So, I guess i'm late writing this up as I'm on day 8 and already been through the rotten nastiness of the first 3 days. But, here goes...
So, St. Raphael's school in Bay Village, OH outside Cleveland, in 8th grade I sat next a "cool" kid named Chris who introduced me to cherry flavored dip. We'd spit into a cup in our desks or on the carpet in the classroom. What little craps, right? Dipped at the 8th grade outing to Cedar Point and barfed my guts out after a roller coast and swore of dip forever. Such is the commitment of 14 year olds.
Freshmen year at the Naval Academy, an upper classman offered me some Skoal in a gesture of kindness as I was in my room working a paper during a precious liberty period, I took the offer, wrote the paper in record time and got an A. Still remember that, 25 years later. I got an A and figured, damn, I'm doing that again. I wanted good grades and figured this was helping. So, over the course of the four years, I eventually graduated to Kodiak.
I went into submarines, gobs of stress, little sleep, impossible boredom. Dipped essentially continuously unless I was trying to quit aka stopping for a little while to be grouchy and then going back to the nic. Had all the expected rotten stories of spilled spitters that I had forgotten and running out and begging for a hit, paying a clever crew member 10 times the purchase price of the chew because I didn't bring enough on deployment. You think I might be an addict? Yeah, me too.
So I got kidney stones and could be on subs anymore so I went into medical limbo and ended up in the computer world for the navy and got stationed in MD. Things were stable and less stressful and they had a smoking cessation program with Wellbutrin that I went through and was stopped for 5 years. Worked pretty OK for me. I think the thing that made it work was the class/program because of the accountability. The meds helped I guess but the meetings were really a big deal for me. And then later, when I caved, I figured the meds would make it easy like the last time. Guess what? With the meds but without the accountability, it was still tough and it was never more than a month or two off the crap.
So, while I was off, I met my wife and we got married and all was good with the world. Then my in-laws bought some furniture at an auction that I didn't want but they got it as a gift and so i gotta go get the stuff and haul it back to our house and unload it and move it around and I'm being pissy about it. So, I stop and get a can of Kodiak and that day I was back to my 1 tin a day habit. That was probably 12 years ago.
I've tried the patch, the gum, chantix, welbutrin, and cold turkey dozens (hundreds?) of times. Failed so many times and so many ways that I'd kind of given up. Telling my wife, I'm going to stop once the stress at work dies down. Kept not dying down.
Had a road trip with my son, 12, last month and it was the first time that I dipped in front of him without trying to hide it. 15 hours there and 15 hours back and had a dip in for probably all but 2 hours and that was to eat. He never said a word about and just sort of looked away. Apparently he told my wife that he thought it was disgusting. He's a pretty smart kid.
So, I'm thinking about my son and my 3 daughters and my wife and how I'm not too enthused about their prospects if I knock off after spending them into the poorhouse with medical bills. I found this site and started lurking around reading the posts. I had said I'd quit on Dec 12, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, kind of a big deal for Catholics in the western hemisphere. I started tapering, kept reading the site, had some fake chew, and was reading the site on 12/9 and decided to stop early. Spit the crap out. And that was the end of it.
First three days were just as crappy as predicted. Stayed at work and away from home to not get midevil on my family. Had a major challenge with a 7 hour car ride after work in the snow. But I had some Smokey Mountain, listened a recording of The Killer Angels, that book about the civil war, and I made it. Its easier now.
Here's the big suck. I'm quit. Not craving, at least not right now, not really much in a couple days. But I got this pain on the side of my tongue way back on the right side by my tonsil. I get canker soars and it kind of feels like that. And I've a sore throat from the innumerable sick people who think they are so critical to the office that they need to come in while diseased to work at 50% and infect everyone else. And I've watching the videos and looking at the pictures of all the cancer patients. So, I'm trying to no be freaked. Probably just need a good night's sleep, right?
Hey March, we got this!
