Hall of Fame Speech Of wastepanel

I’ve done it. I’ve made it to 100 days. I’m in the Hall of Fame.

It’s been quite the journey. I’ve been through every emotion that is possible. In fact, I’m from Ohio. One of the jokes we make in Ohio is that the greatest thing about the weather here is that you can experience all four seasons (winter, spring, summer, and fall) in one day. We also like “Michigan sucks” jokes.

My quit has been a lot like the weather here. I look back at the beginning of my quit and cringe at what I went through in just the first week of the quit. Although the quit began with a bang of celebration (much like New Year’s), I lost all hope quickly in the cold of life without chew. Here is a post that I made on day 5:

QUOTE
Day 5 was by far the worst so far, but it wasn't due to chew.

After a long week of forcing my concentration at work and on my family, I decided to reward myself with a afternoon all by myself. My plan was to take a nap and not worry about a thing.

Around 4:45, my father called. My mom was admitted into the hospital 3 days earlier than we suspected. She has stomach cancer, and is scheduled to have her stomach and part of her liver removed on Monday. This was supposed to be her final weekend of being able to eat.

I informed my wife of what was happening, and we decided to grab some dinner and let plans go as they may for the evening. When she finally came home with my son, he was crabby. Hell, if I didn't know better, I'd had thought it was Day 2 of quitting.

He drove me crazy within 5 minutes, and I knew that dinner in public was not worth it. When my wife finally emerged ready to go to dinner, I suggested we just get pizza because my son and I were in no shape to be in public. She happily obliged.

I went to go get the pizza, but needed money first. After a few minutes of driving, I was at the ATM. I pulled out my wallet, and found my card was not in it. F***. So, I drove back to the house. A quick look at the clock said the pizza was ready, so I decided that I should just write a check. No Checks. Damnit.

I found my ATM card hiding on the kitchen counter, and I was back to the ATM. I got a few dollars, and headed over to the pizza place. Only 10 minutes late, I ran in and got the pizza. It was now pushing 8 pm, and I was hungry and I knew my son was probably starving to death.

I went out to my car, and turned the key. All the lights worked, but it cut out without starting. It's my damn starter again! It's fried. I called my wife to just come there and I began the task of attempting to start it with a tap of the hammer. Apparantly, it's completely fried and my work was for not.

My wife picked me up. We went home and had some pizza. When we were done, I went to the bathroom and promptly threw up from nerves.

The funny part is that during all of this I never considered breaking my quit. I pushed a lot of fake stuff yesterday, but that is out of habit. My wife even told me I picked the wrong time to quit, and that nobody would fault me for breaking down and reintroducing chew back into my body. I told her I would fault me, and that I did not appreciate that kind of talk.

This is a woman that loathes my chewing telling me to chew. I will not succumb to the "woe is me" attitude of this. Of all the things in life I don't have to worry about, my addiction is the only I have control of at this moment. I will not break this vow.

If anybody else thinks you've had a particular stressful day, I'd like to see it compare to this. If anybody else has had days like this, what has your mentality been towards your quit? I was quite surprised that my mentality went to embracing the suck, instead of the "I have to take care of myself right now."

This day was my breaking point. The next day I printed Tom Kern’s story (and his wife’s letter) and posted it prominently on my kitchen bulletin board. Despite me hating the world, I trudged through the blizzard that was falling down around me and didn’t blink. That was when I realized I could control what I did and didn’t do even if my body said that I couldn’t.

After a few weeks, I was amazed at how easy quitting came. Suddenly, I was one month into my quit and considering a purchase of stock in Smokey Mountain Snuff. I put away my winter coat for my spring jacket. I still had cravings, but they were scattered between some sunny days too. I started to push myself (mainly because I was excited not be addicted or that I wasn’t constantly miserable) to do things that triggered my former habit. It was going to be a great summer.

Summer is a great time of the year. The sun is out. Kids are outside playing. My world was exposed to even more things that I could do in this phase now that I was free of the nicotine monkey. Unfortunately, it’s not sunny 100% of the time in summer. Think back to when you were a child. Wasn’t it the most depressing when it rained during the summer? It was. Summer is meant for fun, and when the fun is broken by a few craves, it seems worse than what it was. Craves in this stage seem to be the worst because they surprise you more. Your mind and body don’t need or want the stuff, but they come. The key is to remember that tomorrow is another day. If I don’t golf today due to the rain, there will be tomorrow or next week.

When fall rolled in, you would think I was magically cured. I wasn’t. In fact, I never will be. I posted this a few weeks ago:

QUOTE
I think it’s our addiction rearing its ugly head again. We've all been so focused on 100 days that we haven't thought about what day 101 would be like. Or 102. Or 103. Does that mean I can start chewing again because I've reached the milestone that seemed so difficult to achieve when I started this quit?

Hell no it doesn't!

We quit chewing because we realized that life's problems could not be solved by throwing in a fatty. We quit chewing because we were sick of grossing out others. We quit chewing because it was detrimental to the life we craved. We all had good reasons.

As we're nearing Day 100, the reasons that we've quit have faded more. We have confidence that we're not going to cave. We can wake up in the morning and not have to throw one in and cringe at the burn of the chew on raw skin.

Unfortunately, there's a little monkey hidden in your head. It's your subconconscious telling you that your addicted self was not that bad. That you should be proud of yourself, but you shouldn't have to absolve yourself from the sweet nector of nicotene for the rest of your life. You've proved that you can quit. You've even got a nice little medal (if you choose to purchase one) saying so. One chew is not going to hurt...

No matter what you feel like now, you are still the same addict you were when you had your last chew. The only difference is that your body no longer needs the poison.

Look at all of us. We've quit, and we should be proud of our quit. But can any one of us say "I can enjoy chewing tobacco recreationally." now or in the future? No. We are addicts. We were addicts when we were using, and we are addicts now.

This is something we are going to have to battle for the rest of our lives. We've all had good experiences chewing, and even if they aren't that good, our mind is telling us they were. It could be 20 years down the line, but a cave could be around the corner for each and every one of us if we let it happen.

Look at those that are here that are past their 100 day mark. Do you think they magically forgot they were addicted to tobacco? Do you think they could pick up a can of Skoal/Copenhagen/etc. and use it at their leisure? Nope. And neither can I. And neither can you.

Don't give in to that little monkey. He'll try and convince you that you're no longer an addict. The key is to remember. It'll drown out his voice.

It was during the fall stage of my quit that I realized that I was always going to be an addict. I would go through all of seasons again and again throughout my life. Just because I’ve quit doesn’t mean that I’ll stay quit if I let my guard down for a moment. This is something that I must battle my whole life. Even though I’ve enjoyed the year, it’s depressing that it’s over. I’ve made it through all of the seasons. Some days were bad, and some were good. Some days I had all four seasons in one day.

That’s the nature of the beast that we all must battle. It’s hard, and you’re not going to be magically cured when you reach each milestone. But it feels great when you reach them. That’s something you fall back on. When I hold my son in my arms, he’ll never know what hell I went through in hopes that he won’t be inspired by my stupidity or that he’ll bury his father when he is a teenager. My wife will never know how much of an inspiration she has been to me, and she will never be able to understand my addiction enough to help me. All she needs to do is be there for me, and she has been in this beginning stage of my quit.

This website has been wonderful to get me through some very bad days. If I was down, or if I was craving too hard, I came here. I would laugh at Ruxxy and his craziness. I would visit our website and vow that I would join once I hit 100 days. I’d get random PMs asking me if I was ok if I didn’t post for a day or two. I cried when Diggy caved. He was one day ahead of me, and it happened around day 52 of my quit. It broke my confidence, and yet it resolved me to try harder. You all have been wonderful, and I have been encouraging every friend and family member that is me 101 days ago today to join this site.

It’s not Day 100 for me. It’s New Year’s Day. Hope is eternal, and this new year is going to be great.