Hey guys, I've been reading articles on this forum for a while now. I have consistently come back to the forum and have recently decided to join.
My name's Mike. I've been using Cope Wintergreen and Skoal mint on and off for the past ~4 years.
I started using in high school. It was common for some of the guys to bring cans on long bus rides for our games (I played a couple of sports). This was just an occasional thing. As counter-intuitive as it may sound: I began to consistently use as a way to get away from stress in my life. My sister was diagnosed with cancer and this caused a lot of stress in my family. This is when I transitioned from a dip a week/can a month to about a half can a day. That was about 4 years ago.
Why do I want to quit?:
Besides all of the obvious reasons. I want to quit for my sister, who beat cancer. I'm serious, I was in the room when two neurosurgeons told her that if they did not operate immediately she would die - no prognosis, no 6 months, dead in weeks. Now she is doing well, but I see the effects of her surgeries, radiation, and whatever that golfball did to her brain now.
Also I have a girlfriend of several years. I've told her she's the one. When I finish graduate school, I plan to marry her. Without the damn can. I don't think she is aware of my habit. I have only recently realized how much I hide the habit from everyone around me. Only two of my buddies know. One, also chewed and has since quit. I'm using him as a resource to help. Smokey Mountain was what he used to quit.
Anyway, I've been able to quit many times. Quitting is easy for me, staying quit is where I struggle. I have quit many times, for 6 months at one point, only to see that circle in some dude's back pocket and I lose my self control. And it's right back to square one. I'm hoping that this forum will help me quit again and to remain quit.