Good Evening Gents,
I spent the entire day surfing the internet. I woke up for the 7th consecutive day with a sore throat, an ear ache, a stiff neck, and a hopeless feeling that I've been killing myself over the last 7 years. Naturally I went straight to Google and spent literally the entire day researching different types of oral cancers and by then end of it felt more confused and lost than when I started, until I found this place.
I bought my first tin at 18, and for no reason other than I hated cigarettes so I might as well do the other one right? At first it was great, I was eager to find venues where I could chew and loved the buzz I got from it, until it went away. Then, being a sophomore in college I realized the buzz came back when I drank (which let's be honest, was every night) so I started chewing more regularly. Feeling like I was digging myself a hole, I quit and felt pretty good about it.
Until I moved in with 5 heavy dippers. In a setting like that, I feel like anyone would break. I always felt bad for the homeless folks who would raid the dumpster for aluminum cans because all they'd come out with were crumpled up Coors Light cans filled with chew spit. I picked up where I left off with no intention of quitting again until I ran into attempt number 2.
Fall of my senior year of college I studied abroad in an English castle and had no idea that chew was outlawed so I was forced to quit, but luckily I was so busy learning about this new place that I had no established habits and really didn't suffer quitting. But, as any one of you who has been forced to quit not on your own accord surely knows, it isn't real unless you're doing it for yourself. What do you think the first thing I did was when I got home 4 months later? Drove straight to the corner store and picked up some Grizzly Wintergreen. Things went the same as usual for the next 8 months or so until I was offered a position working on the same study abroad program I'd just been on.
This time I was prepared, I brought a number of logs with me and found a Swedish importer, but eventually the hassle wasn't worth it and I spent the better part of that year chew free. Came home, bought a tin.
I've learned a couple things through all of this. One, being what I stated before, that you have to want to quit and another is that when you cave, you fall hard. Each time I've started up again my habit has increased ten-fold. In the beginning I was taking tiny lippers, which grew to fat lippers, and then the occasional horseshoe, followed by an upper and a downer when I was drinking and finally to where I am now. I've been home now for just under 2 years, and I've been dipping the whole time but over the last 6 months or so I began to crave the buzz so badly that I'd go almost the entire day without a dip, maybe a baby one in the morning but then at night I'd throw a full upper in with a horseshoe below. It was about a third of a tin per time and I'd do this back-to-back-to-back until the tin was gone and do it again the next day. I have no idea what that amount of nicotine at one time does to a person's body.
So here I am, 25 years old, gorgeous girlfriend who I refused to quit for, terrified that I may have already killed myself, but ready to quit. Do I have cancer? Maybe, probably not, but maybe. Regardless, when I leave this life I'm going to be damn sure it is without a fucking dip in my mouth. That's a wrap on day 2 of the rest of my life and I could not feel more grateful to have found a community of people in the same boat as me, because it's going to be a long road ahead guys and I'm going to need some help but I know at the end of each day I'll be able to say, I am quit.
