All--
I've been a lurker and a facebook follower for some time, and I thought it might finally be appropriate to introduce myself...
I'm looking 40 in the face, and have a 4 year old and one on the way. My most recent (and hopefully last) quit started on July 5th, 2010.
I remember my first time like it was yesterday... when I was 12, my grandfather had given me an old hunting coat that had been my father's when he was a young man. In the pocket, I found a dried up, petrified plug of Red Man. Awful. I mentioned it to my father, and the next time we went out hunting he gave me a fresh plug of my own. I was off to the races...
Within a few years, Kodiak became the brand of choice, and I was never without a dip. I'm an academic by profession, and delivered entire 3 hour lectures with a dip in and no one was any the wiser.
I was caught once by a teacher in high school when I was 17 or so, and my mother made me quit (or so she thought). I didn't give quitting a serious try until I was in grad school, and by then the hooks were just far too deep into me. It seemed like an impossibility.
I've quit so many times over the last 22 years that I couldn't even begin to count them all. Most only lasted a day or two. Once I made it almost a month... but I kept getting dragged in.
This time I quit cold turkey. No snus packets, no Oliver Twist "mouse turds", no nothing. So far I'm 81 days into my quit, and aside from the first few days of withdrawls, I haven't even been tempted. I know that some of you are more militant about nicotine in general, but I have enjoyed a couple of cigars without the insane urge to dip... that's a good thing.
For the first time in ages my mouth is all healed up and is the appropriate color. I don't wake up with a taste in my mouth that makes me think something died in there.
I thank all of you for the stories of your own quit. Unknowingly, you provided me with comfort, if only for knowing that others had already blazed a trail enduring the same struggle that I was going through.
