Hey All
I am 41, married, two kids. Born in the Midwest. Grew up in New Jersey, mostly. I've lived in the Southwest for the last 7 years.
I had my first taste of tobacco in 7th grade, taking a pinch of Copenhagen Snuff, while walking towards a catfish hole with some new friends - tougher, cooler kids that came from a different elementary from me. I immediately puked, which cracked everyone - including me - up.
From that point on, I was in with a new crew and I joined my friends in sneaking dips in class throughout middle school. We'd rip out a bunch of sheets of notebook paper, roll it into a cone, fold the bottom and and presto, we had our spittoons for dipping through class. Somehow the teachers never once stopped us or busted us. I can remember walking to the convenience store with my buddies and buying it. It was a different time then, there was no such thing as carding kids or fines for underage tobacco. We walked right in and bought it along with baseball cards and comic books.
All my friends and I became football players in high school and Cope was part of the team. We'd dip in meetings, films, while stretching. Our coach dipped, too.
I don't remember when exactly they figured it out but at some point in high school, my parents did. It wasn't like I tried very hard to hide it. Neither of them were tobacco users (my Dad was a former smoker) but they eventually gave up on trying to make me quit. My mom even bought me a real spittoon because she was sick of finding cans and bottles with spit in them.
I went on to play Div III football in college and ole Cope came right along. My WR coach was a Cope dipper as well, in fact he was a maniac. He would flip an entire tin into his lip at a time, his lower lip bulging all the way around like an overinflated tire. He never spit, swallowing the entire time. Rumor had it he went through a sleeve a day. Rumor also had it he had several operations already to remove growths from his throat, and he was a young coach. I wonder if he's alive today.
After a blown knee ended football, I went through some big changes. One of them was I set aside dip and became a smoker. I had never smoked in high school or early college (that was for burnouts and dirtbags) but after football came to a halt and I broke up with my long time girlfriend, I got into music, bars and women full time. During that time, blowing out poison into the air that other people would have to breath was more socially acceptable than spitting in a can. Women seemed to accept smokers, a little bit dangerous. Dippers, however, were seen as disgusting rednecks.
So I became a smoker mostly out of convenience and social stigma, not because I enjoyed it more than dip. I hated the way it made my lungs feel, hated the overflowing ashtrays, hated the constant stink of smoke. But not enough to quit my nic habit. My twenties were a haze of alcohol and tobacco, my two best friends.
At 30, through divine intervention, I managed to get sober for six months and during that window I met my wife. I fell in love and then promptly fell off the wagon. It soon became clear it was her or the drink and I gave up the drink for good in 1998. It was hell but I haven't had a drink since. That's another story for another forum, so I'll leave it there.
Ole Nic in the form of cigarettes stayed by my side, of course. My wife hated it. And truth be told so did I but was madly hooked. I tried to quit again and again and failed over and over. Cold turkey fail. Patch fail. Pill fail. Repeat. Then my wife got pregnant with our first child and I swore to her I would quit before our son was born (I had no fucking idea how).
One morning getting off the train, on my way to work in Jersey City, I looked up at the Twin Towers and saw a gaping, smoking hole like a bomb had gone off. I worked right across the Hudson from the Towers, they were in plain view. As the morning wore on my building was evacuated when the first tower fell. From the street I watched people jumping from the second tower, spinning like little dolls - down, down. Then watched it collapse and felt the ground shake under my feet.
Two or three days later, I tossed the cigarettes away. Cold turkey - just put em down for good and walked away. They just didn't make any sense and I suddenly wasn't getting anything from them. On some deep level, watching all of those people die had changed me. Life was too short to waste on a stupid habit that you know will kill you. So I quit and stayed quit.
Fast forward to 2009, I was at a conference - nervous, stressed, everyone was going out for drinks. I ordered a Coke and bummed a cigarette from someone to take off the edge. It made me feel like shit of course. I had been off of nic for 8 years, I was in control, I told myself, I could handle it. That bummed smoke turned into a pack. I would stop when I got home from the conference I promised myself.
But of course I didn't. I couldn't stand my kids smelling smoke on me or catching me lighting up, so I switched to dip when I got home. And fell in love all over again with ole Cope.
Fast forward to the present. I have a big red sore in my mouth. My teeth are sore, my gums are receding and bleed easily. I have yellow, wrinkled skin on either side of my mouth. I am getting dizzy spells out of the blue. I am dipping a can and a 1/2 a day. I can't kiss my wife most hours of the day. I get jumpy and nasty if we are out and I have to go more than a couple of hours without a dip. My kids see me all the time with that shit in my mouth, something I swore I would never do to them. They ask me why, what it is, why I can't stop, when I will quit. I tell them I am trying. It makes me hate myself.
And that's not bullshit. I am trying. I've done 3 or 4 weekend quits over the last year, where I get two days going only to fall on my face on Monday. Two weeks ago, I was at a conference and I got off the nic for a week. I thought I was in business. My second day back home, back at work, I crumbled. I am starting to doubt myself, what if I can't do it.
I can hear you tough guys in my head as I write this: this is war, don't be a pussy, are you going to be a man and commit to quit? You know, that's all fine and good and if that works for you, God bless.
But for me, with all due respect, save that bush league bullshit. I am a grown man, you've never met me, so shut the fuck up. I already know what I am up against, I already know it's my own fucking fault, I know I've got no one to blame but myself and I've been down the road time and time again. Beating up on myself, or looking at it like some contest or war, doesn't work for me. Because I've been there with my guns cocked, amped up and then failed many times. Because my enemy and my struggle and my hatred is all me. And I can't heal myself by fighting myself. Me trying to kill me? Man, that's easy, I am pretty good at self destruction. And I may never heal that disease completely. What I can do is understand myself and why I am this way. And try to make decisions from the part of my brain that is not a hopeless fucking addict.
Anyway, here's some useful suggestions, from my perspective:
1. Don't ever quit quitting. You are dealing with a drug as addictive as coke and heroin. You are looking at a drug that 90% or so cannot stop using. Unless you are one of the very few and very lucky, it is going to be a long and painful process. The odds are impossible unless you make one simple promise to yourself: I won't ever give up on trying to quit. I will focus on not using it today and that is all I can worry about today. But no matter what happens today, I am not going to quit trying to quit tomorrow, or the next day, or next week.
2. Learn about yourself. You have to understand yourself, how you are wired, what makes you tick, what your triggers are. You have to stare those weaknesses and triggers in the face, write them down, know them like you know the earth is round. And then you have to put together a plan to get you through those triggers, especially in the early weeks and months. If you don't, you don't have a chance. If drinking is your trigger, lay off the booze for a while. If anger is your trigger, line up an outlet for releasing anger - take up boxing or meditation or whatever works for you. If mowing the lawn is your trigger, pay someone 10 bucks to mow your lawn for a few weeks. Whatever. Just don't do what you have always done and expect different results. You have to lay down new patterns - in your brain and in your life - trailblazing until that new path becomes familiar and normal.
3. Have respect. Here is where I fucked up after a long successful quit. It's never over, an addict can't outgrow their genes, or their psychology, 5 or 10 years down the road. You are always a nicotine addict. Always will be. And this drug - once you put it into your bloodstream - is more powerful than you, every single time. The only way you can protect yourself is to abstain.
4. Surround yourself with others that understand what you are going through. Here is also where I've fucked up. It works. Thanks to you out there who built this site and participate in it. Thanks to chewie for getting my account hooked up in a minute and tarpon for talking me into tossing my can out and calling me on my bullshit. I think I may have a chance if I stick around and work it.
5. Be humble. All the stuff I think I know and wrote above could all be a bunch of bullshit. Justification my addict's brain have spun, looking for some route to allow for just one more dip. It's like having a parasite in you that never completely dies, it just gradually looses strength and goes dormant. Waiting for the chance to come back to life. As soon as you get arrogant enough to think you know it all, it will whip back to life. I am a newbie again and don't know shit.
That's it for now. Sorry if I pissed people off, glad if I helped anyone out there. I don't really know anything but it's better to get it out there than to hold it in.
I am on day 3 and just writing this makes me jones for a dip. But I'm not gonna. I'm gonna toss in a cough drop instead. Maybe make some more coffee. Get back to work.
- mantis
