Hi,
I'm Chris and I'm a nicotine addict... That seems like an appropriate opening. I've realized that it isn't ANY different from any other addiction, this one just doesn't have public meetings, so thanks KTC for being there. I tried cigarettes at 12, snuck them occasionally, and started smoking regularly at 14-15. I smoked until I was 26 when I quit using Chantix. I picked up dipping in 2008, and have dipped at least a can a day since then. My wife has tried to get me to quit for years, but I never wanted to. I LIKED it! A couple years ago, the company introduced a tobacco surcharge ($50/month -$600/year). That's a lot of money over and beyond what I was spending on dip. I finally enrolled in the American Cancer Society's Quit for Life program starting in September (Q4L is required to get my tobacco money back from the company).
I decided to use Chantix again, since it worked really well when I quit smoking. I took my last dip out on September 24th, 2015 at 11pm. It's been tough, especially the first 4-7 days. I was edgy, anxious, then later in the week overly hostile for no reason. I felt like I would explode. That started to calm down by day 7 or 8. The cravings were awful in the beginning. On day 2, I had a craving that started at 1:30pm, and did not let up until after 5pm. I am aware of time distortion, and was watching the clock. It really lasted that long. That was by far the worst one I had, but there have certainly been plenty of others. It really does get better. Weeks 2-4 were not nearly as bad. The cravings are short, not as intense, and manageable. The worst time for me is right when I wake up. I used to put a dip in, first thing. I'm lucky not to have many side effects with Chantix, just nausea and the occasional weird dream. I'm really not convinced that Chantix works as well for smokeless as it did for smoking, probably due to the increased nicotine content.
I've been experimenting with substitutes. I change them up throughout the day, but use the cans of beef jerky, Hooch (the peach and mint are awesome), and believe it or not, prunes. The prunes are my favorite substitute because the are about the same size as my dip normally was, they actually have a taste kind of similar to tobacco, and they last forever. I can keep one of those in for an hour or two. I just ordered a sample pack of Grinds today, so I'll see how those are. I've tried Smokey Mountain, that Oregon mint snuff, and one other herbal, but so far Hooch is the only one I can stand.
That's my quit in a nutshell, sorry for such a long intro post. I've been meaning to post up here the entire time. Yesterday was 4 calendar weeks (28 days). I'm really proud of my progress. If you got this far, thanks for listening!
-Chris
