Day 72: People often asked me in the past, why did you quit? How did you do it? All that stuff. I felt macho and gave them the "I did it cold turkey" comment, which is true. It WAS true. I also failed at TRULY quitting two times before this and I finally believe I know why. It's because I had an "answer" for the how, but not the why. Not an authentic answer anyway. For starters, not even the cold turkey answer was authentic. Yes, I just stopped dipping one day, but I didn't do it myself and I didn't QUIT, I just stopped, like you do at a stop sign. My whole support group quit cold turkey with me, it wasn't just ME. I never realized how important my support group was until I failed....twice. Now I know HOW I (we) quit. The question I need to answer is "Why?" I'll tell you...
Perhaps some of you will see me as selfish for reason #1, but ANYONE who has successfully quit nicotine (or has done their research on the subject) will under that I quit first and foremost for MYSELF. I had to. My support group is the best thing that ever happened to me, but they can't be there beside me 100% of the time. There have been and always will be many times when I'm my own support group. I'll be in a TON of convenience stores by myself in the future. I'll be around people who smoke and dip. No one can truly stop me from dipping except myself.
The next reason is for my soon to be wife (VERRRRRRRY SOON) and two small children. I want to make something VERY clear. Small children DO NOTICE when you smoke or chew. Beckett, our five year old not only knows about chew, he knows it's terrible for you. let me repeat something, he's only five! So, once again, YOUR CHILDREN WILL NOTICE!
I have the true privilege of being adored by our five year old. I'm VERY lucky and I need to start understanding that better. I need to be a better role model for him. Anyway, he adores me and there is no better feeling in the world....Except for when he "adored" me dipping...I'll explain in a minute. He adores me to the point where he doesn't want to take his shoes off at night unless I do. He wants to wear red shorts to bed because he sees me in them. I throw on a pair of sweats in the morning, he demands to wear sweat pants to school. If I'm wearing shorts when he gets home, he wants to go right up and change in to shorts. He LOVES DVD's the way I do, he's fallen in love with Notre Dame because of me, The Orioles to. When he does something bad, he cries even more once he sees me because he thinks I'm disappointed in him. Twenty minutes after he's done crying, he might start crying again and he runs directly to me and wants me to hold him so he knows it's ok. ALL of those things make me a lucky person, a VERY lucky person. This is where it gets serious...
before my first quit attempt last summer, I noticed Beckett started spitting every time we played outside, walked out side or went outside for any reason. I was so ignorant, perhaps arrogant to the situation that at the time, I didn't realize it was 10000000% because I was always spitting! However, once I realized it was because of me, I just found ways to justify it to myself. Well, I'll just hide my spit better or at least he doesn't realize the color of my spit, etc. I was WRONG. before I knew it, he was spitting after he'd take a bite of his Oreo's. Why? Exactly..."Because the spit looks like Brian's." That opened my eyes! Wow...It hurt to..What's worse? Not much, but there is one thing. How about quitting and still failing twice! Not going to happen again, not ever.
Don't worry, there is more. Not only will your kids notice if you chew or smoke, it's on their mind more than you can possibly believe or know. At least twice a week and for no good reason at all, Beckett will look directly at me and say "Do you promise that you'll never ever ever never ever do "Grizzy" again?" He's VERY sincere and VERY concerned. He knows what dip is and what it can do to you. Remember, he is only five years old. Chances are your son or daughter knows that cigarette or dip is bad for you to. Also, I'm willing to bet they think about it and wonder why you do it...
Let's face it, odds are if I were to have kept on dipping, Beckett would have picked up the habit, wait, not the habit, the ADDICTION one day to. There would be more no worse feeling to me than to know Beckett had his first dip because he saw me doing it for all those years. Plus, down the road if he were to start chewing, I couldn't tell him how bad it is for him without being a hypocrite lol.
As for Auden, she just turned eight an absolutely knows it's bad. She asks about my health all the time. She also asks a VERY good question. She's often asks "why do they take harmless leaves and make them into bad stuff? Why would they do that to people?" I wish we could get a Tobacco Industry Big Wig in person and allow Auden to ask them that. Unless they lie to her, the simple yet accurate answer would be "money."
Also, Auden adores Stacy the same way Beckett adores me. If Stacy started smoking, I bet Auden would emulate the smoking and it would open Auden's brain up to the idea that it's ok to smoke as well. Kids SEE and kids LEARN from what they see! I learned this the hard way...
As for both of them...Every single time we see an empty can on the ground, or a gross spit stain in a parking lot, or when we go in to a store and see it on sale, the kids ask and wonder many things. Is Brian going to buy some today? Is that his empty can? Did he make that gross stain?
Almost daily, at least one of them references my old addiction in one way or another. Most of the time they just randomly voice their concern for my health. That truly makes me a lucky guy. Very lucky...I'll say this one more time. If you chew or smoke and have children in your life, they know what you're doing even if they don't voice their concern. PLEASE think about it...
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