice for my need for time, I became more passive aggressive about it, withdrawing to the comfort of solitude and dip.
My wife became intensely interested in another man in late March, and cheated on me basically during all of April - a time during which I was very distant and absorbed in making DIY hiking gear in the basement. It suited us both.. my time downstairs was a refuge from stress and frustration with her, and for her it was a window to make a new passionate connection with another man in her life. In the immediate prelude to it happening, there was only one or two clear attempts on either of our part to raise an alarm, but the true nature of the threat wasn't perceived in time by me - and yes, I place some of the blame on that with this awful shit I kept stuffing into my lip. We also had been trying to conceive since August of last year. I have to admit the dip probably had a negative impact on that as far as space apart and time in the bedroom, but I always told myself the jolt of hearing the news would surely be enough to make me end my ways.
My wife told me the news of her affair on Friday May 1st. Hearing about her feelings for another man that had developed under my nose.. was not the jolt I had been expecting. I still had 2/3 of a tin left that I got while staying late that week because I was so upset at her for not being present with me on a vacation the week before. She told me, and then she left the country for a work trip. Like so many times before, when she left I reached for my tin, and as I spit into an empty beer bottle the enormity of my deception, the extent of my addiction, and the cost of dip truly hit me.
As of today I have been dip free for 21 days. I will never touch the stuff again. I have contemplated getting an "I QUIT" inner lip tattoo, if only I could be assured of the permanence of it. When I think of all of the hundreds of tins over the years.. the cost in dollars and time, in relationship connections and missed opportunities, in reducing my desire for healthy activities and joyous pursuits. All of the times I emptied bottles of spit into the toilet to go out for recycling before my wife returned from a trip, all of the times I made a clandestine trip to a store or mini mart to buy a tin. All of the secrecy and lies that I needed in order to keep doing it..
I am ashamed. I feel guilty. I have enormous amounts of self-love and self-respect, but except for this terrible secret. I loathe dip now with a venom I never allowed my self-loathing to reach while refusing to quit, and I am emboldened that it will never happen again.
My wife and I are still married, although we're now in the midst of a painful and tragic rebuilding process. I do view my first marriage to her as being over, both due to the affair and as importantly not wanting to return to the conditions that allowed our relationship to ever get to that point. I am coming to terms with how much of a role this addiction has had in my life over the past 10 years, and I am determined that it will have NO ROLE in the next chapter of my life, nor in the second marriage to my wonderful wife provided we can get there.
Reading the accounts of others here on KTC has encouraged me to finally be honest with myself, and the next step is being honest with my wife. That's a necessary act of rebuilding the trust that's been lost between us. The strength of community can never be underestimated, I will try to lend courage to others as I hope some of you can lend it to me now. IÂ’m not sure roll call is really for me, but I have lurked here in the intro pages for awhile now gather courage to take action and to share, and here is where IÂ’ll lend aid.
