100 Days = HOF = Accomplishment = Pride = Gratitude = Reflection
It is said a wise man learns quickly from his errors and adjust his path to get back on track and a foolish man follows his own footprints into yesterday’s traps and gets entangled in them all over again. I have been a foolish man for 25 years as I followed my own footprints into those traps of nicotine addiction. I have been a slave to a can of chew. I was paying money to imprison myself. Why would I do that to myself? Why would I let tobacco control my life? I let it happen because I became an addict and let nicotine dictate my life’s direction. That stopped on August 13, 2018.
Failure is a powerful teacher. It’s always better to learn from someone else’s mistakes, but the reality is we are all going to stumble in many ways throughout our lives. My past failures with trying to quit have enabled me to be quit now. My story is like so many of my fellow brothers and sisters on KTC. We were all failures some point in our lives with trying to quit. I do not know how many times I tried to quit and was a failure. Too many to really count. I even had one failed attempt on KTC in 2010. That was a short lived attempt at being quit because my mind was not right. It wasn’t until I realized I was an addict and I identified there was a physical and psychological addiction that needs to be dealt with that I truly became quit.
The need for accountability and support. If you say you don’t need to be held accountable and don’t need support, you are either the strongest person out there or just lying to yourself. I am not that strong person so I fell into the category of lying to myself for a couple of decades. I realized quitting by myself was not an easy task and I needed help. The help I required came from KTC and my wife. First I will start with my wife. I was never a ninja dipper. My wife and everyone else knew I chewed. Did they like it? Hell no! Did I care? Hell no because I’m an addict!!! My wife deserves a medal for dealing with years of spit bottles, chew in my teeth and dealing with 50 of the last 100 days of me being a complete dick. My wife is so supportive and has been my rock during my quit. There are so many things she has done and one of the biggest was/is just listening to me talk about what else, my quit. If you are married or not, get your significant other involved in your quit as they can help hold you accountable and can be a big part of your support system. The other big part of my quit has been KTC. There are so many aspects of KTC that help with my quit. I make a promise everyday to be quit and I know my brothers and sisters on KTC will keep me accountable. That accountability also comes in the form of giving and receiving digits of quitters. These other quitters can be there to simply exchange a day count or in times of crisis someone to talk you off a ledge if needed. There is such a vast expanse of knowledge on KTC. This knowledge is in form of articles, post and just the experiences of the numerous quitters who pass through the internet doors of the forum. Reading all these various things on KTC has helped numerous times as I worked through withdrawal, cravings and times of anxiety.
Living in a world of acronyms. Having a background in the military and law enforcement I have been inundated with acronyms. I figured someday I would reach a point in my life that I would not use them anymore, boy was I wrong. I will now live with some acronyms that I am so proud to use and will end this rambling with the ones that have helped me:
WUPP EDD ODAAT IQWYT and to all my brothers and sisters on KTC PTBQWYT