kicking chewing tobacco
 

so i was wondering if any of you have ever given up tobacco products. i have chewed for about 6 years (i started in high school when i was 16 b/c some of the older guys on the football and track team that i hung out with chewed and it just seemed like the thing to do when we hung out after practice and on the weekends). last year it got pretty bad to the point where i was dipping multiple times every day so for my new years resolution i decided to work on quiting chew. i realized that it was a pretty gross habit (or at least i was told that it was a gross habit by the girlfriend), plus i know that it is bad for me and with the new tobacco tax it is taking up more and more of my limited funds. so since january i have slowly cut it down from dipping every day to only doing it 1-2 times per week. now i just want to get over the hump and be completely done with it, but my progress has stalled out and i'm having a real hard time with not doing it at all. does anyone have any advice or tips that could help me get over the hump so i dont chew at all any more?

thanks in advance,
RobS

i used to get that beef jerky chew.....but only to look cool because i was 12. :) not sure if that stuff would work...but it's something you could stick in your lip to trick yourself...


or everytime you want a dip you could punch yourself in the nuts instead :)

Yeah I started chewing at 16 too, now 20. I would recommend getting packs of sugar free gum and chew that all day. By the sound of it your in a good situation to be quitting unlike myself (can a day). Or else limit yourself to a certain number of dips a day. If your like me you have pretty much a mental schedual of when you put a dip in. Start 1 week with a certain number then the next week subtract 1 and so on week by week till your at 0.

Another good reason to quit if your trying to put on weight. I personally know a lot of people who quit chewing and packed on 3 to 10lbs. in a matter of weeks.

they probably put on more weight because tobacco products suppress hunger. i love chew and i don't see myself quitting anytime soon, but then again my last pack of redman lasted me about 3 weeks. the whole gross thing doesn't come in to play because i'm taking some time off of girls after my last relationship. i'll probably have to quit one of these days and i would probably say chewing gum is your best bet. there was this stuff when i used to play baseball called big league chew, which was packaged like chew and looked like chew, but it was gum. check that out

Maybe these pictures will help. Warning: Graphic Photos.

http://www.quittobacco.com/facts/effects.htm

http://deseretnews.com/photos/2780764.jpg

http://www.tobaccofacts.org/photos/mouth_cancer2.jpg

http://www.cda-adc.ca/_images/content/oral/complications/tobacco/oral_cancer.gif

http://www.oldash.org.uk/html/health/html/oral_files/image008.jpg

http://www.who.int/oral_health/publications/orh_fs_fig5.jpg

damn those are some pretty nasty photos

eddie -
that is a pretty good idea, and that is what i did to get down to only dipping 1 or 2 times per week. i know that doesn't sound like very much of a problem, but i now that i'm down to that little i just want to quit all together. i'm thinking it is just a mental block at this point with trying to stop completely.

p.s. i picked up some gum tonight when i went grocery shopping so i'm going to give that a try

oh shit Eric...those are nasty pics, dude....:D

the guy with his tongue coming out of his cheek was pretty bad. reminded me of I am Legend for some reason.

If you're down to 1-2 dips/week at this point, then you have the ability to just stop now (yeah, yeah, I know, it's tough). When you're taking so few dips, it's just that mental craving that's really getting you now. You need to be able to just get past that mental craving. And the gum should help. You'll have something to do with your mouth.

If you're a spitter (man, I hope you don't gut your chew!), a good trick is to put something in your lip that's like dip (say, some of that shredded jerky? Or even a piece of paper towel with a little pepper wrapped in it to simulate that little sting you get from chew), and just spit as you normally would with a chew. That way, you're going through the actions of it without getting the tobacco in there. A lot of times with breaking nicotine addictions, there's a habitual aspect of it that you seem to crave. So having something in your lip and spitting as though it were a dip will help you to completely back off of the actual chew. And after not too long, you'll be done with the supplemental crutches too.

Good luck with things :D