The Grip of A Vice

I'VE BEEN TRYING TO kill myself for some time now, but if it hadn't been for a routine dental checkup I might never have known it.

While driving to the dentist's office, I felt the way most patients do guilty about not flossing much lately and ready for some minor repairs. I hadn't prepared myself for a long silent drive home in which I had to come to terms with my own survival. The dentist told me I was developing mouth cancer. All the brushing and flossing in the world would not help me now. Unless I stopped dipping, he said, I would lose my gums, my teeth, and eventually my life.

Dipping: that disgusting habit of putting a little pinch between your lip and gums. Smokeless tobacco is one of the most addictive legal over-the-counter drugs available. Hard-guy frat boys and jocks here at Dartmouth are proud of the little worn circles their tobacco canisters create in their rear jeans' pockets. I was. I put that first dip in because I promised a friend I'd try it. Soon after, I started dipping three to four times a week as a substitute for alcohol during parties. The rush was quick and the hangover nonexistent. By the time I realized my habit was self-destructive, I was powerless to stop. Last year I dipped a tin of tobacco every two days. I put a dip in when I woke up. I put a dip in during class. The only time I remained dip-free was when I was eating and working out. It didn't matter that every time I brushed my teeth my gums bled. It didn't matter that I usually couldn't get to sleep until four in the morning. It didn't matter that the only way I could study or concentrate on tests was to use smokeless tobacco. All I knew was that I needed it to function. Without it, I was uptight and irritable. The irony of my addiction is that I developed it while at Dartmouth, an institute of higher learning. While visiting other top schools, I've noticed users there as well. Why is this? A fellow user told me that his dipping serves to reject a lot of the perfect middle-America background so many of us come from. Dipping as a release from all those pressures to succeed works very well in a competitive environment such as Dartmouth, he said. For him, smokeless-tobacco use goes hand in hand with Dartmouth. When he isn't at school, facing the academic and social rigors that constitute student life, he doesn't dip. It used to be that way for me. But now my body constantly needs that emotional and physical release I get from dipping.

A recent report in the Journal of School Health speculates that people who use smokeless tobacco tend to be quitters, loners, and underachievers. But when I look around at those who use dip here, I see students who perform well. An academic star and addict told me his grades would suffer if he were forced to give up dip. Scientists would agree with him. A recent NIH study on smokeless tobacco concludes, "Tobacco withdrawal produces increased irritability and decrements in several basic cognitive functions. These disruptive effects begin within hours of the last nicotine dose.... Thus die associated cognitive impairments could have adverse effects on academic and job performance."

Habitual dippers see adverse effects of a different kind. They are 42 times more likely to develop oral cancer than non-users. Once malignancy develops, close to 50 percent die the highest fatality rate for any cancer. If you recover from the cancer and don't require a gum graft (a lovely procedure in which doctors scrape skin off the roof of your mouth to fill up the whole left by the gouged-out growth), get ready for a long history of dental and gum troubles. The damage is irreversible. If that danger weren't enough, dipping also causes elevations of blood pressure, heart rate, and certain blood lipids. Today my once-perfect mouth is a shambles. I can't sit down and write this piece for more than 15 minutes at a time, because my mind wanders as my body thirsts for that instant nicotine high.

I am no savior, no reformed addict who has seen the light and feels obligated to share it with all those blind sheep out there. Because, you see, I have failed. I haven't quit. To function semi-normally, I have started chain-smoking filterless cigarettes. I am getting a prescription for nicotine gum, which is not an optimal solution at all. And I still dip, having switched to my lower gums to avoid contact with my upper ones where my cancer developed.

And I have worse news: use of dip appears to be increasing around campus, especially among the younger classes. Area merchants say they sell more 1,500 tins a week, and that the number is increasing. Dip has become the envogue thing for female athletes and outdoorsy individuals. Over Green Key Weekend, several young alums told me they had continued their habit. The implications are scary and unbelievably sad.

Brett Queener graduatedPhi Beta Kappa in June.