My name is John. I'm 32. I've been dropping in on this site to lurk for close to 2 years.
I have a wife and two kids old enough to know that my dipping is gross. I tell them it's bear poop. I dipped grizzly wintergreen so they saw the bear on the lid,believed me,and stayed far away from it. I'm not quitting for my kids or wife, I've tried that before. This time I'm quitting for myself. I smoked for 6 years starting at age 16. I began smoking as a reason to skip lunch with my first serious girlfriend 'do it' . She lasted 6 months, but my addiction to nicotine has lasted 16 years now. I began dipping at 20 years old in the Marine Corps. Dropped smoking at 22 because, as we all know, smoking with a dip in makes the dip taste gross. 'Crazy'
The reason I'm quitting is because it's the dumbest thing I could have ever gotten myself into. How many thousands of dollars have I paid for a product that'll eventually disfigure or kill me?
My teeth are somehow in good shape still, as are my gums, but I've been upper decking for two years now. Even though I very rarely throw one in the bottom lip, the whole area is sore when I try. The left and right pockets are spent. I haven't been able to throw one in the middle for nearly a decade. So what happens when I run out of space in my upper lip? I feel like a needle addict who has to shoot up between their toes because they've collapsed all their good veins elsewhere.
This shit is rediculous, and today I threw out my last can. I bought a load of sunflower seeds and some wintergreen smokey mountain herbal stuff. In the last month I've drawn down from 1.5 cans a day to about a can every three days. That in itself has been a big victory for me. Tomorrow it'll be my first day of cold turkey from sun up to sun down.
I've quit several times before. Once I stayed quit for 8 months. Another time I went almost two years. Both times ended during a deployment in either Iraq and Afghanistan with just the tiniest of pinches. "Oh yeah, let me just take a tiny bit and take a stroll down good old memory lane" BOOM! Addicted again....
So I'm quitting. If I make it to 33 with a spitter in hand that means I'll have passed the halfway mark and will have spent the majority of my life as a nicotine fiend. I'm also out of the Marines after 10 years, and work in commercial construction. Things are going well for me, and I don't need to be known for being the guy who needs to stop working for a minute in order to find a place to spit in what will soon be a cancer ward for a large university hospital!
So, thanks for reading. I'm not looking forward to the fog. I hate the fog. What I'm looking forward to is the great sleep I'll get after the first week. I know some folks have trouble sleeping after they quit, but the times I've done it before had me experiencing the best sleep and easiest wake ups of my adult life. That's what I'm looking forward to. Quitting sucks, but it's really just 72 hours of suck and then mind games right? 'arse'
I'm glad to be here. I've failed at quits so many times I think this community may be what I need to keep myself reminded of why I wanted to quit in the first place.
Well shit, here it goes. 'help'