“Not chewing makes me feel great!” Often you will hear an ex-chewer excitedly express this statement when first quitting chew. What is amazing is when you think back to the days when the very same chewer would blatantly proclaim that his chewing never caused him any difficulty. He functioned perfectly normal for someone his age. It is impossible for any chewer to accurately judge just how much impairment his chewing is causing. Not until he stops will he actually recognize the full degree of improvements possible by quitting chew.
The statement that not chewing makes the ex-chewer feel great is very misleading. Not chewing doesn’t make people feel great. It actually only makes them feel normal. If a person who never chewed a day in his life decides one morning not to have a chew, he will not feel any better or worse than the morning before. But if a person wakes up every day and takes a chew, followed by 5, 10, 15 or more before going back to bed, he will feel the effects of nicotine dependence. He never feels normal. His life consists of a chronic withdrawal state, only alleviated by taking a chew every 30 to 40 minutes.
While chewing at these intervals keeps the suffering of withdrawal down to a minimum, it does so at a cost. It impairs his breathing, circulation, increases his blood pressure, rots teeth and gums, robs him of his strength and endurance, and greatly increases his risks of deadly diseases like cancer. All this will cost him hundreds and more likely thousands of dollars a year, make him appear socially ostracized, and even viewed by family and friends as weak or unintelligent. It is no wonder that once he quits chewing he feels so much better. But it is important for the ex-chewer to realize that he feels so much better because chewing made him feel so bad.
For once a chewer quits, he often forgets just how rotten life was as a chewer. He forgets the bad times with chew, the bleeding gums, sore throats, aching tongue, the sores in his mouth, the spilt spittoons, the stench for two week old spittoons, the dirty looks, the inconveniences, and most importantly, the addiction. He forgets what life was truly like as a chewer. Unfortunately, he doesn’t forget everything. One thought often remains, lingering for years and even decades–the thought of the best chew he ever chewed. It may be a chew he took 20 years earlier, but it is the one he remembers above all others. Without keeping an accurate perspective of what life was really like with chew, the thought of the best chew can often lead to an attempt to recapture the bliss by taking a dip. What follows is an unexpected and worse, an unwanted relapse to a full-fledge addiction.
Don’t think of chewing as being taking one or two delightful chews a day just when you feel like it. You couldn’t do that before and you will never do it that way again. Rather, look at chewing as it actually was. It was expensive, inconvenient, and sociably unacceptable on a daily basis. It controlled you totally. It was costing you your health and had the full potential of one day costing your life. See chew for what it was.
© Joel Spitzer 1988
The original article has been modified to be more relevant for dippers and chewers.