I have had a long term problem with nicotine addiction! I have been dipping or chewing tobacco for 20 some odd years now and have quit a few different times. I have been using 1 1/2 cans per day which is considered quite high and is supposedly equivalent to 4-6 packs of cigarets per day. Some who have been here at IAP a good while may remember a post I made a couple of years ago about quitting. I did quit then with the help of the patch and stayed quit for almost a year. At the MPG two years ago, for some reason, I bought a can of Skoal and started it all back up again! Foolish I know, but unless you have had to deal with this type of addiction, you have no idea the monster that it is!
Anyway, I have been getting really tired of dipping and being a slave to something and planning to quit for a while now. The final straw came a couple of weekends ago. My 8 year old daughter was helping me in the garden on a saturday and we ran into town to pick something up. On the way back, we stopped at a convenience store and got an icee and I got a roll of Skoal. While driving back home, Katie was questioning why I "put that stuff" in my mouth and telling me I had to stop it! That was the first time she ever really acknowledged my dipping.
We got back to the house and I went back to work in the garden. Like any 8 year old, she was in and out between the garden and the house. Later that evening, I went in my shop to the remaining 4 cans from the roll of Skoal and I could not find it anywhere! I looked and looked and finally found it...in the trash can UNDER some papers! Katie had tossed it and buried it!
For the next couple of days, every time I would leave a can sitting around, she would toss it in the trash and scold me! I decided then and there that it was finally time!
I decided my quit date would be last Saturday, March 29. I decided I was going to quite cold turkey this time and not use any kind of replacement therapy including the patch or even sunflower seeds. I know how miserable things can be without nicotine so I decided I would quit on a Saturday to give me the weekend to be most miserable and hopefully be able to be back at it on Monday.
I spent most of the day Saturday and Sunday sleeping and had no energy and a real mental fog over me. I was very grumpy and felt terrible. By Monday, things were not any better but I managed to trudge through the day as best as I could. By Tuesday, I was absolutely miserable but stuck with it. I realized, after doing more research, that it takes 72 hours for the nicotine to completely leave your system so Tuesday was the first day my body had not had any nicotine in it for a LONG time.
Anyway, I have stuck it out and am now celebrating one full week without any nicotine intake. The mental fog is starting to lift, finally and I am starting to feel more and more normal each day. I have not had any desire whatsoever to get a dip and the only cravings I have had were cravings for mental focus! I have no desire to "put that stuff in my mouth" again and am sure that it is permanent this time.
I still have a long ways to go to be able to consider the addiction broken but I will get there! I now have to do it for my daughter! It would not be a good example to not stick with my "quit" now. Besides, I don't want to "put that stuff" in my mouth any more! Your thoughts or prayers for my success in this would be appreciated! I have made myself accountable to my daughter, wife, and mother, now I am making myself accountable to my IAP family! I don't want to let you guys down either!
take what you spend on the tobacco and put it in a savings account for your daughters education. It will pay for her first year or two of collage. If she decides not to go or gets scholarships then the money is there for something else she may need like a down payment. 
