Glad to have kicked off day 6! My day started at 4:30, it used to start at 6:00-6:30 but staying asleep is rather evasive at this time. I went back and read my intro and all the posts and man I was in the fog and acting like a punk ass! Six days into my quit I feel my mind getting right as the nicotine is leaving my body. The best way I can describe it is that when you are using a dangerous substance you have scales over your eyes! As you rid yourself of that they come off and you can see clearly again. I'm seeing better today than I have in a long time.
I've been doing a lot of internal inventory, especially since I got back on here. When I came back I sincerely desired to quit once and for all. But my mind was scrambled when I deprived the nicotine out from it. Let's go a bit back in time. Age 14, I'd swipe a can of skoal long cut wintergreen from my dad and hide it. Sneak dips on my bike. Trying to be like pops. Played sports since I was 5 always, baseball, basketball, and football through high school. Of Course all the cool jocks dipped. I joined the Coast Guard in 96' and stopped for 8 weeks for boot camp. The very first thing I did when I got off base was buy a can. Stupid... Right around the age of 22 I stopped before I got married. My soon to be wife hated it, and I knew I didn't want to live a life of that or eventfully loose my life or face. It was hard, but I stopped for nearly 13 years and some change.
All was going well in my life! The only thought I had about it was, man these guys are paying nearly $5 a can to eat that crap. They are friggen crazy! I didn't miss it, didn't think about it. At this point I was out of the Coast Guard, in business for myself doing great. Growing multiple businesses and making a lot of cash. A partner and I got together and acquired two assets that required refurbishment. We hit the max lending capacity from the bank during the credit crisis and had to pony up out of pocket 2.5M each to complete the projects. This is basically us going all in at that point. Because the bank was not coming off anymore cash. While waiting on our term financing I receive a call from a hedge fund manager saying they bought my loan and wanted to know when he could get his 5 million. So to understand, I owed them 5 million and we invested 5 million cash to finish. This shook me to the core. Everything I had worked for potentially could go down the drain. So I got into a legal war with a group that had more money than the government. During that war, at around age 36 I'm having chest pains, anxiety, fear all the crap that would persuade a person to cave in! I don't say any of that for pitty. Make no mistake, sometimes crap just happens and it's not your fault. But I didn't guard the fact that I had quit. Nor did I have enough sense to realize this problem will go away and you'll have a big demon to fight that can take your life!
When going through this I spent a lot of time running, not on my feet but away from the problem. Eventually, before going escape in my boat to go fishing while purchasing my launch pass and said give me a can of skoal long cut wintergreen ma'am. I thought I'll take a few dips to relieve my stress and throw it away. Knowing full well that if you take one! I was writing a check that my ass can't cash! I let the arrogance of I quit before, I won't be do it for long. Good lies to hear from yourself. It wasn't long and as you know it had me by the balls again. All because I allowed it. My wife found out and it created a war zone. Because I was hiding it, I was ashamed. I came here in 2012 wanting to quit partially for myself but by in large due to her riding me hard. I stayed a few days and caved... The first few days were too hard on this fool. I punked out.
I had recently been wanting to quit for a while. Doing the ole I'm gonna buy this one last can bit. Only to find my dumb ass at the store doing the cycle. Few weeks ago I was gonna go cold turkey. Only problem was we were going on vacation. I didn't want to screw up the vacation with the nic fiening so I started to wien then. The next week I cut a little more, but wish I would have gone cold turkey there. As soon as I got back I picked a quit date. I stopped that day and started marking days off the calendar. First two weren't bad. But I came back here on day 3 because I feel accountability is crucial. I didn't know about the questions. I just knew it would be helpful for me to check in, read, and vent if need be. I ran into a fog induced buzz saw. Lol, and that's good. I needed to hear the stuff you guys said to me. Like hey bro, you stopped before not quit. If you were quit, you wouldn't have done it again. I now understand why guys get so pissed about it because it's hard to overcome and it hurts to see people be willing to damage their lives over this crap. I used to think man I need to take a dip to relax. But now I realize, hey jackass you need to take a dip to feed your addiction to nicotine. Not to relax, because you now have headaches and can't sleep because your body is confused as hell because your blood vessels aren't restricting.
It's good to have some clarity now. I'm not going back to that crap again! Especially since this is out of my system now. I'm going to post roll, be there for others and die to self every day to live a long life and not be a slave to a deadly substance. Thanks guys for the tough love in the first few days. I owe you one, I needed you and you saved me! Much love and appreciation! Elton
