Six days in, and things are definitely different. I am still seriously tired. I can't recall being this consistently tired and sleeping this much. The fog has lifted, in the sense that I can think clearly, but I feel bored. I could drift off at a moment's notice and either fall asleep or daydream for a couple hours. There are a couple matters at work I should attend to - so today I took the poor manager's way out and scheduled a meeting! I will try to put on the inspiring leader mask for two hours, and hopefully convince my staff to get their shit in order without my direct intervention. And also, please bring your best ideas and save my brain from thinking today.
There is some great advice being left for me in this thread. Wow, I appreciate the insight.
Corbin, you are right, and I am going to tell my wife. I almost told her last night. For four hours yesterday afternoon, I felt amazing and I wanted to trust my new strength enough to let her know. I pussed out when I started wondering how long it would last. The thought processes I am having during my quit are very surprising to me. I am typically not this vulnerable and indecisive. But now I have decided, and I will tell her today. I am close to a week quit, so there should be some credibility to it. I might tell her about this community as well, but I always hate to expose my dependency on others. Yes, that is total bullshit and a shitty way to think. So therefore, I have also decided at this moment to tell her about this community. It is, after all, this community that will get me through this. I truly have no question about that.
Invader, we did meet on my first day, when I finally found the chat. That is an awesome place to hang out for awhile and build some support and relationships. It really is amazing to ever be in a place where everyone has something very important in common. That is something I rarely encounter in my life, and it is a great comfort. I looked into what you said, and I understand now. The need for nicotine that we feel is just our brain reinforcing the dependency - we are not achieving a mellow by using it. We are solely satisfying a need that only exists because we have been using it. Without using it, our brain will not ask for it - eventually. What a strange drug this is. I bet most of us can't remember more than a couple times in a year when we feel the buzz we used to feel from using it. Maybe we took a double dip, and got a buzz for two minutes. Every other time, several times a day, more than 1,000 times a year, we are just a monkey putting a peg in a hole with a deadly chemical. Fucking idiots.
Rawls, that's some funny analogies, and very thought provoking. I read your post several times to consider each point. It is true, and strange, this box we put ourselves in for no reward or reason. I'm ashamed when I think of my original reasons for dipping - it was fun to hang out with buddies, breaking the rules of "less interesting people than ourselves," sharing an addiction. In everyone's mind, even at the best of times chewing together, each of us must have realized we would one day quit. We were not being honest with ourselves about what that would take - or the shame we would feel when we finally realized we made ourselves totally vulnerable to a useless and damaging addiction. I have two friends who still chew, so five of my dipping friends quit before me. You asked, basically, would you chew if everyone around you did, or if everyone around you did not, and does it matter? The only way in which it matters is that I am ashamed that I still remain as one of us in the process of quitting. I am quitting for me, and because I found this community, I can quit for you as well. I know it helps you and anyone reading this to know a fellow quitter gets how you feel.
Skoal Monster, preach it. I can even think of the truth that most of the time when I was getting a dip, I knew that I was about to feel a little worse, not better. I didn't know about the physical side effects you mentioned. I remember wondering why my legs would shake during the first stairs I would encounter after a dip. Jesus Christ, what a fucking moron. Maybe I should have looked into that a long time ago? Maybe, but I doubt it would have made a difference. This is the first time I have decided to quit, and I really don't take action on maybes. This community has shown me the guts it takes to really decide to quit, and stay quit, and allow true accountability for that decision. I am excited that one day, I will be able to write an HOF speech, and explain why I know I can keep going. I'm looking forward to reading it myself, since I feel like the past six days were 100 days already. I have no idea what it will feel like to be that confident of my own quit.
Thank you for reading this. I hope that it is useful to you, because it is certainly useful to me to share it with you. See you guys at roll and on the chat. Another day quit together - pretty cool.
