Thursday, July 06, 2006

 

Copin' without Cope

Today makes three years since I quit dippin' Copenhagen snuff. I started chewin' tobacco when I was 11. Stopped when I was 39.

I'm not sure what the point was -- although not havin' to fool with spit cups is nice. Dr. ER *really* appreciates that. There is still a place or two on the carpet from pre-2003 "spit cup mishaps."

But I eat more now, and I probably drink more, and I smoke more fricking cigars, and I still chew at least one piece of nicotine gum a day. I'm tempted to say fooey on quitting.

But then, I know deep down that I do not want my next dip of Copenhagen. What I want is my *last* dip of Copenhagen -- and that can't happen. The next one would burn my mouth like battery acid, give me a headache and make me nauseous.

Sigh.

Three days without a smoke for Dr. ER today, too. She has her own ways of compensating.

--ER

Comments:
Come on now, you are smart enough to know all the reasons why you quit and why it would be damned stupid do pick it up even one more time. Besides all the niceties of not having spit cups, drool and other nasty things that make me want to gag, there's that one huge, major, life-threatening thing: cancer. Specifically, cancer of the mouth, whether that be tongue, gum, lip or bone. It is deadly. I've watched a friend die of a cancer that started in that area (not from tobacco, ironically.) He was younger than you when he died a few years ago. You are too smart to do that to yourself and your family.
 
$#%@*($!
 
As an alcoholic will always crave another drink, a nicotine addict will always crave his FAVORITE source of nicotine, no matter the conciquences. Such is the life of an addict.

Nicotine gum and cigars are ways to continually introduce nicotine into ER's system, but they don't help alleviate the cravings. His best bet is to avoid the damn cigars and ween himself from the gum.

But likely, he'll crave his Cope for the rest of his life.
 
$#%@*($!

Cope is the crack cocaine of chewin' tobacco.
 
Three packs a day until I was about 40. One day I looked at my 11, 9, and 6 year olds. Threw the carton of those camels I had in the strash and never went back to them. I had probably quit 10 times before. Why this worked I don't know. I never smell tobacco smoke that I don't want a cigerette. Had to give up bars and poker parties. Even as I think about, I kinda want one even today. But it has been decades and like you said it would not be the same. But still......
 
$#%@*($!
 
""I'm tempted to say fooey on quitting."

speaking as someone with a pack-a-day habit, who's been unable after, several tries, to give up the habit and will surely die a premature and miserable death because of it:

YOU SAY "FOOEY" AN' I'LL COME DOWN THERE AND KICK YOUR REDNECK ASS!

"The next one would burn my mouth like battery acid, give me a headache and make me nauseous."

yep, nature's not too subtle, is she, when she's telling you you're an idiot.

be strong, bub. cowboy up.

and nix them stoagies.

KEvron
 
Here. Someone has to do this and maybe it's me. No matter. I'm doing it anyway. This is a fellow Oklahoman, not some Yankee boy pretending. You may be old enough to remember this story from the '80s.
Sean Marsee.
 
Kev, the day passed without incident.

Trixie, no way am I following any link to Sean Marsee. Of course, I know the story. In fact, as an undergrad polital science major, I did a paper on efforts by U.S. Rep Mike Synar to get Congress to curb tobacco advertising -- considered a damnn radical thing to do at the time -- and Marsee's abnormal reaction to snuff was a centerpiece of his effort.

Oh, and re: the Yankee comment: Don't know whether you meant to peg Kev or not, but he has Oklahoman in his blood! And that counts for a lot. :-)
 
"not some Yankee boy pretending."

i'll cop to "yankee", but....

KEvron
 
No, no, nothing pointed at KEvron. Just a general wave of the hand indicating that southern boys tend to be the one to stuff tobacco in their mouths to the point of killing themselves. And you're full of stuffing if you think that was an "abnormal reaction." And you know that even if you don't want to fess up to it.
 
Dude. He was, what, 18? He started dipping Skoal and it affected him like the flesh-eating virus and he died within, what, a year, or less?

There was nothing normal about Sean Narsee's experience.
 
Sean started dipping when he was 12. The cancerous plaque on his tongue was discovered when he was 18 -- a week before he graduated from high school. No telling how long he had it before he showed his mom. He had a couple of surgeries, but being a teen with cancer, a good-looking guy at that, he refused to have the surgery that would have removed his lower jaw, the one that would have given him the best chance of surviving. Can't blame him for that -- not sure that was much of a choice for a young man to make. But he died at 19 after six years of nearly constant contact with the tobacco in his mouth. If nothing else, his case made it about a half a percent harder for young kids to get their hands on the stuff, for a minute. And for another minute, young girls stopped thinking that guys with ring butts were cute.
 
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