I started dipping in 6th grade – I think that means I was 12. I remember going out to recess and a group of friends were all huddled around this one kid, Jeff. Turns out he was handing out dips from a tin of Skoal wintergreen. I stuck a pinch in my lip like everyone else, but I just let it sit there. Didn’t know what else I was supposed to do. Didn’t suck on it or squeeze the juice out of it or spit. Jeff asked me if I was even dipping or was I just wasting it. All of the sudden I felt like I was doing it wrong. I had to get more of it so I could practice and learn how to do it right. That was it…been dipping ever since. Sometime in my teens I switched over to Skoal Mint. Not really sure why. Was also smoking about a pack a day, but smoking was really just a way to get nicotine when I couldn’t dip.
That’s why it was so easy to “quit” smoking when I met my wife. She didn’t want to date a smoker and I didn’t really care about smoking anyway, as long as I didn’t have to give up dipping. Plus I was in grad school, so my schedule wasn’t particularly demanding. I could always get back to my apt a couple of times during the day to sneak a lipper.
Once I got through grad school and started working, things got a little complicated. CouldnÂ’t get my nicotine from cigarettes anymore and couldnÂ’t dip at work. YouÂ’d think that would be enough to make me quit, but instead I figured out a way to dip at work. I found I could pack a quid in the back of my mouth behind my upper back teeth. Basically in the spot vacated by my wisdom teeth. As long as I didnÂ’t use too much, you couldnÂ’t even tell I had a dip in. Then I learned to spit in a Starbucks coffee cup with the lid on. I actually found I could spit in that little hole, but make it look like I was taking a sip of coffee while I was doing it. My co-workers started joking about how IÂ’m never without a cup of coffee. It was unbelievable. I basically figured out a way to have a dip in all day every day. I was more hooked than IÂ’ve ever been.
But then I started to watch as my mother-in-law battled Non-HodgkinÂ’s Lymphoma. She had a stem cell transplant and some pretty serious chemo. Took her about a year to recover and she fought every step of the way. Now sheÂ’s been diagnosed with MDS, which is basically a bone marrow condition caused by excessive exposure to radiation. The only treatment is another transplant and, believe it or not, more chemo. But the fatality odds have gone up quite a bit this time around. But she just keeps fightingÂ…and here I am the hole time puttinÂ’ this shit in my body thatÂ’s gonna kill me because IÂ’m too weak to face life without it. It made me feel like such a piece of shit to watch how she faced every hardship with courage when I knew I was a spineless addict.
I went online looking for help and found a group of guys that not only got seriousÂ…they got fuckinÂ’ angry. ThatÂ’s just what I needed and IÂ’ve been fuckinÂ’ angry ever since. I will not lose another second of my life to this useless shit. IÂ’m four days in and I feel empowered by the vulgar, disgusting, beautiful badasses at KTC. With them behind me, I know I can beat this shit.
