I am writing this Hall of Fame speech for two primary reasons. The first is because when I was in the first week or two of my quit (the fog) I spent a lot of time reading old HOF speeches as they were both motivation and encouragement. The second reason I write this is to thank this community for providing an outlet, support group, and method for quitting and allowing me to get this far.

My story starts out much the same as most here, starting chewing at basketball camp at about 14 – 15 years old (am 36 now), was fully addicted by college, promised to quit at weddings, children’s births, birthdays, new years, dentist appointments, etc. Never made it more than 3 days. I was a ninja dipper in that aside from my wife and a few close friends, few knew that I dipped. Because I had learned to use a small amount of chew so I didn’t need to spit, even those people had no idea how often and how much I used. I was pretty much ½ can a day with a dip in 90% of my waking hours.

I found this site back in 2008 and signed up for it almost exactly one year to the day that I actually quit. The first time I just could never get up the courage to chuck that tin and post day one. Even when I finally did get rid of it, it took me three days of failed 24 hour quits before I made it to day two (buy a can, have one or two dips, throw it away, withdrawal for 24 hrs, repeat). Finally I made it to day two and finally posted for the first time. That was 114 days ago as of this writing. Moral of this story, is keep quitting. The thing that finally put me over the edge was the fact that I spent about $20 if four days for about 6 small dips that made me feel like a failure . If you cave, get right back on the horse and keep quitting.

Why did I quit? For my health of course and so I can honestly say that I did what I could to be around and healthy for my two sons. So I can quit sneaking around to get a dip. So I can quit sending money to the tobacco company, so I can finally look down my nose at those smokers gathered outside in the cold winter weather and say I am better that them. OK just kidding about the smokers.

The difference for me this time as opposed to other quits was the accountability of posting roll call every day and the idea of taking the quit one day at a time. I still have a little seed of doubt about saying I am quit forever because I know that all it takes is one slip and I could fall right back into the addiction. However, I know that I can stay quit today, and I know that tomorrow, I can wake up and say the same thing. One day at a time. I still have cravings, I still use SMC now and then (much less that I started with), and I chew a lot of gum. But I don’t use tobacco anymore.

I do feel a bit cheated because I don’t think that my food tastes any better, but I know I am sleeping much better than I ever have (despite some very bad sleep the first few weeks), and my mouth does not have the sore wrinkled feeling it always had before. The biggest advantage is the freedom, no more worrying about where my can of Kodiak is, or when I can get somewhere private so no one sees me put that dip in.

I know this is a long rambling speech, but there is one last thing I need to do. The thank-yous. To the organizers/sponsors/maintainers of this site, thank you. I hope somehow, somewhere you are appropriately rewarded for the lives you have saved, changed, and improved. Nothing I can say can come close to the praise and accolades you deserve.

To the supporters who posted consistently in our group almost every day. You were a constant reminder that success was possible and an additional source of accountability (and threats for failure, generally involving kittens).

To the members of the July 09 DipKickers. I first apologize for not being the best of group members, I have no personal cellphone and could not access the chatrooms so was not very useful for emergency calls. I hope that by posting very regularly and trying to share my experiences I contributed in some small way to your own quits. I also thank you for sharing your experiences with me. I don’t know how to explain the impact that a number of people whose real names I don’t know and will probably never meet can have but the accountability to this group at times exceeded my own sense of accountability to myself. So for that I thank you and wish you the best of luck in both your quits and your lives and challenge all of you to continue to post roll on this site at least until we all reach 1 year. Thank you.