Alright, alright,
I first chose to not give an introduction because my personality lends to conflict and rustled feathers.
Couple that with nicotine withdrawal and you have the makings of a standard KTC intro. So I probably should have just posted an intro anyway.
I started my nicotine addiction one day when I was 16. I had tried smoking no less than 100 time before this but it never made sense to me. I never got a buzz, never felt good at all, just did it because the girls I was with at the time thought it was cool. One day while driving my buddy home from his meeting with the Marine recruiter he offered me a dip of Kodiak. I swear to you I can remember the moment that the buzz actually hit me. I could honestly point out within two feet of the exact spot where I felt the best feeling in my life. Two days later I tried smoking again and got the same feeling. Then it was gone. Not one buzz since then.
I got hooked on a mix of smoking and dip until 18. Then I just smoked until 21. My wife got pregnant and I thought it better to stop smoking. I switched to dip as a means of not harming my family... what a joke.
Then something interesting happened, I went the the doctor to check on the shoulder surgery I got a couple years earlier. He recommended that I start ordering snus from Sweden because it does not cause mouth cancer. Yeah, quitting is interesting when you have a doctor that is telling you to simply use this because it is the best a nicotine addict will get.
Well.... I say fuck that. The best thing a nicotine addict can be is a clean nicotine addict. Today... I am clean. Sure, I had doctors orders to use snus to save myself from the destruction my lungs and mouth were receiving but at that point I realized that my doctor was telling me that I was delegated to a life of addiction by doctors orders.
Of course my dumb ass kept using until 28 days ago. I am clean because I chose to live a life free of abusing my chosen drug. Most nicotine addicts can't say that, but I choose freedom now.
Shout out to all of my May 3-balled brothers.
You might want to get a new doctor! This is just one of many articals I found.
The warning, which will concern many Swedes who have turned to snus as a healthier nicotine alternative to smoking, is based on the institute's analysis of epidemiological and experimental studies carried out by the Karolinska Institute in recent years.
Certain studies indicate that snus can also increase the risk of high blood pressure and diabetes, and that children could be born prematurely if mothers use snus during pregnancy. However, the Institute of Public Health said in its report that there is not yet enough evidence to be certain of the effect on births.
The institute said that its analysis showed that using snus increased the risk of cancer of the pancreas and of the mouth. But there are no research results suggesting that it causes other forms of cancer.
And while there is no evidence to suggest that using snus actually increases the risk of developing heart disease, it is clear that it does increase the risk of death for a person affected, for example, by a heart attack.
The details of how much snus is dangerous are not yet known, said Göran Pershagen, professor at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska.
"There's not enough evidence to say how much the risk increases. But it is clear that snus is not unhazardous - pancreatic cancer is a relatively common form of cancer with a very poor survival rate," he said.