Hi everyone, I'm Sean, 18 years old from Northern Michigan, Long story as short as possible. My nicotine addiction started when I was 14 and made the awful decision to start smoking, Smoked 2 packs a day for 3 years, Quit smoking to dipping right before my 17th birthday, I figured hey my Grandpa has been dippin for 60+ years, My dad for 30+ and they dont have cancer or any real serious health problems which was really dumb of me to think because once I started researching mouth cancer stories I knew otherwise. Anyways I managed to get my self some dip - Tried a few before settling on Skoal. When I dipped I felt way more likely to get cancer than I ever did with Smoking, The direct contact just felt like I was tearing my mouth apart little by little every day which I ofcourse was. I was more addicted to dip that I was to smoking I think, I was absolutely obsessed with dip. I would do a minimum of one can per day, Most I ever did was 2 cans a day. But anyways I dipped for a year and it got to the point where I was becoming aware that I was not invincible to this stuff, I remember one day watching TV and seeing a guy talking about a mouth disease he got from smokeless tobacco, reading cancer horror stories online and so on. It was things like that that entered my head and no matter how hard I tried those thoughts never left. I would spend 20 minutes each morning in the mirror with a flash light checking for signs of cancer etc... I started to obsess over worrying about cancer and all the risks that come with dip, The day before I quit ... during my routine morning mouth check I noticed a BB sized red sore on my tongue and I thought there was a good chance I had cancer forming so I freaked out and didnt know what to do, It was October 15th and I was very depressed that day. I woke up the next morning and much to my relief it was gone. I told myself I can keep dipping and the next sore may just not go away or I can quit and put all this garbage behind me. I went cold turkey the whole ride through and have not touched the stuff in the near 5 months since - I will never put any form of tobacco in my body again... I have absolutely no desire to. It is not worth it to me at all. I went through hell with my addiction to the point where I could not go anywhere without a dip, there were many situations I couldnt do without a dip in - even down to listening to music and drinking coffee. All I wanted was to feel that pinch between my gum and lip and to be deep in the nicotine fused moment - it was just plain out ridiculious. I find it just awesome that I actually quit, I never thought I would but I did. It took me about 3 weeks til I felt 100% comfortable but it was well worth the suffering.
Anyways, I just found this site a few days ago while browsing the net and felt I had to join because I can relate to everything on here in all ways ! If I had known about this site when I was quitting I would have been on here day and night. I think this website is just awesome and I respect it very much.
All The Best and see ya all around
// Sean