Day 1

[Frobozz]

Milkweed,

Welcome to the Fraternity. My name is Jim; quit since 11/11/2016.

I, like you, have had problems with drinking. Although I threw down alcohol in 2007, I can relate to a lot of what you wrote on drinking. However, since we are KillTheCan and not KillTheBottle, I will stick to tobacco only.

Make no mistake; the craves are going to hurt. You know the old adage 'One Day At A Time' (ODAAT)? I distilled that down to the infinitely short period of time called 'now'. See, it's always now - it was now when I wrote this; it will be now when you read this. So my mantra when the craves come is 'Never Nicotine Now', which I abbreviate as NNN (feel free to steal that; just accredit me for it). What about later, I hear you asking? Never mind later; we'll deal with that when it comes. Stay in the now.

If you're wondering why I don't just go with ODAAT, it's because I have an intellectual disability which makes counting time by conventional methods very difficult. All I know of is now. So I have to go with NNN, as that's all I can understand, time-wise.

So, welcome to the club. I hope to hear more from you. Your last sentence was truly bang-on. You're gonna soar so bloody high, you'll be able to mug for the cameras on Voyager One. ;o)

[Thumblewort]

Check out the Welcome Center and learn how to post roll call. This system of quitting works.

[Nomore1959]

Milkweed, this is a great improvement step... it will literally* save your life. The key to your quit is how much you put into it. That means posting roll each morning, but it also means reaching out to your fellow quitters to support each other. Do that by sharing digits with quitters in your group, or getting on chat. In other words be active and engage.

* yes, nicotine will kill us all given the chance.

[milkweed]

Hello,

I am twenty five and a couple of months ago I felt like I came of age. It wasn't any one thing, it was just this massive whoosh of all the literature I'd ever read (lots) and all the traveling I'd ever done (not much) coming together. I've had a rough time at school and I've always been shy of people, and that was fine in high school because I could just do my work and focus on sports and getting into college. Then college started and it was awful. I was so burnt out. I'd been working so hard, what to work harder? Girls wouldn't talk to me, boys wouldn't talk to me. I wasn't cool at all, and I thought I would be, for some reason (lol). Looking back it was all me, a huge self-image problem combined with elitist scorn for small talk. I was fit, intelligent... I could have just not taken everything so seriously and gotten through it. Instead, it felt like the sky had crashed onto me, that the foundations of my world had been sucked into a hot and rocky hell, and I thought that there was something really deeply wrong with me. I literally had this thought: I need to learn social skills now, or else I'll never reach my potential.

So I started drinking a bunch, smoking some weed, etc., got into a fraternity. During pledge we had to carry around these bags of goodies for whichever brothers wanted them. One night after being hazed I was walking home with this goodie bag and thought, well, let's try this dip. Skoal mint pouches. It was awful. I salivated a bunch and spit the pouch into the street. It was awful... but I did it again.

Those eight words sum up the last five years of my life. It was awful, but I did it again.

And it was a combination of things. I had started watching porn when I was fourteen. I never even crushed on anyone until seventeen, didn't have natural urges until then, didn't lose it until twenty, by which time I was an alcoholic, tobacco-addicted nihilist (...sorry hun, you deserved better). I never drank or smoked in high school, so college put me over the edge, chemically. At night, my brothers-to-be would vomit and pee on us and make us do the same things to each other. It was just really paralyzing, on the one hand, that it didn't seem to bother anybody, that people didn't seem that concerned, and on the other, that this was, in fact, what I signed up for, so I sort of deserved it.

So I shut down. Transferred schools, moved in with my parents again. I just had to get away from there. For the past five years I've been a little shell of a person, paralyzed, incapable of concentrating or feeling his own feelings, let alone empathizing with others. Been going part time to university and mostly just working---butchery, sandwiches. And over the past year, finally, I'm getting back to where I was when I was eighteen. I'm becoming myself, I can just feel it. It started with dancing. I'd put on music in my living room and just move, and then I got the confidence to go to clubs when I had a spare night---I'd dress up in absurd clothing and just fucking dance my ass off for three or four hours and then go home. My muscles are coming back and my beer gut is gone. So there's step one: Sound body.

Step 2) sound mind. I read a lot, always have, I'm an English major (slowly but surely). Ever since my breakdown at twenty I've had a lot of trouble focusing on academic work. I get caught in this mindset of oh this is all a waste of time, I am an extraneous member of society, I'm a loser who lives with his parents, etc etc, better get shitfaced and put in a lip. I did some research about alcohol and tobacco and apparently both of them cause depression, anxiety, and lack of focus. Bingo! There's me in public. I'll always be introverted, but I sure as hell need to stop exacerbating my social problems with these drugs.

Part of my coming of age is understanding that I have dug quite a hole for myself, that the worldview that led me here needs to shatter completely, and that my new worldview must be one of internal strength, not of looking outward and thinking, "why don't I have that?"...Those thoughts are exactly what got me off track to begin with. So when I get impatient and think, I'm ready now, I'm ready, Give me my degree and a job, I instead I need to prove that I'm ready by working and continuing this path of self-improvement.

This problem of me all started with self-image, that there was something missing in me that other people had. Really, there wasn't, I was just shocked and weak. I actually feel okay with people now, from all that time just working with butchers and teenagers at a sandwich shop. I'm just relaxed, doing the best job I can, trying to make people laugh with me, trying to make the shifts easier for coworkers and customers. I like my work (just wish it paid more). So now that my self-image and confidence are repaired, I can take a crack at the damage I've done.

First step is stop dipping. No more nightly trek to the gas station for my swedish snus and two cans of Steel Reserve. This was day three for me, but I put in an old pouch this evening so that counts as a cave. After this cave, I decided it wasn't enough just to read, that do I have to sign up and post and reach out. Guys and gals, I can just feel it... I'm gonna fucking soar after I kick this.

[Samrs]

Hey, Milk. Outstanding decision. Exercise definitely helps. Drink water - enough that you feel like you're running to the bathroom every hour is a good goal. It will help flush the nicotine out of your system and generally help the process along.

If you're wondering how things work here, and what's going to hit you over the next few days and weeks, there's a post on the main KTC site about that:
Here's How You Quit... Ball Is In Your Court Now

Your next step is to post roll in the February quit group. Roll is our way of promising each other that we will not have nicotine for the day. We post roll every day here. Our system is pretty simple. Wake up, post roll, and keep your word for the day. Then, the next day, do it all over again. If you make that promise early - first thing every morning - and commit to making it every day, no matter what, then your chances of staying quit will go up exponentially.

If you follow the link to the February quit group, look for the most recent post that says "If your quit date is between 10/25/2017 and 11/21/2017 this is your group." That's the roll post for February. If you read it, you'll see there's instructions on how to post roll. If that seems confusing (and it can, especially in the first few days of quitting), then here's a video to help you understand how to post roll: Posting Roll on KTC Kill the Can

Edit: I see that you've been here before, but never posted roll. That's the key part of KTC. That's what makes it work. If you don't do that, then chances are, we'll see you again in a year, and your intro will sound an awful lot like this one, except for how long you've been a slave to the can.

[milkweed]

I've been dipping for about six years now. Six. Even as I type that I cannot believe how those years have consolidated into one big ugly chunk. I can trace the day I put in a lip to the day my life started turning to shit. There's just a break between me an normal people. I started lying to myself on a regular basis, acting like an asshole with something to hide, getting secretive and taking extra time alone. Pretending like the world is some big scary place when really it's the dip I'm scared of losing. I am dip free since Friday, November 3 2017, so this is the close of day 2 for me. I've been irritable, have to be extra patient with mildly annoying things. Thank god for books, those little batches of intimacy I crave so much now. Every time I open a book it's like the sky is hugging me and saying thank you for staying alive baby I got you. I just can't wait for bed.

Right now one half of my throat feels numb around the lymph node. Every time I swallow my spit I sense a little soreness from that part. I had been having mucus and lots of throat clearing recently, which is one of the things that prompted me to quit. I didn't want to be talking through a darth vader device and I wanted to keep my teeth. Hopefully the sore throat goes away soon though. I find the fear increases cravings. I am afraid of getting cancer - I am restless - I need comfort - Throw in a lip - throat damage/ soreness that I don't sense until now, when I try to quit. I have to remind myself that these are just the sensations returning to what has become a numb part of me: my throat, numb, my truth receptors, numb to my lies. It's going to be cold and dark.

Things to look forward to:
1. Going in to work everybody says how are you man and my coworkers treat me really well. We have plenty of stories to swap and most of us are around college age so life is generally hilarious if I can pluck myself out of my self-pitying no-dip-forever tunnel vision.

2. Working out. I am stir crazy now. I just want to go go go. There's a gym nearby with an erg machine, which is perfect. I can go on in the morning for just twenty minutes, just rowing, stroke stroke stroke. About five minutes in I start to sweat and about ten minutes in I think I'm gonna die. But afterward, my whole day makes more sense. I can talk to the world and the world gets a man to deal with instead of an ape. All the chaos energy just goes away into fatigue and I can think productively, identify destructive cycles, and give myself pep-talks.

3. Brushing my teeth for the last time before bed. Before I'd never know, would I go for that last dip? Would I have to run out and buy another tin? No better time for a little walk around the block than midnight, the best time for those tryna get shot. Seriously the gas station near my house has been held up twice in the last two years, which is damned often for a suburb, and I regularly went there at night to go get dip. Talk about stupid.

So, hello guys. I've tried this before and failed. I know it's time, though. I've talked to my family, my girl, my friends. They're all on board. No excuses now. My life, my ordinary life, is now a fucking bullring. Ole ole ole. Time to tire out the bull and start dancing in the light of day. The air is clean, my friends. It hurts to breathe it but I know that will not last. I'm about to go eat and chew some gum and play some FIFA. It feels like the second day of real life.