Hi, my name is Dusty. I'm addicted to nicotine. It all started with some innocent puffs from some of my parents tossed cigarettes. Continued for a good long while sneaking some puffs here and there. That slowly moved into sneaking/stealing entire cigarettes from them. Then one day I don't really remember where or who, but I had friends and a brother in law who dipped and so I got "introduced" to that as well. I was somewhere around 13-14 years old during all of this.
I got busted at school for smoking and my parents were notified. That was fun lol. Then it happened again, busted, but this time for dipping. I told my parents I hated it but I was hooked and probably doing one or the other for the rest of my life so which would they prefer I do. They both said they didn't want either for me but if it had to be, they'd prefer the dipping over smoking....they were both smokers and saw cigarettes as a greater health issue.
So then I went on, no long having to hide from my parents. Dipping every day. Back then a can would last about a week, Grizzly wintergreen and mint were my choices back then. Over time the amount picked up where a can would last about 3 days. I eventually worked up to about half a can a day during college (age 19-20). I met my wife and started trying to quit...didn't work. Ended up breaking myself from loose tobacco and went to pouches and we got married in 2008. I tried off and on for the next few years to quit but never succeeded. Tried patches, gum, cigars (trying to break the habit of dip), nothing worked for me at all. Never made it a day without nicotine of some kind. I said when my first daughter was born in 2012 that this will be it, when I see her I'll stop. Nope.....
Fast forward, I'm 31 now, married for 11 years this year. I've got 4 kids now, 2 of which are twins. 3 daughters and 1 son. Hoping for more kids at some point. So proud of my family and blessed to have them. I decided to quit again. Got the most serious about it I've ever been. I was currently (couple weeks ago) dipping over 1 can little less than 1.5 cans per day of skoal pouches. I'd estimated 25-30 pouches a day depending on the day. A real good day I might only do 15 but those were fairly rare.
I started weaning myself down like I've done in times past. Got down to 2-4 dips per day and then went cold turkey and failed....next day started out cold turkey and failed. Decided to wean a little longer...tried again....fail. I couldn't make it the whole day without some. I would break at different points during the day, sometimes morning, sometimes mid afternoon....once was at bed time, I couldn't take it and left for the store to get more. This was just last week.
Finally I committed to another day (Sunday 5/19/19). Woke up for church yesterday, and decided to go post roll in my group. I wanted to get through a day 1 before posting because I didn't want to by lying to everyone right in the beginning....you see I always failed and so I had no faith in my promise on that anyway so I didn't want to post until I knew I could at least get through 1 day. Well I gave in and decided to post anyway. So I posted roll for day 1 and made my promise. Through God's power I made it through day 1. Lot's of prayer by me and from many family members.
Unbelievably it wasn't that hard of a day 1. I have tried before and my attitude/crankiness/short temperedness comes out like crazy and I'm very hard to deal with for my wife and kids. Yesterday, I had a few moments of "rage" but it wasn't like before, my wife even said how it was so much better than normal. I know that was God aiding us and praise Him for it.
I had many cravings, a few were pretty hard but not unbearable.
So here we are today. Day 2, so I posted roll soon after I got up. With continued prayer and by God's grace, I will not dip/use nicotine today. I will quit one day at a time.
---Full disclosure, I am dipping, Smokey Mountain and such 'fake dip' both pouches and loose as well as some different coffee pouches. But everything is herbal type stuff with NO NIC and NO TOBACCO. Just using those for the habit side so my attention can be focused on killing the nicotine addiction. --