Good evening to everyone here on this forum. My quit date was June 5th 2016 and I was a lurker on this site up until two days ago. I am an engineer with a wonderful wife and three children that simply mean the world to me. I reached a point with Grizzly wintergreen that nicotine was beginning to try to take aspects of my life I had no clue it could “get to”.
I am sorry if this is not the proper place to tell this story and if asked I will gladly relocate it here in the forum. I am strongly compelled to tell this story on the off chance that someone else is going through what I went through and finds comfort in the realization that they are not alone, that nicotine is the problem, and that they can quit.
I started with nicotine at the age of 11 when my slightly older friends would sneak off with pouches of Red Man or Levi Garrett they got from their fathers. We would go to a tree fort in a nearby wooded area and make “spit highways” on the plywood floor up in that tree. I had no idea at the time that I was making a decision that would be with me for the rest of my life. From the pouch we moved to the can and I can still remember going to a local drug store when I was 12 and buying a can of Copenhagen for $0.60. The woman at the store gave me a look of such dismay and sorrow but she sold it to me anyway.
I moved from the can to cigarettes with my friends and was a smoker from age 15 until I was 30 years old. I managed to quit smoking and was nicotine free for almost two years but then in 2004 I started to dip again. By 2006 I was plowing through the majority of a can every day. For the next 10 years nicotine ruled pretty much every aspect of my life. Nicotine was the top priority. I would resist any activity that would interfere with my fix. In such a blessed life with this wonderful family nicotine was always the top priority. I will never get the time back that I lost to what amounts to essentially being too weak to face withdrawal.
Speaking of withdrawal by 2012 or so withdrawal became a way of life. I started using nicotine gum at work and other places when I could not find enough time to dip. I found myself in a place where I would go through a continuous vicious cycle of feeling withdrawal symptoms, taking a dip, and feeling no better than I did before the dip. Taking a dip and then immediately chewing gum to make sure I did not experience withdrawal and then I would get the reverse (practically overdose) and be nearly out of my head. There was no satisfaction, only suffering Â… and I know folks here understand what I mean. No satisfaction, only suffering.
And then came May 15th 2015 when I attended my daughter's graduation ceremony from elementary school. I found a seat in the gymnasium and was troubled to find that I felt very much off balance. My heart was racing, I could not sit still, and I felt sensations akin to vertigo. I was having a panic attack. Throughout the summer and for months afterward the symptoms only got worse. I began to have anxiety issues at work where there was absolutely no reason to be anxious. I could not concentrate, I had no patience, and I was so unbelievably tired.
I went to the doctor because I was convinced I was dying. Lots of tests and nothing was wrong. I did not tell him about my out of control addiction to nicotine because nicotine can't cause anxiety can it? And nicotine can't case fatigue can it? And nicotine can't possibly be what is actually sucking the very essence of life from me can it?
For me in my addicted mind the answer was emphatically no. Nicotine was my friend through this. Nicotine gave me the strength to make it through the anxiety attacks (ha only wimps have anxiety attacks right I mean they are not really real are they? Â…. yes they are). I was wrong Â… so wrong.
Speaking of fatigue I actually reached a point where my sleep did nothing for me. I would limp through a day at work, come home and beg for mercy from my kids so I could go immediately to bed. I would then sleep for 10+ hours and wake up feeling as though I had never gone to bed. This continued for weeks and weeks and weeks and I was sure it would end with a total collapse.
I was a completely broken man convinced I was dying.
And then in late May 2016 while asking the internet once again what could be causing the anxiety and the fatigue, I stumbled on the site quitchewingtobaccoandwin.com. What I found there literally froze me in my tracks. I do not want to cause any problems by linking to things on another site so suffice it to say that on that site in a description of the benefits of quitting nicotine I discovered that what I was experiencing was not just happening to me.
I decided to quit and on June 5th of this year I stopped. At some time in June I discovered KTC and I began to visit every day. Here I read and read and read and I found people here who had elements of the same experience.
Folks here might say something like enjoy the hell of the first week and recognize it for what it is. It is the road away from the sorrow and the fatigue and the anxiety and the prioritization of nicotine over all else. And they were right. That is what I did. On day four of my quit I had to travel to D.C. And give a high stakes presentation and I made it without nicotine. From where i sit now the week was awesome. After all my life was on the line.
I am now in the mid seventies of my quit and what I most wanted to say here is that I am getting better. It is not a fast recovery but it is steady. I spent years digging this hole and I recognize it will take years to get out. I sleep now and it is real sleep with dreams and everything. My anxiety issues have all faded and I expect soon they will become a distant memory. I am back to my normal self at work just as sharp and as energetic as I was before nicotine began to steal my abilities. When my children ask for something I no longer think to myself “will this interfere with me getting my nicotine?” rather I smile and think about how nothing is more important than they are. None of my plans are made with nicotine in mind anymore and this is a big deal.
I have routinely failed at long term commitments and I am afraid that I will let folks down here in the daily roll call but I understand how important it is. It is about accountability and brotherhood. It is about that fact that together we are stronger. This site and the people who took the time to tell their story helped me make a firm promise to myself that i kept today and intend to keep tomorrow.
So for me it turned out that nicotine was just going to keep taking and taking and taking. I have read Jenny and Tom Kern's story over and over along with the story of Randy and his cancer and I, with tears in my eyes, realize how important it is to stay quit and to be here for others that need to quit.
Others out there do not understand how nicotine can take over your life but I am here to say it can. If you are dizzy and lightheaded and find yourself having anxiety issues Â… if you are extremely tired all the time and you dodge every social engagement that gets in the way of your dipping --- it is the nicotine. I promise even though you can make a list a mile long of potential causes it is the nicotine and it has no intention of stopping. It will keep taking until you quit or until you have nothing left to give.
Thank you killthecan.org, thank you to everyone here. I quit today with all of you.
