Quit Dipping Timeline: What to Expect | #8

Quit Dipping Timeline: What to Expect

The Kill The Can Podcast
Recorded: February 9th, 2023

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Kill The Can Podcast. I’m your host, Chewie.

You want to quit nicotine and take back control of your life? We’ll tell you how we’ve done it and answer the questions you didn’t even know you had about how you can get quit today.

For today’s episode, I’m going to be going through a question that we get often. We’ve got a page on the site called What To Expect When You Quit Dipping, and in this episode I’m going to read through that page and give you a little bit of color commentary about the different stages of the first hundred days of your quit or so.

So without further ado, here is what to expect when you quit dipping in those first hundred days.

One of the questions that I get asked often — not just me, but vets or people who have already quit — is this:

What can I expect when I quit dipping?

I think the reason people ask is because they’re scared. They understand what a hold nicotine has over them, and they are scared to death that they’re not going to be able to do it, even if they really, really want to.

So we have put together an article on the website aptly named What To Expect When You Quit Dipping. What it really is, in my opinion, is a remarkably accurate outline of what you’re going to deal with, specifically in the first hundred days of your quit.

A hundred days is what we consider the Hall of Fame at Kill The Can.

That doesn’t mean you’re cured after 100 days. Far from it. But it is a nice round number. It’s far enough away that it gives you something to shoot for, and it’s big enough that when you get there, it should give you a real sense of pride.

A hundred days — just over three months — puts you at a point in your quit where you’ve got some numbers. You’ve got some legs underneath your quit. Hopefully, you have some tools at your disposal that allow you to deal with craves when they come.

And hopefully, if you’ve joined and engaged with the Kill The Can community, you’ve got brothers and sisters in quit that you can lean on when you’re dealing with a really bad crave.

I wanted to put this together in podcast format because I know not everybody is reading these days, and not everybody runs across that particular page on the website. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to walk you through that first hundred days of quit.

I’m going to do a little bit of reading from the site and a little bit of editorializing on top of that.

The page starts like this:

“So you want to quit dipping and you’d like to know what to expect when you do. We’re not going to pull any punches around here. It’s tough, and that’s why we’re all here.

This timeline has been put together over the years with input from thousands of quitters. It has been shown to be remarkably accurate from the time you stop using nicotine.”

That last part is really important: from the time you stop using nicotine.

In a previous episode of the podcast, I talked about the concept of cold turkey. A lot of people say they quit using tobacco, but they continue using nicotine in some form. Maybe they switched from dip to chew. Maybe they switched from dip to smoking. Maybe they switched from dip to a nicotine replacement therapy like the patch or gum.

It’s important to understand that this timeline is only relevant once you stop using nicotine.

Over the years, I’ve gotten comments from people saying, “Hey, I quit chewing tobacco 10 days ago and I’m not experiencing what you laid out.” Then, after a little digging, I find out they quit using tobacco but they’re using nicotine pouches, nicotine gum, or something like that.

This timeline starts when nicotine stops entering your body.

Days one through three: pure hell.

You will walk into the fog. Nothing will seem real. Your brain is wondering where the hell its fix is, and it’s going to punish you until you come up with it.

Seventy-two hours. That’s all you need to get nicotine out of your system.

This is where you start dealing with the physical withdrawal associated with quitting dip. Drink lots of water. Read. Post. Read and post.

Don’t take your anger out on your loved ones.

We always tell everyone: make this quit about you. If you quit for your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, mommy, or daddy, you will resent them during this period. Quit for yourself.

Come to Kill The Can and rant. Yell at us. Bitch at us. We can take it. We’ve been there.

This is vitally important. I would say the vast majority of quits that fail, fail in these first couple of days.

The reality is you are addicted to nicotine, and getting nicotine out of your body hurts. Period.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it. I’m not going to tell you that if you do X, Y, and Z, it’ll be easy.

For me personally, those first three days were brutal. I felt like I couldn’t sleep. My anxiety was through the roof. My blood pressure was through the roof. It felt like my jaw was crawling off my face.

Maybe not in the first three days, but early in my quit I took myself to the ER a couple times because I thought I was having a heart attack. I fully believe it was all due to withdrawing from nicotine.

Days four through twenty: here come the mind games.

The nicotine is out of your system now, but you’ll still have physical things to deal with: cravings, irritability, insomnia, fatigue, inability to concentrate, headache, sore throat, constipation, gas, stomach pain, dry mouth, sore tongue, and sore gums.

Your brain is rewiring itself. It isn’t used to being in an oxygen-rich environment. It isn’t used to being in an environment without nicotine.

Your body is responding in kind.

Everything is a mind game now.

All the cravings you have are actually due to triggers. If you’re not familiar with triggers, they are events or situations where you would normally dip: mowing the grass, playing poker, playing golf, working on the car — you get the picture.

Keep drinking water. Use seeds. Use fake dip. Use whatever you need to keep the real dip out of your mouth.

Remember, oral fixation is part of our habit. It’s something you will eventually need to break, but for now, use the tools you have at your disposal.

In a previous episode of the podcast, I talked about my love for fake dip. I think it is an amazing tool for quitters, especially in the beginning of a quit. If you’re having struggles, fake dip may be a good place to turn.

Days twenty through fifty: you’re winning.

Life isn’t great, but you probably had a couple of nights where you actually got some sleep. You might notice you’re going to bed earlier than you normally do. You’re not staying up to get that last dip.

You may notice some sores in your mouth and think, “Great, I quit dipping and now I have cancer.”

You almost certainly don’t.

Your mouth is healing itself. Any ulcers you’ve had for a long time are healing.

We recommend you visit your dentist around the 30-day mark. Don’t be a pansy. Just do it.

He or she will be very supportive, and they can explain what’s going on in your mouth better than we can.

But don’t let your guard down. Don’t go out drinking with the fellows or the girls. In all honesty, we recommend you don’t drink for about 30, 40, or 50 days at the beginning of your quit.

Drinking is a huge trigger and it will weaken your resolve if you’re not careful.

One additional thought about going to the dentist: I went to my dentist after I quit, probably in this 20 to 50 day range, and for the first time in a long time — years, maybe a decade — I was completely open and honest with my dentist about my habit of dipping.

I told him how much I dipped. I told him how often. I told him what brands. Everything.

During that dentist visit, I was scared to death. I thought, “I went all this time and I was fine, and now I’m going to find something really bad.”

Personally, I also dealt with canker sores, which are really painful. If you’ve never had one, I wouldn’t wish them on my worst enemy.

I’m a firm believer that when you quit, your mouth goes through a healing process, and it probably hurts worse than when you were dipping.

I’m also of the opinion that your mouth probably had all these abnormalities when you were dipping, but you either weren’t paying attention or you weren’t as hyper-focused on your mouth as you are now that you’ve quit.

Days fifty through seventy: cruise control.

Life is really good. You still think about it, but this is good stuff here.

Some people may suffer anxiety attacks during or a little before this stage. Some doctors say we dipped to relieve anxiety. Some people can push right through this stage, and others need a little help.

Talk to your doctor before you quit or immediately after you quit. They will know what to do.

Lots of people in our community take or have taken things like Wellbutrin or Lexapro. I personally didn’t, but I know a lot of people have.

Don’t wait until this stage — day 50 through 70 — to talk to your doctor. Have the conversation early in your quit. If you do, you’ll cruise through this stage much easier because you’ll know how to take care of anxiety, or at least you’ll know it’s coming.

That last sentence is key: at least you know it’s coming.

This right here is why we group people into Hall of Fame classes.

It’s not that we don’t want you to talk to other people in the community who have different numbers of days. But if you’re on day 40 and you’re talking to somebody in your Hall of Fame class who is on day 50, they’re going to be able to tell you, “Hey man, I had a really rough night and here’s what I experienced.”

Or, “I had been on cruise control for 20 or 30 days and then bam, I got this nasty crave out of nowhere.”

That way, you know what’s coming. You can interact with people around the same stage of their quit as you are. That is vitally, vitally important.

Days seventy through ninety: late-term craves, the doldrums, the blahs, the blues.

Some people end up feeling like they’re right back at day one. Believe it or not, the fog, the haze, the craves — it can be a really tough time.

You need to let people in your group know this is happening. It’s time to circle the wagons together and get through it together.

It typically only lasts a couple of days. Fight through this.

This is what we refer to as the funk.

I don’t know why it happens, but it happens really often. Day 80, day 90 — I hear it all the time.

“Oh my god, I’ve been cruising and then bam, I feel terrible. I feel like I’m right back on day one. I want to give up.”

Push through.

For whatever reason, it’s common to feel like crap around day 80 or 90. Push through. Don’t give up. Don’t throw away the last 80 or 90 days that you just earned.

Days ninety through the Hall of Fame: resume that countdown.

Enjoy the hell out of these last 10 days. You’ll be celebrating with your group as you all enter the Hall of Fame. It is a great feeling and an accomplishment you shouldn’t take lightly.

Do something special for yourself and your family. They put up with your sorry ass for the last 90 days, and they deserve something too.

Again, I mentioned earlier that the reason the Hall of Fame is 100 days is because it’s a nice round number. It’s far enough out there that you can feel a real sense of pride and accomplishment when you get there, but it’s not so far away that it seems unattainable when you first quit.

I’ve said in the past that for me, day 365 was when I really started to feel like I had this. I wasn’t comfortable, but that was the day when I said, “Okay, I’ve already done every single day on the calendar. I know I can do this.”

That being said, my day 100 was probably one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had, aside from the birth of my children, getting married, and those kinds of things.

My day 100 was on Halloween. October 31st.

I remember going to work that day. I was working at a smaller company at the time. I was the director of delivery, and everybody in the company dressed up for Halloween. I was dressed as a Rasta man. I had big dreadlocks, sunglasses, and a tie-dye shirt.

But all I wanted to talk about that day, to anybody who would listen, was that I was a Hall of Famer. It was my 100th day free from tobacco.

Ironically enough, I was working at a healthcare company at the time. It was interesting to navigate those waters, working for a company that was all about getting healthy and staying healthy, while I was dipping.

So it was really cool to do something for myself that increased my chances of living a long and healthy life, and to get this thing out of my life — this albatross off my back that was my addiction.

A hundred days and beyond: stay vigilant.

Use the tools you have to continue beating back any cravings or urges. You will still experience dip dreams. You’ll still have longings. But at this point, you are fully qualified to beat them down.

Continue to post roll. Please.

Get into the newer groups and help somebody else out. Pass it along. Give back and live the dream of being free from your addiction.

I mentioned earlier in the podcast that the overwhelming majority of people who fail are in the first three or four days of their quit.

Another unfortunately common attribute of failures is that after 100 days, people think they’ve got it licked. They back away from the community. They stop posting roll. They stop giving their promise. They stop living one day at a time.

They think they’ve got it.

This is a really, really dangerous thing to do.

I still post roll every single day 16 years later. Today is day 6,045.

I’ll be honest with you: sometimes I don’t even really think about it. I’m on cruise control. But I still post roll every single day.

Here’s why.

Even if I’m just going through the motions, even if I’m doing it out of habit, when I get hit with a crave or get put into a situation where somebody says, “Hey, you want a dip?” — that’s the time I think back.

Did I post roll this morning?

Yep. You bet I did.

Not only is it a good reminder, but it sets me up for success if I ever run across the nicotine bitch in my daily life.

As you get engaged in the Kill The Can community, you’re going to get to know people. That brotherhood and that bond we talk about so often becomes real.

Not only am I putting my number on that line for me, I’m putting it on there for them as well.

When my number and date are on that line, they know my word is good. They know I’m quit for that day.

That’s really important to me, and I’d like to think it’s important to them too. Because when people post roll with me, it’s important for me to see them on a regular basis.

Even if I don’t talk to them often off the forums, it’s comforting to know that I’m not walking this path alone.

So there you have it — the first hundred days and what to expect when you quit dipping.

I basically went through this article on the website and added some Chewie flair on top of that. I hope this was helpful. If you haven’t read the article, go take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Let me know if anything in there is wrong. Feel free to add a comment. There are about 4,500 comments on that webpage right now.

Do we need to add anything? Do we need to take anything out? Let me know if it’s still accurate.

I have a feeling you’re going to find that it is remarkably accurate as you move through your quit.

Thanks, quitters. We’ll talk to you soon.