So, my story starts sometime in 2009. My girlfriend caught me chewing. I’d been hiding it for about three years while we were dating. When we went into town to get our marriage license, we took my 1990 GMC single cab—pretty much zero hiding spots. She opened the glove box to stash her purse before we went into the courthouse and—boom—there it was: a fresh can, a working can, and a spitter. No room for her purse. She threw my stuff in the trash and put her purse inside. We got the license. On the way back to the truck, the rules started: “I don’t want to ever see it.” “Don’t do it in the house.” “Don’t do it around our son.” He was about 6 then—my stepson, but you couldn’t tell by the way we loved each other. What my addict brain heard was: “You got away with it for three years. You’re good.” Fast forward to September 2011. I was outside working in the yard, looked over at my now 8-year-old son, hanging with his buddies, spitting and trying to act cool—and I realized what an asshat I was. That night, I found a site similar to Stay Quit. . Where I posted regularly through Day 100—maybe Day 150. Then I drifted. Only came back for milestones, maybe. Then After about 1,000 days, I stopped posting altogether. I thought I was cured. Fast forward to about Day 3,800—4th of July weekend, 2022. I was with some buddies. Someone had Cubans. I took one. Later that weekend, I had another. Then on the drive home, I grabbed a pack of Black & Milds. No big deal—cigars were just for celebrating, never part of my addiction. Or so I thought. I started smoking while out riding my motorcycle. Then I rode so I could smoke. Then it was Friday nights by the fire. Then lunch breaks at work. Then on the drive to work. That’s when I knew—I was screwed. I remembered that way, way back—I started chewing to quit smoking. So maybe it would work again? I bought a can of Cope Wintergreen LC. It wasn’t long before I was running through a roll of Cope and a couple packs of Black & Milds every week. Start to finish, I was a full-blown addict again in maybe three months. Probably less. My wife wasn’t happy with this new “old Jim.” But I ran with it—almost two years. I’d been saying I wanted to take some online classes, so I needed a laptop. Found a decent refurbished Gateway on Walmart.com for about $150. When it arrived, I logged into my old Chrome account—and my bookmarks were right there. #2 on the list? The old forums. I knew the rules—nic-free before posting—so I spit the shit out. Then I found December ’11. It was quiet. I saw my old signature and 100 day speech. It said: “I know damn good and well if I stop posting and make it hard to come back, I’ll be here posting a Day 1 tomorrow—or worse yet, so damn ashamed I won’t come back to post a Day 1 at all.” – 12/27/11, JimWot That hit hard. I poked around and discovered something new called Discord. So I downloaded it and slid into the welcome channel where I met some quitters. They helped me get back on track. So when you hear us talking about making a promise every day—listen. Don’t leave. It only takes a few seconds each day to protect your quit. We know. Trust me. Never forget: you’re an addict. Never forget: you’re quitting. Instead of posting Day 5,000 today, I’m posting Day 378—with you. – JimWot
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