Hasta la Vista Bandits

I was trying to think this morning just how long I've been using Skoal Bandits. Seems like a really long time -- like (damn!) twenty years. Can it really be that long? Well, anyway, I decided Sunday to stop using them.

My mouth felt tender and my tongue kind of swollen all day Saturday which I interpreted as the first signs of mouth cancer or something (My wife has been threatening me with this for years) so I decided to take a day off Bandits and see if there was any improvement.

I made it all day Sunday and didn't feel too bad so I thought maybe this was a good time to give them up altogether (I have quit things cold turkey before so no big deal for me). When I went to bed Sunday night I was unprepared for what nicotine withdrawal had in store for me: INSOMNIA! For a boy who can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and sleep soundly for 6 hours this was unexpected and unwelcomed.

Dragging through Monday was a challenge. I read that nicotine withdrawal takes about 72 hours and I was only on hour 24! One of the conveniences of getting your nicotine from Bandits is that you can use them about any time you want to and nobody is going to notice. None of the Bandit users I know feel the need to spit so if you don't tell people you use them nobody has to know -- nobody except maybe the woman who empties my trash can every night and I doubt she cares. Since you can reach for them about any time you need a nicotine hit you can keep your nicotine levels consistently pretty high. When you cut off your nicotine supply, your body misses it and lets you know in a variety of ways.

So now I'm 48 hours and counting without any nicotine. There had better be all kinds of untold benefits involved with giving up nicotine because if I have to go through withdrawal and get nothing in return (except for not getting mouth cancer) I might be pissed