Ok, you say you are a nurse and deal with substance abuse patients. Ask yourself does this make sense. Say you have a patient who has been snorting coke. Would it make sense for them to stop snorting coke, by starting to cook and inject it? No. All it would do is continue to feed the beast and keep their addiction strong.
***Disclaimer: It can be difficult to discern the emotions behind text. I am not angry. I am not offended. I am not discouraged. You guys are honestly motivating the hell out of me. But I know that part of succeeding at escaping the hellish prison of addiction is a desire to help others escape too. I am going to successfully quit. I want to help others successfully quit too. This desire is the only reason this forum exists! Unfortunately I am fighting a different way than you. If you don't want to hear from me again til I am nicotine free, I will not post again until then. I have a few comments and then a description of my journey to finally be able to quit. To those that take the time to read this and give additional feedback, I sincerely thank you.***
I'm trying to be logical here... "Would it make sense for them to stop snorting coke, by starting to cook and inject it?" Of course not... But putting a narcotic addict on clean pharmaceutical narcotics, at CONTROLLED dosages, and titrating them off in a manner that manages their physical and mental dependence and withdrawal effects... can be the difference between life and death. And the difference between quitting and going back to their addiction.
They say only 33% of people will beat their addiction, 33% will spend their lives in and out of treatment and the other 33% will be killed by their addiction.
Come on now. Is this website here to help people quit? Someone finally crawls into this site, begging for help, and instead they get, "There is only one way to quit! If you can't do it that one and only way you can never succeed! Now leave until you are ready to do it OUR way."
Tobacco products are designed to be addictive in every possible aspect. Mentally, physically, physiologically and emotionally. Nicotine isn't the only addictive substance in tobacco products. Just one example; dip is PACKED with sodium, and for one reason. Sodium is an ESSENTIAL electrolyte for muscular and neurological function. From every heart beat, every breath, even to wiggle your toes, sodium is involved. Sodium is not in dip for flavor. It's there because the craving triggered by your body when it needs (or thinks it needs) sodium are transmitted and received by the exact receptors that... you guessed it, transmit and receive the message that your body sends when it thinks it needs more nicotine.
But Nicotine is the only addictive substance in the gum. A clean, controlled pharmaceutical dose. And every 5 days I take less. I fight to stay on my schedule. And I have fought to stick to it every day for the last 2 months. Do you think it's been easy?
"Studies have shown that moist snuff had between 4.7 and 24.3 milligrams per gram of tobacco, dry snuff had between 10.5 and 24.8 milligrams per gram of tobacco, and chewing tobacco had between 3.4 and 39.7 milligrams per gram of tobacco"
From:
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/fact ... okeless#r4Most major Manufacturers sell dip in 1.2oz cans, just a hair over 34 grams.
that's 357mg to 843.2 mg of Nicotine per can. I would easily have 1/4-1/3 a can in my mouth. Every damn time I dipped. Even on the low side that's about 120mg of nicotine. In one dip. Copenhagen is argued have the 3rd or 4th most nicotine of any brand. So I'm pretty sure I wasn't on the low side of this equation. Yea, you don't absorb every mg of nicotine... so lets just say I absorbed half of that. 60mg per dip. Say you dip 6-10+ times a day. So, 6 dips, 60mgs per dip, 240mg of nicotine per day. That's just an example.
I had 16mg of nicotine today.
I was easily getting over 500mg of Nicotine a day. When I first "tried" to quit with gum... The directions said take one 4mg piece every 2 hours. LOL yea right. Tried that, did nothing. I would chew the whole 10 pieces and it didn't do shit. So back to the gas station for another can. Oh, better buy two, cost's less that way. And how about some more gum between dips? Yes, you can abuse the gum and it will benefit you nothing. I did that too.
I have dipped for 4 years. I have chewed gum as well as dipped for probably the last 8 to 10 months. I finally hit the rock bottom that made me decide to quit (I'll save that story for some other time.) So I quit. Again. Cold turkey. Again. No dip, no gum. I made it four days before I found myself walking out of the gas station with 2 more cans of dip. I took one normal person sized dip. It was in my mouth 2 minutes before I spit it out and dumped both cans down the toilet. Not because it felt bad. Because I finally wanted to quit more than my addiction wanted to dip. Someone said earlier that getting rid of your stash is a big part of the quit. I have dumped more full cans of dip out in toilets, trash cans and out car windows that I could guess over the last 2 years. Always came back. And that day was no different, 8 hours later, at the closest gas station on my way home from work. I bought 2 more cans and dipped again. Both of which got dumped out the window a few minutes later. Day after day I kept buying dip. I did stop wasting a little money and buying 1 can. Because every time I tossed out the whole can after my 1st dip.
Something really was different this time. I really, really wanted to quit. And my desire to quit wasn't wavering. But my willpower in the moment of those cravings always failed me.
This post is probably already TLDR for most of you. So long story short:
10 weeks ago, and the 4 years prior to that I was using several hundred milligrams of Nicotine a day.
I finally reached a point where my desire to quit was more powerful than my desire to dip. But I still kept going back.
So I made my plan to quit. I sat down. I wrote it down. I did the math. I set my daily dosages totals. I set specific times to chew the gum. I typed it up as a calendar, I have every day with the total dose and the times I will chew the gum. I have a copy in my pocket, on my kitchen wall, and with my wife. I have FOUGHT to stick to it. I am so determined, and for once my determination is not wavering. I even fought my own schedule, when I had no desire or urge for nicotine at a scheduled gum time, I would wait as long as I could before I chewed my next piece. This was usually the point where I start getting angry with the wife or kids, and I will not take that out on them. I pushed my times far enough apart that revised it last week with lower dosages and a much earlier quit day.
It is working. I will be successful. 500mg of nicotine every single day and all the other poison in dip just a few weeks ago. I have had 16mgs of nicotine today. That's all I will have today. My last gum was 2 hours ago. I will not chew more. Trying to credible info about the nicotine content of tobacco products put several pictures of cans of dip on my screen. A weeks ago that would have driven me to go buy a can without hesitation. Today I can deal with that urge, and bear it, and not give in. It's still there, it's here right now. Clawing at me. I want to dip. But today, I have the strength to say no. With a laundry list of reasons why the answer is no. It's not easy. It's fucking torture. But I will bear it. I have the same withdrawal symptoms, I fight through the same cravings as you have. But at a pace I can manage. In a manner that allows me to continue to be the Man, the husband and father I need to be. I still come home from work so grumpy some days I just get straight into bed so I don't lash out at my family. And lay there til 3 am, because I can't sleep either. And that whole fucking time the beast is whispering how much better I'll feel if I go shove a whole pack of gum in my mouth. Or better yet, just go buy another can of dip.(I am in fucking tears typing this.) But I don't give in. I finally have the strength to not give in. I don't know how to fight back yet, I don't know if you every can fight back. But I can finally just suffer through and resist it. I think every time I survive it, without giving in I think I get a little stronger. I hope so.
I do not have any delusions that the day I spit out my last piece of gum, I will suddenly be cured. I know this is a life long battle. I understand that. You all propose that cold turkey is the only possible 1st step. I concur that it is a great 1st step. For those of you that did it... I envy you. I commend everyone of you that made it through that hell. You have my greatest respect. I could not do it. But I will no longer accept failure, I will not let nicotine control me. I will quit.
