Hey. I'm glad I found this. Had been using snus (general) for about 7 years.
It didn't feel like full blown addiction for the first few years -- one pouch every now and then in law school to help me study or write papers, especially on nights when I had to get a lot done after my ADHD meds wore off.
By the time I got out of school and got my first real job, I felt like I needed the snus to make sure I was fully engaged all day every day. This first real job was hard for a lot of reasons. I felt like I had to find new ways to go above and beyond for my clients, and that snus was the thing that enabled me to do so. Before I knew it, I was using snus all that happened was snus all day every day, and couldn't imagine every quitting. I thought that I couldn't quit because without snus I would end up letting down my clients somehow.
In the back of my mind, I would always tell myself that nicotine addiction was just a temporary thing, and that as soon as I got some breathing room at work -- like a vacation, or a sense of security about my abilities as a lawyer, or both -- I would quit. And I kind of did stop using when I finally took my first vacation. And then I started back up when work got tough again. And then I quit again for a few weeks when I took my second vacation a year later. And then I started back up with snus yet again when I got back from vacation and found work just as tough as it always was. In some ways, the fact that I was able to quit for a few weeks during these two annual vacations made me buy into the delusion that using snus was just a temporary thing, and that I would definitely quit before things got too far.
But things were already too far. My job never really got easier. I got married and got new responsibilities (no children yet, but plans) that created new sources of stress that became new justifications for continuing to use snus. Most of all, I started to notice that my ADHD medication didn't quite work as well as it used to unless I supplemented it with snus, and I started to feel like I could never handle quitting because of my ADHD. This last thing was really tough for me to think about. Even after I was diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed medication as a 25-year old, it still took another 3 or 4 years before I found a medication regime that worked for me. But now, I started to worry that the snus had messed up the effectiveness of that medication regime, and that I could never really deal with ADHD symptoms again without the benefit of a nicotine boost.
During all of this, I should mention that I was hiding my nicotine addiction and snus use from my wife, from the psychiatrist who treats me for ADHD, and from almost everyone I knew. In my mind, there was no point telling anyone because it was all temporary and I was going to quit any day now (even though that "any day now" dragged out for 7 years).
I first saw Kill The Can a couple of months ago. I'm not sure how. But it planted the seed in my head about quitting. Reading other people's stories helped me understand just how addicted I was, and how committed I would need to be if I really wanted to quit -- how I would have to open myself up to being accountable to someone besides my addled, addicted self. I don't know exactly why, but 35 days ago, I stopped by a tobacco store to pick up a couple of cans right before a 4-day family vacation, and the store charged me $20 more than I was used to paying per can, and told me those were the new taxes that got passed. I ended up buying only one can and going through half of it before throwing it out, and then throwing out every other can I had at work or at home. The next morning I finally told my wife that I had been addicted to nicotine for years, and that I desperately wanted to quit and wanted to be accountable to her and was coming clean for that reason. I started telling other people in my life about both my addiction and my recent quit.
Today, I finally created an account here and decided to tell the people in this community about both my addiction and my 35 days of quitting. I wish it was easier to do. I wish I didn't have to tell people in order to make myself more accountable, because I definitely felt really embarrassed talking to my wife 35 days ago, and I kind of feel embarrassed now opening up to strangers on the internet. But getting over myself enough to tell my wife and friends about both my addiction and my quitting has helped me get to 35 days. And I'm hoping that by getting over myself enough to post here, and open up on the internet for the first time in my life, I'll be able to get way beyond 35 days.
