So I just posted on the roll call yesterday for the first time, the last time I had a dip was on the 3rd of January.
I want to say thanks to the makers of this site, you actually inspired me to quit completely.
My name is Andrew, I'm in the US Army and I'm currently deployed overseas (so if I post at weird times, I'm sorry). I was always a straight shooter kid through high school, but my addiction to nicotine started about 6 years ago when I was bored and decided I wanted to smoke my buddy's cigarette. That first cigarette led to a chain smoking addiction for two years, I was smoking a pack a day, sometimes more. When I was deployed to Iraq shortly after that I wasn't able to smoke all the time, so I started dipping instead. I was dipping around a can a day, sometimes less, sometimes more. It was hard to keep track, because I would wake up and dip a certain flavor, put it away, dip something else....I had open dip cans and spitters all around my room.
I came back to the states after that deployment and was dipping nonstop. My other half was not happy about that one. At least with smoking I didn't leave spitters or empty dip cans around the house, and I wasn't always sitting around with our friends looking like a moron with a face tumor. I really didn't care.
It was getting really bad, I was spending a lot of money on the dip, and about a year ago I started spitting out pieces of my gum in the morning when I woke up. The dentist always told me I had perfect teeth, and as soon as I could quit dipping I would be ok. After a while they started pointing at the lesions in my mouth and saying things like "these are pre-cancer, you need to really stop dipping".
I'm deployed again, and this time around I'm trying to get myself in better physical shape (at the gym, etc.). My nicotine addiction was really hurting my heart, I could tell every time I tried to run after waking up and putting in a dip. I stumbled upon this site and was inspired to go back to my room and throw away all my dip. I kept three cans in my "office". I went from dipping 14-15 hours a day to only dipping 7-8 hours a day. I felt like crap, honestly. I was having a hard time falling asleep, and I was waking up in a funk.
Just before the New Year I decided that I would just quit. There was one tiny dip still let in my Grizzly can at my office, but I threw it in a corner. I went for about 3 days with no dip, then for some reason I threw that dip in. It didn't taste good, I felt no effect from it, and I CERTAINLY didn't feel better. That tiny dip was January 2nd, and I've been running without dip ever since. I don't have any old dip laying around, and I've purged my room of anything that would remind me of dipping (empty water bottles, etc.).
This isn't the first time I've tried to quit nicotine. I tried when I was smoking and never made it past a day or two. I had a couple months of Army training and had to go off nicotine for almost 4 months, but when I got out I went right back to it. I tried to quit dipping on a prior deployment, and I made it 4 or 5 days before I got stressed out and went back on it again. This time feels different. I know what I need to do, and I'm doing it because I'm tired of dipping and really want a life change.
When I get back from Iraq I know I'm going to be very happy, not just happy because I'm back from Iraq, but happy because I'll have kicked a habit that has pestered me for the past 6 years.
Thanks for all your support, I'm going to continue to need the encouragement from here a lot in the coming days. I know I can do this, though, and I look forward to the 100 days with you all.
