Well today is day 55 on my quit. This is the first time I know I will be finally quitting the shit so I am competent I can write this speech early. Probably I am like most of you. I was handed Copenhagen when I was 13. This was back in 1980 so many kids could get the stuff easily. The first dip I hated. It made my head spin. The other kids laughed as the stuff made me nauseas. Skip a year ahead. I grew up on a farm. In the summer time I drove a mechanical harvester. While I sat of the tractor some kids a little bit older than me put their dip on my tractor and told me I could take what I wanted at any time. Well as the weeks went on I didnÂ’t touch it. The workers kept coming up to me and I would give them their dip. Out of boredom one day I grabbed their Kodiak and put it in my mouth. I still didnÂ’t like it that much but I liked that it made me spit. This is when it all started. From that point forward I started taking their dip until they said that I needed to buy my own. Eventually I did. Fast forward 31 years to age 45. I went to a doctor who told me that my blood pressure was way too high. I then went to cardiologist. The cardiologist showed me pictures of my blood vessels where the artery was almost closed. She said that I am a very high risk individual and she started me on medication immediately. She said that there are other tests she wanted to do but she was scared to do them under my condition. As I left the doctors office I said to myself fucking dip. I went home and said no more buying this shit again. (Yeah I know I waited to get through my last cans before I quit for good). Since my quit date of 2/24/12 that has been it for tobacco. It has been extremely rough the first couple of weeks. 31 years of constant dipping and suddenly no tobacco. Even at day 55 I still crave the stuff. Dip was so much a part of my life I can hardly explain it. Most of my life I had dip in my mouth. Graduations, weddings and even funerals including the funerals for both my beloved parents. Even when I had a dip in my mouth I was thinking of my next one. I cannot even imagine the amount of time, energy and cost I have spent on this substance. Getting up at 3:00 AM to go to the gas station because I ran out of dip. Now I find out this stuff will be probably a contributing factor to my death. Now that I am finally breaking away from the grip of tobacco it is one of the best feelings in the world. Like most people I now feel I wish I could have broken away from it many many years ago. I know a lot of you might be younger than me and feel you are invincible. Take it from me you are not. The way you treat yourself now will show up in your later years.
I appreciate your spent in reading my story. If I helped one person break away from this terrible addiction than it was worth me writing it.
Good Luck to all of you quitters.
Nomoreshitinlip – April 17, 2012
P.S. Successfully reached HOF on June 2nd, 2012
