Made the decision 36 hours ago to quit cold turkey. I have been chewing skoal for 12 years approx. the last couple of years I have been chewing about a tin every 4 days. I've got 2 daughters at home and I promised at each birth that I was going to kick the habit and I am still chewing 6 months after the birth of my second. I have tried before but I realize that I had convinced myself that I really liked chewing, That it relieved my stress etc. I am now approaching 48 hours and am hoping that this fog will clear up, I having trouble remembering my day, is this normal?
Welcome Cdndipquit,
There's one thing I noticed, you subtitled this "first time quitting." I want to give you a pearl of wisdom from someone who "quit" several times. You need to make this the last time quitting, not the first time quitting. If you give it a chance to be first, there can only be more times after.
At KTC you will see it over and over again, there is no "trying" in quitting. There is only doing.
Again, welcome to KTC, this place has saved all of us, let us help you.
-AceBoogie.
Good morning.
Hope things are well in western Canada, chew shortage and all!! To directly answer your question about not remembering your day and whether or not it was normal. YES, it is very normal. You see, for those 12 years you were dipping Skoal, you were ingesting enough of the poison nicotine to kill a small lab rat on a DAILY basis. During that time, your brain built up additional dopamine receptors to take in all of that garbage. Now that you've taken yourself off the nicotine supply, those receptors will begin to die off and shut down. This is part of the normal process of your brain rewiring itself. But it comes with all kinds of not pleasant side effects: irritability, fogginess, inability to think clearly, short fused temper, etc.... I also hate to tell you, but even well after the physical withdrawal is complete, you'll have to deal with the mental withdrawal, which, in my experience, was far worse...
The second and more important reason I decided to write this is to urge you to jump in with both feet, drink the KTC Koolaid, and build a quit that will last a lifetime. While you are to be commended for going nearly three days solo (and a number of people are successful quitting on their own), if you are like most of us, sooner or later you will need some tools that will enable you to push back when the siren song of nicotine begins whispering sweet nothings in your ear like "Hey, you've gone a whole {week, month, etc....} without, you should congratulate yourself by having one".
Begin by posting your daily promise to your quit group (if I have the math right you'd be one of the first of the new June group that has just started). Then honor your promise. Then repeat. In addition to that, get to know the quitters in your group. While we are all different, we all struggle with the same thing .... addiction to nicotine. Build some accountability with them. Trade digits, lean on them when the cravings hit hard. You will find your investment in this place will pay dividends beyond quitting nicotine and mastering your addiction to it. You will truly build some friendships in the process.
Welcome, and once more.....jump in! The quittin's fine!
