On Quitting

I started on this journey many years ago. Of course, I’m talking about the journey of nicotine addiction. I was a very young teenager when a friend of mine dared me to take a dip of Skoal. He said I couldn’t do it without puking. I took the dip and didn’t puke. A few days later that same friend dared me to take a dip of Copenhagen without puking. Again, I took the dip and didn’t puke. However, with the Copenhagen I experienced this wonderful feeling that I had never known before. I was dizzy. I couldn’t think straight. I could hardly walk. But, it felt so good. It was the first time in my life I had been on a chemical high and I thought it was wonderful. I was mildly hooked in Jr. High School when Copenhagen was .89 per can. A very affordable habit for a youngster who only bought 2 or 3 cans per week. Actually cheaper than buying a candy bar and soda every day and certainly much more enjoyable.

Fast forward to high school. I was up to nearly a can a day habit. I was still only moderately hooked at this point.

Fast forward past college, I’m dipping 2 or more cans of Copenhagen per day. Now I’m really hooked. I was just fooling myself that I was addicted at one can a day. Now I can easily go through 2 cans on a normal day. 3 to 4 cans if I’m doing an activity that I like to dip through, which really includes any activity I do.

Now I’m spending serious money on this habit. Over the period of my addiction I have watched the prices creep up from .89 per can to $1.50 per can to $3.25 per can to over $5.00 per can today. On a bad day I’m dropping over $20 on this habit. I’m probably averaging $12 or $13 or more per day over the period of any given month. That’s a lot of money.

I decided about a year ago that it was time to quit. Instead of just sucking up and quitting, I investigated all the ways there were to quit. I saw patches and pills and inhalers and gum and all sorts of nicotine replacements on the market. Being the skeptical guy I am I investigated each of these methods to see what might work the best. I found that there are no scientific studies on any of these quitting methods that show any more of a success rate than just quitting cold turkey. In fact, there are some scientific studies that show a slight increase in failure when you use many of the nicotine quitting methods on the market. My conclusion was that the companies that promote quitting are just as bad as the tobacco companies. They promote you to use their product knowing that you will most likely fail. When you do fail they will sicker you back into trying another of their products. It’s a vicious circle I didn’t want any part of. So, I decided to quit cold turkey. But I was scared. I was so scared that nearly a year after deciding to quit I still had not started to quit.

That’s when I came across killthecan.org. I saw that there are many people who have successfully quit cold turkey and that it can be done. Of course, all the success stories are all anecdotal and I know that you only hear from the ones that succeed. But still, seeing that it could actually happen encouraged me. I signed up and started counting my days clean. Now on November 1, 2008, I’m at day 100 and I feel really good. I am thankful for coming across the site and seeing all of the success stories. It really gave me the courage to quit cold and know that there was a chance of success without getting caught in a vicious circle of snake oil quit products. I’ll never go back to Copenhagen or any other nicotine product again in my life. I am a recovering nicotine addict who continues to recover one day at a time thanks to following the advice and resources on this site.

#ghoti#

NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member ghoti