If you really want to know how to help someone quit chewing tobacco, there are a few very important things that you should know. You must realize that this person is addicted to nicotine, it isn’t going to happen if they aren’t ready and wholeheartedly willing to quit and that an addict will push back harder as you push the unwilling addict. Ultimately, when you are trying to figure out how to help someone quit chewing tobacco, if the person that you are trying to help doesn’t understand and accept these concepts, you are going to have a very hard time helping them quit.
The first concept that you both must understand is that the person that you are trying to help is an addict. This is always a hard one to get heads wrapped around, especially for the person who you want to help quit. This addiction runs deeper than you may ever realize. Nicotine has been compared, in addictive terms, to cocaine, heroin and alcohol. A daily user of nicotine is as much an addict to nicotine as any drug abuser. Realizing this and the want to quit are the very first steps.
If the person that you are trying to help quit doesn’t want to quit, they wont. Bottom line. There isn’t enough nagging, complaining, health scares or fighting in the world that can make someone who doesn’t want to, quit. This person must make this decision to quit on their own, and for themselves. Our community here offers the tools, but we have seen quitters who havent made this decision fail too many time, we know this is the truth. You must also realize that the harder you push someone who doesn’t want to quit, the harder they will push back and potentially go into hiding their addiction and chewing tobacco use.
When someone takes their nicotine addiction and chewing tobacco use into hiding, we call it ninja dipping or chewing. Many of us were ninja dippers, and we were good at it. When someone takes their addiction into hiding, it is almost impossible to root it out without them making the decision.
Our community offers the tools and the know how, your loved one need to offer up the willingness to accept these things in order to quit.