Uplandbird HOF Speech – Freedom Isn’t Free But Feels Great
I started chewing leaf tobacco at the age of 13 while stacking hay at a dairy farm. Older kid gave me his pouch of Levi Garrett and said it helped keep the dust down. We all know that’s BS now but at the time is seemed like a cool thing to do. My father has chewed or dipped all of my life so it was a right of passage. Through the years I’ve been a slave to the Kodiak Bear, 27 yrs to be exact. I would drink my first beer at the bar quickly so I could have the empty bottle for the nasty spit. Peel the label so you don’t get them confused. Prilosec anybody? How about the constant heartburn feeling from the juice you swallowed. I’m sure my high blood pressure was from stress and not the nicotine restricting my blood vessels.
Fast forward to Dec 2, 2103. I turned 40 yrs old and decided it was time to “Kill The Can”, but not quite yet because I had a full can I had to finish first, STUPID!!! So three days later, Dec 5, 2013 I logged into KTC and posted day 1. Day 3 I thought my head was going to explode but fortunately I made it through. I met up with some local KTC members Jlud, Doc2quit4good, TexasJack and Satarch1 for a couple of beers and support around day 60 and was feeling great. I think TexasJack used some hypnosis on me because I had not had any dip dreams up till then but he said it would hit me around day 70. Damn if he wasn’t right. I woke up sweating and in a panic that I had caved. Looked in the mirror to make sure there was nothing in my teeth. I felt horrible that I had let my KTC brothers down but fortunately it was just a dip nightmare.
Now I’m at 155 days and on my way to 200. My blood pressure is perfect, my gums are healthy, can’t remember the last time I was taking my truck apart to find an emergency tums or rolaids to ease the heartburn and I have not seen a spilled spit bottle in forever. Freedom isn’t free but it damn sure feels great and is worth fighting for. Thank you to everybody that posts roll and took this step with me. I AM QUIT!!
NOTE: This piece written by KillTheCan.org forum member UplandBird
