Are we being lied to about smokeless tobacco?

Quote: TheCesspit

The spitting with chewing/dip tobacco is nasty. The two guys I know who do it have nasty coughs from the juice. It's as daft looking as the vaporizers.

Over the years had roommates that spit in any kind of bottle and just left the bottles around. One would "hide" it from his g/f and when I would find it I would put it right on his dresser. I hated being around it and hated the conversations when friends used it:

"Yeah this (spit) Dodge Demon has a (spit) 318 but I would like to (spit) put a 440 in it or even a (spit) Hemi. Gonna totally restore it and (spit) have a totally cool (spit) car. First thing I need to do is (spit) buy an engine crane so I can (spit) take the engine apart (spit)............."

Sorry, but how anybody can want to use the stuff is beyond me no matter if it was bad for you or not.

Quote: rxwine

Have you tried expensive scotch? Good cigars? Maybe Face knows some peyote using natives you can spend a weekend with.

Wrong culture. Peyote has always been illusive around these parts. I can remember exactly one source, long ago, that lasted not even a week.

Anything else is fair game. Salvia, weed, coke, crack, heroin, meth, SLD, mushrooms, it's all right there. I could have it within the hour. Which is weird, considering the $40,000,000,000 we spent just this year to make them gone. Funny thing, that =p

I've dipped once, because airplane. The tiniest trickle ran down my throat and it was fire. I couldn't imagine doing it even semi-regularly, and the guys who gut shot it? Omg.

You need to not. It's just bad news. I remember when I started smoking it was no big deal. I smoked like 7 cigs a week. Who cares, right? I was an athlete, it wasn't regular, I had my whole life to quit if I needed to, and I wouldn't need to because it was so infrequent.

It might be my only regret. All the weed and all the coke and all the hallucinogens bring me no regret. Sometimes it was bad, often times it was good, but they were just choices I made that sent me down the path that got me here. I wouldn't change it if I could. Tobacco on the other hand has already killed me. And what life I have now is in complete servitude to it.

Right now it is fun. It is infrequent. It's a "gift" that allows you to be more active in the evenings.

But it will turn on you. It won't be a gift that makes you more than you are, it'll be a curse you need just to get by. Your work schedule will revolve around dip breaks, your financial schedule will revolve around acquiring tins, and pics of the most disgusting mouth tumors will only serve to remind you just how much you really want a chew.

You want to smoke weed? Have at it. You want to see God, actually sit down and have a conversation with him for 8 hours? We can make that happen. But I won't support this at all. This way lies damnation.

Quote: Face

But I won't support this at all. This way lies damnation.

In the padres world, this is the devil
tempting him. When you dance with
the devil, the devil doesn't change,
the devil changes you.

Quote: Face

We can make that happen. But I won't support this at all. This way lies damnation.

I've known people who've done really hard drugs and go "woooa!", and know immediately that if they start doing it regularly they won't be able to stop.

Tobacco is more insidious, it doesn't broadcast that sort of thing, but it can do it much more sneakily over time to a lot of people.

Wow, consider me sufficiently scared straight. I had no idea tobacco was from the devil. I have only had very little exposure to any of this stuff as you can imagine. I've never smoked a cigarette and I used to smoke cigars on feast days and solemnities, but no more. I have now dipped 3x since Thanksgiving and was planning to again tonight because it is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and I've got a lot of homily work to do. Do you really think even once a week is too much? Or do you think everybody has once asked themselves that same question only to wake up one day with a dip in their mouth wanting another one and wondering what in the hell happened to once a week? I will trust you guys, because you all have collectively more experience than all of my priest friends I know. I am just flabbergasted that tobacco really is that insidious.

Quote: FrGamble

. Do you really think even once a week is too much?

And that's how it starts. Soon you're giving
yourself permission to twice a week, every
other day, in a month it will be every day.

And tobacco IS the devil, it's not from the devil.

Quote: FrGamble

do you think everybody has once asked themselves that same question only to wake up one day with a dip in their mouth wanting another one and wondering what in the hell happened to once a week?

Quite a coincidence that I have been going back to using snuff some and you started this thread.

Can't say it has gone too well with the no spitting idea [so as to use it in a casino]. I really need seem to need to spit, pouch or no pouch.

In answer to your question, do not underestimate the ability of nicotine to hook you. You are much more likely to get hooked with chew or snuff than with cigars. As for myself, as long as I don't get the urge to smoke cigarettes, I don't worry much about it.

Quote: Evenbob

And tobacco IS the devil, it's not from the devil.

Not even. You know how Lucifer was thrown from heaven? Well, tobacco would probably be thrown from Hell. I can imagine Satan saying to tobacco "Hey, man, I'm all for screwing people up, but you're out of your goddamned mind".

I could not begin to find a better word for it than "insidious". That's it, dictionary definition, put its picture in the book.

As the resident addict, I can't help but look at everything through that filter. And I realize it's accusatory and presumptuous... but I don't care. FrG, welcome to step 1 of addiction: Denial.

That's what I see slathered all over your OP.

"It's not like I was looking for it, it was a gift, and you have to accept a gift"
"I did it in high school and I'm fine. I both didn't die and proved I can do it just socially"
"I threw it away, anyways, showing it is I who has the power"
"I was "inspired" to look". Not "curious" or "driven" or "compelled" or "impulsed" or any other perfectly suitable word that could possibly be construed as negative. No, I was "inspired", which can only be a positive.
"I find I can be more productive, so again, let's continue to ignore the negative"
"It is "very clear" that it's safer than cigs. Not "maybe" or even "sure", it's very clear, so think twice before you question it"
"Seriously, it's way safer. So again, no questions"

Who you trying to convince, Father? Us?

Or yourself?

I'm not calling you an addict. I'm not even saying you're addicted. But you need to view addiction the same way as you view Satan. It'll disguise itself with tasty flavors and convenient packaging. It'll give you that innocent gift of mid evening energy. It will shift your views and your understandings to allow it to thrive. The longer you remain blind, the deeper it sinks into you. And by the time you realize that something is out of sorts, you are already well past fucked and only picking up speed.

If I'm off base, I'm gonna come across as a real jerk. I risk offending you, losing the respect of you and other members, and might even put the Green in jeopardy. I don't care. The threat of that is worth the possibility that I'm right. Because if I'm right, you are at a crossroads and you don't even know it. It will completely alter the rest of your life, and you have no idea you are right now in the process of making a choice. A choice that's already, by the evidence of your post, being made for you.

Think about what I wrote. Understand it. Then go back over that day at the gas station, go back over the three days you used, and remember the thoughts you had. Remember what you were thinking and feeling when you wrote the OP. Use this new understanding to filter those thoughts, and see if I'm not right.

Want a pick me up? Use cocaine. Safer and easier to quit. You think I'm joking.

I know a guy who quit chew 10 years ago and still gets
massive craving attacks. It really gets to you if it's
chewed. I've heard chewing the leaves that they
get cocaine from is more addictive than the drug,
impossible to kick. It's in your mouth all the time,
constantly working. Smoking is intermittent delivery
of the drug.

Face et al. Thank you so much for your candid and freighting words. I really had no idea and it is sinking in. I also want to say that I really appreciate you pouring so much of your heart into dissuading me from doing something you know is destructive. I can feel your genuine concern through your posts and it is greatly appreciated. I think the only thing you put in jeopardy is me falling even more in love with you ;)

You are proof that the phrase "misery loves company" is not always true. God Bless and thanks very much!