QUOTE:
Thank you all for your support, and my apologies for taking this long for acknowledging your support in this thread. You have all been such blessings in my life, as has this site, and I continually thank God for the opportunity to be sharpened by other iron, so to speak.
Mid-summer my participation on this website became limited to posting roll. There are a few reasons for this. First, I got a great new job that is awesome, but it demands a large portion of my time. I'm in front of customers a lot now instead of computers, and the limited computer time I have is generally spent completing office-related tasks necessary for my customers.
Second, my dad's health has continued to deteriorate throughout the summer, and what free time I have becomes more and more devoted to farm-related activities and trying to enjoy what time we have left together.
Finally, a sibling of mine is going through severe marital trouble, and this has required my involvement.
I can't help but get sentimental at times, and this website can definitely be a catalyst in that direction. 100+ days ago seems like eons. I remember being scared out of my mind when I started to quit. My world was changing, and my dad's health and the new job added to that change. For almost 6 weeks I didn't know what to do with myself, looking back on it, and even though I wasn't always craving a dip I recognized that a significant part of my life had ceased to be. It was liberating, exhilarating, stressful, and formative.
(For any newbies reading this post, I encourage you to work out, diet, etc. etc. during your initial days/weeks of quit, because as your neural system rewires itself you will unknowingly go through changes both physical and mental that will start to form the foundation of your post-quit self. Personally, I have definitely noticed a change in my metabolism since quitting. Unquestionably worth it.)
It can become easy to forget just how addicted I was to chew. Every now and then I remember it, and I still have the occasional dip dream or crave, but it's amazing that something that I, for 12 years, perceived to be a vital part of my day-to-day activities, that thought was absolutely necessary for my functionality and even survival, could be such a trivial thing. Maybe "trivial" is the wrong word. It cost me tens of thousands of dollars, put me at a significantly higher risk for cancer and other diseases, and in general dictated a lot of my "distracted" actions. But it was trivial in the sense that it was completely unnecessary and, once forgone, didn't seem near as powerful or demonizing as I once thought it was.
I'm still an addict. I always will be. Those words sucked when I first recognized them 3 years ago and first tried to quit. At the beginning of my quit they kinda sucked too. But one of the greatest things has happened to me: I'm honest with myself. Ultimately I think I started to self-evaluate and admit my addiction about two years ago, which was a vital prequel to my eventual cessation, but once you actually go through the quit process you become able to really speak truthfully to yourself and others. You've recognized the enemy (yourself) and you've overcome them.
My addictive nature will remain my enemy for the rest of my life. You can't go through something like 12 years of addiction and expect it to not have an impact on the rest of your life. But the impact isn't necessarily negative. Given the choice again, I probably would have chosen not to ever start chewing. But through the quit process I've learned a lot about myself. I've also learned a lot about others and learned to embrace people where they are rather than constantly judge them. I've learned about my strengths and also my limitations and learned about how much I'm capable of. And I've gotten to meet some great people through this process.
100 days is just the start. And it will be a journey best taken one day at a time. But along the journey it's important to have moments of reflection and clarity. So I encourage all you quitters out there, whether newbies or seasoned vets. Remember that it's never worth it. I was as addicted as anyone on this site. Chewing tobacco OWNED my life. And over these last 100+ days I've had as many reasons to cave as any. I switched to a job that consists largely of a big trigger of mine (driving) and have had serious change in my life in my career as well as stress with family issues, the purchase of farm land, sibling issues, etc. It would have been very justifiable, in an addict's mind, to revert to an old familiar "habit" in these circumstances. But going through them dip-free was much more liberating, much more formative, much better. I experienced the events for what they were and at face value rather than self-medicating with dip. When I cried with my dad over disappointing test results, I didn't have to think about throwing out a salty dip. When I had the thrill of meeting a new customer, I didn't have to excuse myself to the bathroom to throw in a dip after dinner. When I saw a beautiful Midwest sunset I didn't have to hurry up to the next town to get a can of chew before the gas station closed.
In short, in the last 100+ days I've discovered chewing tobacco never treated me so well that I should regret leaving it behind. I encourage us all to have an appropriate amount of hatred for addiction and all the harm that it causes and for the rest of our hearts to be filled with the hope and satisfaction that exists when we no longer use addiction to fulfill whatever fundamental yearnings we have. There are far, far greater, beautiful, awesome things ahead of us than the broken, twisted, depraved path we leave behind.
That's enough of my novel. Thank you to all on this site for the encouragement and accountability.
_______________________________________________________________
That was awesome, introspective and a must read for newbies. Think that one should go to the HOF.
Proud of you JRiz - continued success with your quit, new job.
Will keep your Dad and sibling in my prayers
God Bless
Flynnie
