Greetings KTC -
First and foremost, I know all of you can do it so keep up the great work!
Where to start? I started chewing a long time ago in high school when a friend offered me a pinch. I figured what the heck, this was a right of passage and I was becoming an adult so I could make my own decisions right? Well yes, adults do get to make their own decisions even if the decision is stupid.
So that was almost 13 years ago and during the senior year of high school I on and off dipped socially if you will. Baseball team, poker games, outings with the guys, we always had something to dip. Growing up with a father who was a straight skoal guy I followed in his foot steps. Straight or mint skoal were my gotos, usually mint though.
Graduated high school, off to college and doing more adult things and making more adult decisions. Freshmen year of college I had an opportunity that was a blessing in disguise. See, I lost my drivers license and was unable to get home for about 2 months which meant I was unable to buy the dip I craved. I remember thinking, eh this sucks but its not so bad because its a forced quit. I knew at some point the quit was inevitable but being forced into it because I had no license and unable to goto the store and buy some. (My baby face was regularly carded even for tobacco.) To top it off, my college friends didn't dip so I didn't want to ask them to go buy a can for me. "I'll just roll with it," I remember thinking. Fast forward to christmas break of freshmen year, went home to visit family and went to get a new drivers license. Still a few months with no dip and I made the second worst decision of my life. I thought, what could go wrong I haven't dipped in this long what is a pinch or two over x-mas break going to do. I'll leave it when I go back to college for the spring. Wrong.
So here I am wrapping up freshmen year of college, back in the daily habit and it all happened so quickly I didn't realize I had fallen back into the habit before it was too late. Over the summer I got a job at a semi-truck wash and remember it being a place where smoking and dipping was pretty much a given for employees. I fit right in with my dickies and skoal. A co-worker used to get a chuckle out of the size of the dip I would toss in. I basically was dipping unless I was eating or brushing my teeth or sleeping. (Falling asleep with a dip in might be worse than some hangovers I have had.)
Fast forward to the 2nd year of college, I moved off campus and had a roommate. He didn't care about my habit but also didn't partake in it so I started becoming more discrete about my habit. Guys didn't seem to care but it was certainly not something the ladies loved. So here I was, waking up everyday to a coffee and a pinch but also trying to remain discrete about the habit I so hated and very much wanted to get rid of. See, growing up both my parents smoked and I remember hating the smell. I also remember telling myself, no promising myself I would never smoke. I had asthma growing up and being around smoke never helped so I abstained from smoking and hated the habit. My father was a straight skoal guy and somehow my stupid brain didn't equate the addiction and habit of skoal like its rolled up counterpart cigarettes. I knew they both were bad, I knew they were both addicting but something didn't click that they were really two forms of consuming the same poison.
My father in my early teens quit cold turkey from smoking and dipping. I remember it and I remember not noticing any of his withdrawal. Being where I am today, I have to give him a pat on the back and round of applause because for someone to go cold turkey after smoking and dipping all through his life and not taking it out on my or my sister is something else. I don't doubt he went off on my mother a time or two doing the early months/years or the quit but he never took it out on his children. Good for him, kudos Dad!
I think my father's quit which appeared to me as a child so seamless gave me the false sense of security that I was dipping and could quit any time I wanted. I didn't know or appreciate the struggle he went through and so I think I hated smoking because it smelled bad and I didn't see any issue with dipping. "Quit whenever I want, no problem." Wrong.
I started dating someone my second year of college, now my wife, who I always tried to hide the habit from. I became a pro at it in fact. Our first few years of dating we didn't live together so it was fairly easy to keep from her. Don't goto her house with a big lipper and get rid of the spitters and cans when she comes to visit. Simple right? In fact it actually was pretty simple. We dated all through college, moved in, she went back to school, finally got married and it wasn't until about a year ago she realized I had a potential bad habit. If you are going to do something, do it right I always say. That includes hiding a bad habit from my significant other or co-workers. Anyone else here work in an office with a pinch in? Anyone here ever go out with friends with a pinch in? Early on I remember accidentally swallowing a bit of the chew spit and hated it. Here I am 10+ years later, I could keep a pinch in my back left cheek and goto my office job and no one was the wiser. Maybe someone else who knows the habit would notice but I have yet to be called out about having a pinch in during my years of working. Only one time my wife caught me and it was because I thought she was leaving for awhile so I tossed a huge lipper in. She forgot something, came back inside and it was too late to hide. The other time my wife caught me was when she found a can in my pocket.
So here I am looking back at this non-sense and wondering what the fuck am I doing?
Earlier this week, May 11th my wife and I packed up and moved across the country. This was it I thought. See I always knew I had to quit, I always wanted to quit. What better way to quit than to go cold turkey, get in a car with the wife and dog and drive across the country. May 11th, we departed our home town and that was day 1.
Day 2, I awoke the next morning, no can, nothing to pinch, and our home on a semi truck on its way to our new city while my wife, our dog and I awoke in a hotel. I didn't have a choice at the time so the cravings were there but I had no choice but to live with them. As we departed the hotel, stopped to fill up I thought this is my chance. I'll fill up while the wife waits and go inside and snag a can. Then I thought, wtf would I do with a can of chew on a many hour road trip. I surely can hide the dip but what do you do when you are in a car for 4+ hours and you have to toss the dip out? She would know. What do you do it you want to spit? She would know. There was no way to really get my fix so I filled the gas tank, hopped in the car and just drove. I remember stewing over it, thinking there had to be a way and it would come to me halfway down the high way. Either way the choice was made and here I am stuck in a car for hours with no dip, a supportive wife and nothing but time to dwell on my addiction.
We settled into our next hotel that evening, still craving but overall because of my thoughts during the drive I didn't have a choice. I had to live with the craving. At one point I told myself, you deserve this torture. You spent years tearing up your gums, mouth and putting yourself at risk for cancer so you deserve to suffer a little for your stupidity. I embraced the craving. It seemed to work because eventually the topic fell out of my brain and I was normal. The cravings came and went but I continually told myself deal with it.
Day 3 rolls around, it was about the same as day 2. You put yourself into this mess, the only way out is to give in to your cravings and continue with the poison you know you don't need or better yet in 50 years look back at this moment as the moment in your life when you kicked the habit. All those successful at the quit I suspect have that look back moment where it was a turning point. All those unsuccessful, also have that moment it just ends up the wrong way.
So folks, here I am with my quit starting on May 11th, and today is May 15th. The funny part about the road trip is I had a can in my book bag all along just never realized it because the car was packed too full to get out my bookbag. I found the can today as we were settling into our new place and I remember putting it back into my bookbag where I found it. I thought to myself, keep it to remember. I thought to myself, keep it so you can grab that one last pinch. This would be your final can, your final pinch. My wife took off for the day to run errands and I sat eye-balling, no mean mugging that book bag because I knew my final pinch was inside the front pocket. I tried TV, I tried gum, I took the dog for a walk, I walked around the block, all sorts of things to distract me. Finally I walked over to the bag, unzipped the front pocket and slipped the nice blue can out to investigate my inventory. One smaller than average pinch left. Perfect I thought, this will be my final horah. So I opened the can, gave it a smell, packed it as usual, although gave it a few extra smacks because this would be my last pack right? I took my pinch, reached for my mouth and my brain took over and said what the fuck are you doing. Today is day 5 of your quit, why go back to 0 and start over. You made it through 5 days, make it through today and go for another 5. Quit being a pussy and deal with the cravings.
I took the pinch, tossed it into the bathroom sink and turned the water on. Tossed the empty can in the trash as the shavings slowly drained into the bathroom sink. It sucked, I wanted that pinch, I still want that god damn pinch but you know what not today.
Now, I know not everyone can move across the country or make substantial life changes that force a jump start of a quit like me. I can say though today is it. Ironically, earlier today I stumbled across killthecan.org and perhaps subliminally this is why I was able to toss my last pinch and wash it down the drain. I'll never know how I mustered the strength today but with each day no different than any other training, I become stronger. In this regard, today I am stronger than I was yesterday. Stronger than I was on day 0 and stronger than I was many years ago when I was stupid enough to make the decision I did to try a pinch.
What's the worst a single pinch could do? Well, doing some rough math... skoal runs $5/can in places I live and I figure about a can a day for age 16 - 30. So if we say 325 cans a year (low estimate) for 13 years = 4,225 cans of chew. Hmm, that's a lot of skoal, fucking nasty.
That is ~$21,000 in Skoal literally spit away. Fucking seriously?
Forget the finances, the plastic bottom of the can itself is a huge environmental waste. Either way, there is nothing positive about spending that much money on nothing. Literally nothing other than pollution. If you like pollution and like cancer and killing yourself than this is it folks. I personally have a wife who wants to start a family, I personally want to be part of that family, I want see my kids graduate, I don't want to be the creepy dad without a jaw or the chemo patient from cancer.
So today folks, this is day 5 of a lifetime journey. If you can relate in anyway, know that if I can do it you can do it.
