Most, .. if not all who chose to quit dipping do so in fear of cancer and ultimately their fear of death from their addiction.
- Imagine being twelve and your first dip. Dad lets you do it around the garage with him as you tinker with his tools pretending to help. Pretty cool, huh?
- Imagine being fifteen and your friends start hanging out at your house 'cause it's okay to dip around your parents. Heck, most of their parents haven't a clue about the dipping ritual that happens after school.
- Imagine being nineteen and working with your father at his business. Both still dipping and enjoying the conversations you spend because you feel a connection, even if it has to do with dip.
- Imagine finding your first sore, gums raw but you still keep using. Dad says its happened to him but it'll go away. So you pack it to the other side of your mouth. It feels somewhat less painful that way.
- Imagine being twenty-one and the birth of your first and only son. Dipping the whole time your wife is in labor. So nervous but you need dip to take that edge off. Asking the nurses for a cup to spit into. Holding your son after birth, but in the back of your mind you know that you need to get another can since you're out.
- Imagine being twenty-seven and your now six yr old son wants to go hunting with you like he has many times before but you tell him he can't go. Unable to tell him why since there's going to be alcohol and a little party later at a friends house. Your son cries not understanding why Daddy won't take him hunting. You promise to take him real soon. Maybe next weekend. He pouts some but you're able to scoot out the door without him noticing.
- Imagine hunting while drinking some beer. Later on you're at a friends house you've known since grade school. You play a little poker and get somewhat carried away with the shots and liquor being passed around.
- Imagine feeling a bit dizzy and resting on the couch since the room won't stop spinning. Some time later others pass by and laugh 'cause your drunker than shit. They believed you have passed out since they hear you snoring.
- Imagine being so intoxicated to the point that you've swallow your snuff. What they believe was snoring was actually you gasping for air yet since you've been drinking, you're unable to move and get help .. you die .. not from cancer .. but from choking on your wad of dip.
Now imagine leaving behind your wife and son, mother, father and sister. Leaving behind your friends and one of the girls (me) who played truth or dare and was dared to kiss you. We were fourteen. (the time I started dipping secretly)
Imagine now, if cancer's truly the only culprit that can lead to your death.
This true story happened to a good friend of mine. Someone with a kind heart but just was stupid to think that he wasn't addicted. To proud thinking he was invincible to cancer and death. Yet sadly he died by asphyxiation.
He's gone by just a single dip!
-mylilsecret
Rest in peace, Jay Archibald! I hope you're death wasn't in vain and by me telling your story will help someone take that first step to quit.
