We all have taken journeys. We have journeyed across country and we have journeyed to the store for food. We have journeyed "over the river and through the woods" to grandma's house. We have all been on many journeys. This, however, is a journey FOR life. Without this journey, you can say goodbye to the life you once had. WITH this journey, you can so goodbye to your current dipping life, and welcome back that life you gave up so long ago. For all the time you have been using smokeless tobacco, you honestly have had NO LIFE. You see, as you dip and spit, you take away from the ABSOLUTE pleasures in life. You compromise your time LIVING LIFE with spitting tobacco.

Dipping ends with a death sentence, robbing you of precious minutes, hours and even YEARS of life. Whether the addiction takes your life away slowly and painfully with cancer or quickly with a heart attack, it will rob you of time later on, just as it robs you of time with loved ones or enjoying life right now!

Day one of your quit, time will ultimately stand still. Time just does not seem like it wants to move at all. Each day, this phenomenon will get better and better, with time improving pace slightly. Time is a term of the present. True, time existed in the past and it will exist in the future, but for the purpose of our quit, time remains solely in the present. We can not go back in time; we can not go back and change what we did. We CAN however, LEARN from those moments in the past. And we can not foresee the future. We can hope our dreams will come true; we can have faith that the future will turn out well, however, there are always things that happen in the future that we can not control. If we could see into the future, we would not roll our ankle while running, we would not smash our thumb with that hammer, we would not be in that car accident, we would not pick the wrong numbers for the lottery….and yet things seem to happen to us on a daily basis that we did not expect. The choices we make today will help lead us in a specific direction in the future, but when that future time becomes the present, we again need to make a choice.

Taking the first step on this journey is like taking the first step in anything you do. The feelings of excitement on embarking on something new to the feeling of uncertainty of whether this is the right thing to do are feelings we experience along with so many others. Build upon each new day during this experience. Such as building a house, the foundation is an extremely important step…without a sound foundation, anything set on top of that foundation because vulnerable. The first 100 days is the pouring and setting of your foundation. You haven't finished building your at all, but you have made a TERRIFIC START! And as the days pass, you keep adding to that building. After the house has been completed, with time, you begin to make improvements and addictions to the house…Just like you keep making improvements on the strength of your quit. Just as we are adding equity to our house by making these improvements…we are adding equity to our lives by quitting!

This is a journey of finding yourself. The self you lost to the can. Over time, we stopped spending time on ourselves and started spending time with our new friend, the can. We actually placed the well being of our newly found companion, not friend, above ourselves.

We may cross paths on our journeys, you and I, but only I can make the decision on where my next step will be placed on the path. As well as only YOU can make the decision for yourself on where that next step of yours will be placed.

Am I cured? I would love to think so, but an addiction offers no cure, only wisdom, knowledge, desire and will power to stay true to the quit. A relapse of just one dip, a misstep on the mountain, can send you tumbling back down to that in which you climbed up from. A lot of excruciating work, all lost, due to one misstep on your climb on this journey.

You have MANY choices to make about your journey. YOU have to MAKE those choices, and ONLY YOU can make those choices. When you are ready, you will make those choices. No one can force you to make the choice. If you do not want to make a move, go somewhere, buy something, then you are not going to do so. If everyone jumped off a ledge, it is up to you to choose to follow them, or to stay your ground and decide not to jump.

You may here suggestions from others; however, it is ultimately up to you to make the decision. No one can move that foot for you, only you make the decision to proceed forward or to regress backwards and return to where you came.

Today's accomplishments were yesterday's dreams and are the stepping stones for tomorrow's successes. With positive thinking, we WILL continue to succeed and we WILL continue to move forward and make progress in our quits. As soon as we start to second guess ourselves and our quits, as soon as we start thinking about those things we can not control and we question our abilities and use questionable words like "if" or "hope", then we have an incredible uphill battle before us.

The final thought about this journey is diversity. We are all different. We all take this journey on our own merit by making our own decisions. We are all different by walks of life and ethnicities. We are all different by job and working class. We are all different by our usage amount, length of usage, and age. Those on this journey of a lifetime include men, women, cowboys, baseball players, firefighters, police officers, investors, brokers, dentists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, burger flippers, Wal-Mart greeters, factory workers, plumbers, electricians, politicians, and even students. And through ALL that diversity, through all those differences, we all share one common goal, to quit using tobacco. We all have one common vision, to reach that summit of this mountainous journey.

We can only imagine what the view at the top of the mountain is truly like…and our imagination can't compare to what really lies there in real life. Until you climb up that mountain and turn around to see where you were, amidst all the excuses and lies, you can never "really" see how detrimental and hurtful those excuses and lies truly are. You are amongst them and get used to them. As you ascend up the mountain, you can truly see what it was that you were stuck in.

How do you prepare for this climb? That is up to you. Those who are successfully making this climb will offer their strategies in support, but when it's time for you to climb you will climb the mountain the way you see fit. Some call for guides, others buy the best climbing equipment, others tackle the mountain with nothing but grit and determination. You may find your own unique way to climb it, one that has never been tried before. As long as you stay TRUE to your goal to reach the summit, then there really is no wrong way to get there.

See you on your way to the top! Enjoy the view of each new day and take a look back to where you came from to remind yourself that you never want to return to that life again. Breaking free from this addiction is one of the best feelings you will ever experience, and I wish you that freedom.