Also take a good multi-vitamin and possibly concentrated sea water mineral drops. When the nicotine demon plays head games with you he can use any vitamin or mineral deficiencies you may have to help trigger cravings.
Also try eating more of a plant based diet. Eliminate processed foods, processed sugar and salt. Many people gain 40 pounds when they quit nicotine.
Tough road ahead tom. Don’t matter either way if you want to or not. But it is definitely doable. Chewed for over 25 years. COPENHAGEN! Nothing better. Quit 3 or so years ago. Like pat i also used smokey mountain to start with, but that stuff is terrible for your teeth. Think it’s the molasses. Now I just chew on jack links jerky chew. It’s not too expensive and it keeps your mind off the real stuff. I was never one for gum or seeds or anything for more than a few days but this stuff is doing the job for me. Good luck!
#1 thing in quitting is you truly have to want to quit. I laugh at the guys who have quit “several” times. Yes it’s hard, but if you keep falling back on the old “well i’ll just quit again next month”, you never will.
When you do quit, quit cold turkey. It will be hard. It will suck. It will be the best thing you ever do for yourself.
Change habits. Stay out of bars. Stay away from things you would eat and then “take a dip”. Stay away from buddies who dip. And as mentioned…. reward yourself when you do quit. For me I bought a boat I wouldn’t be able to afford if I went back to smoking. Not smoking and cutting wayyyyy down on the drinking, it was amazing how much money I had left over.
Make up your mind & just do it!!
We are pulling for you. 
I finally quit August 9, 2008 after chewing for 25 years. I had tried many times without long-term success. I was going to have my first hip replaced and was really worried about what it would be like recovering from that while still chewing. Pretty sure my wife would have not bought me Copenhagen. Long story short, I called the South Dakota quit line and got Chantix with my Dr.’s approval. I was still tough in the beginning. I chewed a lot of gum. After I was done taking Chantix, I can say that occasionally I had cravings for the first year when doing trigger activities like fishing. I noticed a problem with focus for probably a few months after I quit. Good news is that there were no cravings after that and my focus returned. Good luck, you got this!
I was a pack a day smoker for more years than I would like to admit. My son went up to me one day and asked why I am always running to the garage instead of playing with him. I thru the rest of my pack away right then and quit cold turkey. Keep your eye on what matters and you can get thru it! Best of luck, it is not easy. But you can do it.
I smokes a pipe to start with back in 1972 and the swisher sweets. Then advanced to long grenades by A&C. then on to dollar and multi dollar cigars and on to a pack a day of menthol cigs for just short of 30 years. If I didn’t inhale I wasn’t smoking.
I tried to quit 6 different times, man o man is it hard to resist!!
Finally quit cold turkey. that has been 12 years ago or so.
I could always quit after a surgery but the mental side I could not hack! The chemical wasn’t there after a surgery or maybe it was and I just didn’t know it.
Any way, good luck and hang in there!! It ain’t easy.
All good info guys I appreciate the feedback and words of support. Sounds like chantix is a great option. Like some of you, girlfriend is a nurse and she is very supportive so I think that is also important – to have that strong support system.
Glad to hear you’re trying to quit Tom. And congrats to everyone who’s found success in quitting and to all those who are continuing to try! It’s a difficult journey for many but it’s worth the hard work and effort. The best system – the one that you’ll stick with. For some, that might mean any combination of the suggestions above. The important thing is to find what works for YOU.
And know that the benefits of quitting both cigarettes and chew start as soon as you quit. IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO QUIT and enjoy these benefits!
I was at 2 packs a day for 12 years and saw my hunting buddy die because he could not quit longer than 2 months to make it on the UofM lung transplant list. Within a month of his death i quit cold turkey and have not looked back….. One thing that worked for me was i decided if a i could quit longer than 1 year with no relapses i would reward myself with a big reward, well i did it and i went out and bought a brand new EXPENSIVE duck hunting shotgun with the money i saved from not smoking..
good luck and remember its all in your head to curve that need or itch …
Was a competitive Redman chew’er and quit in December. Didn’t chew out of pier pressure or sports, just love chewing. I think there’s people who chew, then there’s people that chew alone. Kinda like people who drink alone vs social drinking. Work with my hands and just doesn’t feel right not having a dip in. At 6 months it still sucks and miss it. It’s hard to quantify to people who don’t chew or smoke.
For me personally quit cold turkey. Kind of an all or nothing person. The health benefits is what got me to quit. It took a lot of internal arguing with myself and finally gave up arguing. One thing for me was I stopped trying to fight it. I kept trying to pull the Chinese finger trap harder and harder. Finally just stopped fighting it and said I can let this control me, or I can stop. I wanted to stop, that’s it in a nut shell for me.
Triggers are extremely hard for me still. Going into gas stations is the worst. I’ve gone into the gas stations I use to frequently buy at once in 6 months, and holy schnitzel that was borderline impossible to not fall back into old habits.
Work outside a lot alone, and with my hands. It’s d@m near impossible some days. Keep hoping it gets easier, but it really hasn’t. Go through a bag and a half of the big double bubble bags of gum from fleet farm in a week. Can’t chew seeds anymore. Have tried most of the smokeless alternatives, gross. Most are awful and nothing like a real dip imo. Am a fidgety, oral fixator, so pretty much will chew on pens, straws, gum, seeds, etc, but chew has/had a calming effect to it. I’m sure the nicotine and chemicals just torched everything neurologically.
Anyways, good luck with it and hoping you can kick the habit!
Be careful about using drugs to quit. Side effects of loss of joy from everything, depression and suicide have been reported on some of them.
Welbutrin is an interesting drug. It works by limiting your focus on anything. Your mind continuously goes from one thing to the next. So when you have a craving your mind won’t dwell on it very long and simply move on to something else.
The tobacco addiction for me was a rough one , i had bigger problems with alcohol and drugs . I wanted to quit, it got to the point i would almost puke , the first thing i would do in the morning was roll out of bed and light one up and start gagging . That was the first cig of the day then at the end i was up to 3 packs or more per day.Felt like crap . Tried quitting several times would buy a pack smoke one and throw that he pack away . Don,t know how many times i did that. Cigs at that time were 60 cents a pack. It seemed i just could not quite . New Years eve 1980 i made a New Year’s resolution to stop. This year is 40 years without a cig . It seemed like the first month was the worst , kept busy. exercised and focused on myself to start living better . Who knew it worked , watched my dad die of lung cancer after i had quit. Really a bad way to go . Replace one habit with a better habit , one day at a time . one hour at a time . Good luck to you Tom it’s doable as a testament to all who posted here
I was in superior wisconsin on my way home and stopped for cigarettes and the clerk said $9. I left went to a gas station in Duluth and the clerk said $9. I left them on the counter. The state had doubled the tax overnight and that was it for me.
Haven’t touched one since.
Dutch, I’m not sure why you laugh at guys that have quit several times. I’m pretty sure that the percentage of people who enjoy success on the first go around is incredibly low.
I smoked for 35 years and this December will be eleven years. I’ve fallen of a few times, one being the IDO trip on LOTW, but had zero problems as far as it becoming full-time again.
Can’t believe smokes are $10 a pack! We got cartons in the service for $3
Good luck!
Good Luck!
There is a lot of great ideas in this thread.
One can not quit unless they want too. Only you can do this, whether you do it cold turkey or with the use of drugs(be careful of side effects). For the most part, failing will happen but each time you quit you get closer to your goal for quitting forever. It really is all mental and working through how to deal with the cravings
It will not be easy, in fact it will be one of the hardest things you will ever do. For some, years after quitting, they still get the craving.
For me, I never told myself that I was going to quit, I told myself that I was never buying another pack of smokes. Never did either in the past 12 years.
Change your habits of when you chewed. Find another fix,(gum, suckers, mints, toothpicks, exercise, walks) but only use that fix when your cravings are really bad. Just try and tell yourself that you do not need it for the lower craving times.
Save your money that you would have used on nicotine. Reward yourself for quitting when you have saved enough. When I saved enough I bought a topend St Croix Rod. Every time that I use it now I smile. After that, I would reward myself for milestones that I set for not smoking, family trip to Zion(1 year),new electronics for the boat(5 year), motorcycle(10 year). I tried to make my rewards something valuable to me so that I could remember and enjoy the success of quitting.
Posting here will help talk through your process. If you need help getting through this, just ask. Many of us have done it and are willing to help.
Ron
Company I worked for went to no smoking policy. This included home and company vehicles. Since most of my smoking was when driving,I started to eat cheetos. This was only when driving. Just something to break the urge to light up. It worked and went cold turkey now for over twenty years. I did go through many bags of cheetos though.
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