Liar Rehabbed – Choose Integrity, Not Lies
I was spurred on to quit by reasons often cited by others here.
-Health: You can only tell yourself “Well, I gotta die of something!” till it rings a little hollow. Just have a look at some Cancer Pics.
-Wife: Seeing the wonderful woman, who treats me so honorably, have creeps of doubt as to my devotion to her? (See she knew I chewed, but I hardly ever did it in front of her since she was disgusted by it. I just manufactured reasons to get away from her. Idiot Coward!!!)
-Kids: Shame on the man that teaches an adoring son or daughter how to slowly kill themselves. While I am at it I can show them how to sneak around and deceive. Neat, Dad, Thanks!
There’s a common ingredient in all of my reasons. I just reached my own personal saturation point of lying. Period. So the following is a brief summation of my last miserable +/- decade.
How’d I start? Nothing notable or different than anybody else who is a part of KTC. Close family friend chewed, Dad smoked, why the hell not? I’m all grown up now (at 18), I’ll buy a can and see what I think. Head spun, felt like puking. That was it for years. Then comes college, parties, pals who chewed. “Sure I’ll have one.” But I don’t remember feeling crappy this time. Nor did I feel “addicted”. Still wasn’t a daily slave.
I got hooked after college when at work. My job had me alone, driving a ton, lots of times at night. Skoal winter green was my bud, he kept me awake at the wheel and passed the time. I knew it probably looked stupid and I was vaguely aware of the dangers of tobacco, and I knew my family wouldn’t approve but, you see, I was me. I’m young, Bad stuff doesn’t happen to me and I certainly won’t be a long-term user. Oh, no. I was single at the time, working alone a lot of the time and had no one to “answer” to. Except myself, and I gave me a pass. That was early 1998.
Now the lying starts. I chewed in front of my parents on a trip and they got all worried. So I later told them “I quit, I don’t do that anymore”. Only of course I didn’t stop, you all know that. From then on, only a select group of people ever knew I chewed, and only in certain situations. Any girlfriend I had never knew. While I was dating my future wife, she never knew. My stupid self thought it was easier this way…Still have the tobacco/don’t hear all the pestering about it from loved ones. I just want to say to anybody who comes across this sad story that this one decision to go “in the closet” or be a “ninja dipper” as it’s called here probably hurt me more than any long term effects of tobacco has hurt me physically (so far). Once you’ve made the turn at this cross roads, you compound your troubles immensely. See, you are now officially a big walking lie in addition to an idiot for using tobacco.
So finally, after 10-11 years of being a fool idiot liar, I have had enough. No longer am I going to steal time from my family to do such a stupid selfish thing. No longer will I go without while in the presence of my children (telling myself I don’t want them to be influenced by it) only to throw a huge nic fit over nothing. How crazy must they think I am? No longer will I dread a long road trip or vacation with my wife and kids, only because I can’t keep up with my retarded dosing schedule. FOOL!!!!! Unbelievable!!! What a waste of precious time. What could I have accomplished in 10 years if I had the same focus on something worthwhile as I did on hiding and using tobacco…?
For the person starting on their quit:
You’ve read it already everywhere already, but IT DOES GET BETTER. While the first 50-60 days are real shitty, I can say that at 100+days there is a real marked difference in cravings/withdrawals. You’ll be well on your way to freedom if you just find something else to do every time you get a craving. The shakes, horrible tension of feeling that you are going to die or go crazy fades pretty fast after the first 2-3 weeks. “What to expect when you quit dipping” on this site nails it pretty good. What you are doing is worth it, will pay off huge, and is made so much more do-able by this site. For me, just realizing through this site that there were other jackasses who screwed up the same way and were here talking about it was a Godsend. The world was lifted off my shoulders, and from there I knew I could handle quitting right along side them.
Thank you so much to my St Nic-less Grinches. I wasn’t the most vocal or active member, but I counted on all our faithful members to be there, and I posted every day without fail for me and them. Thanks to guys like Coolcop and Gump for being real leaders. Thanks to any and all supporters who offered congrats/validation/encouragement to our group. I sure as hell don’t want to think of how hard it would have been quitting alone. Probably wouldn’t have made it. In particular thank you to a faithful committed quitter who supported the hell out of me and all of December 2009—NMC. You, my friend, are a good man. Bless you for making the effort on my behalf. You talked me through some tough days early in quit and I thank you for that. Finally and always, Thank God for showing me the way to this site and giving me the strength and realization that it was time.
Stay with it new quitters! They might all look the same to you now. But get yourself to 100 days and write your Hof speech. It will mean so much more to you when you write it.
Jason
NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member jled
