I started smoking cigarettes when I was 13 years old. A decision that I regard as one of the stupidest things that I have ever done. What can I say, 13 year olds are generally stupid. I had my first dip when I was 14. I was a pretty regular user by the time I was 15. There were plenty of places where you could dip as a high schooler that you can't smoke. There was a large group of guys from the wrestling team that dipped. It helped us forget the fact that we could not eat and we thought that dip would not mess with our performance. How wrong we were.
I continued to dip through while in college and on top of that I would smoke cigarettes. I was on a steady diet of dip, cigs, copious amounts of alcohol and whatever else I could get my hands on. Great combo I know.
After I graduated, I continued to smoke and dip. When turned 25, I got it in my head that I wanted to quit smoking. It took me 3 years to actually accomplish that goal but I quit smoking cigarettes in 2009. I had always had it in the back of my mind that I would quit dipping when I was 30. I actually had a plan to cut back days of the week that I would dip. A year and a half later I was down to only dipping on Friday through Sunday.
Around that time I started experiencing extreme anxiety about developing mouth cancer. I don't know why but I just had it in my head that I was going to get it and that I was going to die. I didn't even enjoy my last weekend of dipping because I had such extreme anxiety. I had looked around killthecan.org before but never went to a chat room or looked around the quit groups. I was feeling intense anxiety the day that I quit. I went to a KTC chat room to vent. I met two people that night that have really helped me out with my quit. Cmark, convinced me to call him. I was kind of skeptical at first but decided to go ahead and call him using my Skype phone. He showed me how to post and let me know that the anxiety that I was feeling was very common. I could not believe that someone would take unpaid time out of their day to help a complete stranger. The same night, Keddy gave me his number as well.
The first part was the hardest but it got easier and easier as time past. I continued to experience anxiety from day one until about day 90. It was not easy but I made it through. I would not have been able to accomplish this goal without KTC.
