As my handle states, I've been dipping for around 42 years. Not sure exactly when I started, but I was in Boy Scouts and not driving yet, so that would put me around 13 or 14, about Two Score and Two years ago.
I'm one of the "stealth" chewers I've read posts from. Many, many people did not know I chewed. A LONG, LONG time ago, I learned that if I put in a small upper lip chew, most people had no idea I was chewing. This worked SO WELL through school and work environments where tobacco was forbidden.
The only people who knew I was dippin' were those who dipped themselves, for they recognized the "STIFF UPPER LIP" conversations I would have. Because of the need to be stealth, I learned to NOT SPIT, which is something that most of my dippin' buddies could not do, so... I felt SUPERIOR to them. THEY WERE SISSIES and needed to walk around with a disgusting cup of brown, warm saliva! I kept mine hidden... and believe me, touching the upper lip chaw with the tip of my tongue, pursing my lip to get a small "juicer" and chewing on those few grains I had gathered with my tongue... well, there was nothing better! The only "down side" was the inevitable grains hiding in my teeth. I learned to keep a few toothpicks around for cleanup before I talked to a teacher or supervisor.
Now, a few years ago, Camel SNUS came through the area, with TONS of free coupons. WHAT A GREAT IDEA! A packaged product meant to be used in the upper lip, but which left NO EVIDENCE when removed.
Prior to the new product, I was strictly a Cope man... the original cardboard can from the days when there was only one type of Cope to buy. Now, I was hooked on something great tasting (Camel FROST), stealthy, which did not require dental floss or toothpicks. I was able to dip 24 hours a day!
NOW, in the middle of all this, I DID know and understand that nicotine was not the most healthy of things to put in my mouth. I had a few bouts of trying to quit and "successfully" replaced snuff with cigarettes a few times!!!! Yeah! But, I always returned to my ole oral friend.
Don't know why, but my mouth is lesion free and I had my innards looked at last year and no problem. I am smart enough to know that this might not be the case forever, so I've been thinking about "quitting" again. I went online and stumbled on the BACC OFF product line. I called them, and they could not tell me where their product was sold! So, I called a local tobacco store. They carry the Smokey Mountain line of herbal snuff.
Well, Friday, the 20th, I bought ALL the flavors (well, almost all). By Saturday, I had tried most of em... actually enjoyed em. After dinner, I forwent the herbal and reached for the Camel Can. After a half hour, I realized that, except for the nicotine zing, I was able to get the same thing from the Smokey Mountain product... an oral presence in my upper lip which I could "tongue" and get some nice tasting juice flowing down my throat!
I know that half the battle is the oral fixation part. With the Smokey Mountain product, I think I've got that "licked" ...LOL... Now I've got to make it past the first few days of Nic-Addick and train my brain that I don't NEED tobacco. And I don't need it. Flavored corn silk will do just fine.
Nice that this site exists and that everyone here is so supportive of each other.
If you reply to this, please delete the original message. It REALLY bugs me that most of the threads I read have messages which always contain the original message and I can't turn that feature off (that I've found). I know what I've read, thank you, and I'm able to discern what posts people are talking about when they reply. Unnecessary replication of things is a personal pet peeve, and right now, pet peeves seem to enlarge from mice to elephants.
Not sure how to end this, because if I wish good luck, I'll be flamed, so maybe "May you have the least painful quit you can." Seems so much more concise the former way!
Your fellow suffrin' addict.... Paul
