Dance With Skoal Long Cut Wintergreen

I was 16 years old the first time I had a dance with Skoal Long Cut Wintergreen. I am now 33. I still remember the early days of buzzing, hell, that’s what I was hanging onto for 17 years I thought.

What I didn’t realize, until I arrived here, is that I wasn’t hanging on to that feeling, the can was hanging on to me.

The signs were all there.

5am: Wake up, take a piss, put a chew in, take a shower, spit it out, brush my teeth, put a chew back in.

6am: Drive to work dipping.

8am: Time to spit it out, drink a bottle of water and throw a fresh one back in. This would repeat every 1-/12 to 2 hours all day long. I built every habit around it. At the end, I never went anywhere or did anything without a chew in. I would stay up later to get one more in. After every meal I would throw one in. It was so ingrained of my daily routine, hell, every part of my routine. It was my security blanket.

I had quit for a couple months when I was 16 and for 6 months when I was 18. It was hard back then and I was only having a couple chews a day back then and hiding it. That was the worst aspect of it back then. I am a bit of a self righteous son of a bitch and I don’t lie about anything, ever, but I was hiding chewing from my girlfriend (now wife). I remember her finding out because my mom posted a guy with half a jaw on Facebook and tagged me in it. I called my mom bitching her out and telling her to untag me and take the post down.

As soon as I got off the phone my girlfriend called me:

Her: “have you been chewing again?!”
Me:”Yes”
Her:”I’m coming home and getting my suitcase, and taking Motley (our first dog together) and going to stay with mom (we had just bought a house moved in together a couple months prior)”
Me: “Ok, do what you gotta do”

She never did leave but how pathetic that I was going to let her walk because I was too weak to have the courage to even try to quit again. See, the last time I had quit was a rough one. I got anxiety really bad and that’s when I knew I was an addict for real. I was going to let the girl I loved and wanted to have a family with walk because of a stupid habit I had formed in the background that I was ashamed of and hiding from everyone.

I not only didn’t quit but I stopped hiding it from her after that. She stayed but this is when my habit really took shape into the ugly all day chewing routine that I had at the end.

Then I developed acid reflux; Doctor tried to scare me into quitting, saying, you really need to quit chewing so they don’t have to cut your tongue out some day. I laughed it off and continued on.

Constant state of sore gums from one side to the other. The dentist tried to scare me, even sending me to oral surgeon one time saying, I don’t think this is anything but I want the oral surgeon to look at it and maybe it will scare you into quitting.

Then comes my children. 9,6, and 2 and the 9 year old finally learning what it is and pressuring me and asking why I don’t quit, because you see, in her eyes, I can do no wrong and daddy is the super hero that can do ANYTHING. Seeing her disappointment every time it got brought up always stung the worst of any of my critics. It didn’t matter though, because nicotine had such a hold on me that it was more important than my family or my “code”, at least that is how I treated it for all those years.

This group has been nothing short of a miracle for my life. I had given up trying to quit because I was afraid of letting everyone down and getting their hopes up knowing that I would just cave again.

I was very active in the early days and that got me through the worst of it for sure. The early encouragement from BluMan and CanDoIt talked me out of chewing on several occasions and I am forever grateful. The daily tag every morning from Bicycleptic, MonsterMedic, and Squ!nty, has kept me accountable. I replaced dipping every morning with posting roll and I have everyone in this group keeping me accountable to thank for it. Last, but certainly not least, is Tractorman63, brother thank you for taking the lead. I used to do the SSOA but have gotten buried at work and you picked up the slack. Not only that, but are a champion for everyone in this group to stay quit and it is great to see.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to everyone here for the support and I know that I never could have done this without all of you! I am proud to be quit with all of you!

NOTE: This piece written by Watson26