dobber

I dipped for nearly 20 years, starting in college. I remember going to the store and buying an entire sleeve of tins for $10. I'd wake up and grab a pinch, eat and drink with a pinch in (I was an upper decker), fall asleep with one. For maximum impact, I'd have a smoke and a beer going. Youthful mortality.

I'd quit for a couple months and then fall victim to an offer from a friend for a pinch. I use to walk past the store displays and salivate from the smell.

I finally quit for good after having some terrible gastrointestinal issues and seeing what mouth cancer really looked like, that scared me ****less.

For me the key was replacement, I started using Pure Mint (https://www.mintsnuff.com/). At first I cut it half/half with Skoal, then 1/4, a little less, etc, etc.

Pretty soon I was down to just the mint itself and after a while, nothing.

I've still had the occasional cravings but all I need to do is look at what a tin costs now and make the purely economic choice.

CliftonGK1

Don't know so much about the chaw, but about 4 months ago I quit cigarettes along with my fiancee. (She quit in preparation for a surgical procedure.) Neither one of us has gone back to 'em.

Good on ya for quitting.

Spinz

Congratulations ------- nothing but good can come from this decision. Lp

b_young

Good job Tex. I quit kodiak and Cough-n-gagen Dec of 99. It wasn't easy and like me you live in a place where it is accepted and most of your friends probably do it which makes it harder to quit.

Get rid of all the tin lids, spittunes...any thing and everything that reminds you of it needs to go. It makes it easier and kind of is telling yourself that all of it is gone.

The hardest part for me after the first couple of weeks was the first dentist trip. When they cleaned the plague off I could taste it all over again for a full day. So wait until your strong enough to do it. I believe in the power of prayer and I used it often. I still have dreams about it every now and then but there aint no way I would ever go back.

This is one of those rare instances where a Razorback will be pulling for a Texan, but keep it up it only gets better.

BigBlueToe

Congratulations! That's a big deal. My advice: never drop your guard and think you've got it licked, or you'll be right back where you were. It's a lifelong battle. The good news is that the longer you stay clean the easier it is to fight, but you'll still need to fight.

Focus on the positive, rather than the negative. Maybe you have cravings occasionally, but remember how much better you feel now. You don't really want to give that up, do you?

Congratulations again!

Spartan112

Chew has significantly more nicotine than cigarettes, it's also more addictive and often gives you cancer and a variety of other illnesses much quicker than cigarettes. Google "Chew related cancers" click on Google images and hope you haven't eaten for awhile...urrrppp...

I smoked for 18yrs before quitting, thankfully my dance with chew was very brief.

bautieri

For me it was the flavor of the Copenhagen, not the cut or the cowboy image. After awhile in your mouth flavored skoal tends to taste terrible inducing a gag reflex upon removal that I never got with Cope. Also being in a tighter sealed plastic can it has a much longer shelf life then a comparable Copenhagen product (minus Cope Black which is the apex of s_ck). The problem with that is snuff begins to taste like raisins after awhile, even if it hasn't been opened and appears moist. Now imagine mint and wintergreen flavored raisins. Copenhagen on the other hand comes (or at least use to when I chewed) in a wax lined cardboard can with a metal lid with the date stamped on the bottom. Any more than 3 weeks old you tell the counter help to pull you one from the top. It dries much faster than a can of skoal so you get the freshness. Oddly enough quiting Cope was much easier than quiting smoking for me.