Quitting Dip on Wednesday, May 1st, 2019

[NotSloth]

When I was 44 years old with three children I was  a total slave to nicotine, with a can a day "habit".  I was sitting with my wife in a church at a friend's funeral. She was 40 years old with two kids, and a “light smoker” that just passed away from lung cancer.   As I watched her husband and two sons stand in front of everyone and talk… I don't remember what they were talking about… I was a mess in the back of that church thinking about what a spoiled, selfish piece of shit I was for continuing to poison myself. I looked at my wife and said, "I'm done. I am quitting dip."  "I can't do that to you and the kids."   I bought some fake chew and stopped… for about a week.  I even found a website that talked about "accountability" and "quitting dipping one day at a time".  I looked around.  Read some stories and thought, "How can a website and people that I don't even know help me quit dipping?" One of the things I’ve learned since then is that you can’t quit dipping for someone else.  I used for another year at the same can a day clip. Every time I bought a can, I said,  "This is my last can." I felt more shame, anger and fear with every can I purchased.  I knew I had to quit dipping, but honestly did not believe I could.  I was sure I'd be dead in 10 years if I continued.   I took my last dip after dinner one night. I threw away the can and told my wife I was done.  She said, "Whatever.  Do it if you want."  I've told her I quit dipping so many times that there was no way she believed I would actually quit.  
 
Days later I was walking around my house completely confused and feeling like shit.  I couldn't focus or remember what I went into a room for.  I thought I was going crazy.  I searched for help online and found a similar site to the one I scoffed at.  Not this time.  I had nothing to lose so I dove in.  Read everything I could, stared an intro, and started meeting quitters The support I received and continue to receive was overwhelming and still blows me away.  
 
 Life is great as a quitter.  I don't think about dip very often and never romanticize about it. I have fucked a lot of things up in my life.  This will not be one of them. When we post on the scroll, we are giving our word not to use for the rest of the day. Sound a little hokey? Yeah, I didn't get it when I started either. It gives you something more to rely on than just willpower. It lets you share some of my willpower, and every other dude on this site. Because we don't dip anymore, and we don't want to. It is the last thing I want, because it will throw away hundreds of days of victory and freedom, just like if you quit dipping today and then use tomorrow you will throw away one of the three toughest days of the whole fucking process. What makes us different, besides posting every morning, is that we have overcome the mistaken belief that dip was helping you enjoy all those good times you’ve had in your life, or that it was  helping you get through some of the ordeals at other times. It wasn’t. Just keep this in your mind, NAFAR (NEVER again for ANY reason)