F
Field Ethos
Guest
By Chad Adams
I first started chewing and dipping when I was about 12 years old or so. Me and my friends would swipe our fathers’ Skoal or Cope, Beechnut or even an ol’ twist tobacco if your old man was old school enough. From Swisher Sweets to smuggling proper pipe tobacco out of the living room, we did it all.
As we all got pleasantly addicted, we started liberating it from stores when we were punk kids, stuffing Red Man or a whole log of Hawken down our shorts, a skateboard masterfully concealing our artificial pre-pubescent bulge. I honestly believe my friends and I pushed the stores to start placing nicotine behind the counters. As they soon did.
As a teen, I finally settled into Skoal Longcut Wintergreen, and even paid for it with my own money. That was my nerve medicine of choice through high school, college and even the Marine Corps. Though on deployment, you chew what you can get, smoking cigs included. Finally, somewhere along the way I pivoted to Copenhagen Longcut, which would carry me for a couple more decades.
Time for a Change
So after nearly 40 years of chewing and a couple failed attempts at quitting, I figured I needed a real change, one I could actually execute, spurred by the growing popularity of nicotine pouches. Hell, it was worth a shot. I started with Zyn and I couldn’t believe how quickly it got me off tobacco.
And let’s make no mistake here folks, I needed off tobacco. Working from home for over a decade, I dipped Cope all day long, every day, no exceptions. I fell asleep with it in my mouth sometimes. I was at a point where I really needed to do something different. So, nicotine pouches: less harmful (maybe), no spitting, discrete—that all sounded great.
And Zyn worked perfectly to get me off the Cope. I wasn’t jonesing or irritable in any way. It flat-out worked, and no one was ever the wiser to when I was using. Which is still pretty much every second of every day.
Then the next problem quickly presented itself. For whatever reason, Zyn had some delivery issues—or my local store had ordering issues—so they were out of Zyn all the time. First out of my preferred flavor, then out of 6s, then out altogether. After some guerrilla trial and error, I found a couple of suitable backups that would work in a pinch.
Then they too would be out of stock. There had to be a better way.
That all kind of transpired right around the time I took a job at Field Ethos. So, after a few months, I got added to a shipment of Alp coming in. I received a couple sleeves of Wintergreen 9s, and I was back in the game without needing to fight it out at the store looking for my brand. At first glance, Alp seemed to have more flavor and last longer—totally anecdotal, but hey, I liked it; that’s all that mattered.
Life was good. And then I ran out of my freebies.
In the Sub Club
So back to the store I went, luckily finding my ol’ trusty Zyn Spearmint 6s that I had been using. Only this time, it wasn’t so trusty. Though I didn’t notice a massive shift going from all the Product Xs to Alp, I sure as hell noticed a major difference going back away from Alp to any of the others. To me, I enjoyed Alp much more in every measurable way. And that revealed the second major problem—Alp is still really difficult to find where I am locally.
So, after getting really pissed off about not having Alp and even madder using substitutes I didn’t enjoy as much, I finally got an Alp subscription. That’s right, I became a full-paying customer of a brand is a partner to my employer. Imagine that.
Yes, I could probably pester Alp on the regular for free sleeves of that yummy nicotine nerve pill in a pouch. But the threat of going without and the personal and professional ramifications impacting the relationships in my life—i.e., I’m a straight dick without nicotine—well that juice is in no way worth the squeeze.
I’ll just spend the dough, and we’ll all be the better for it.
I’m currently on Alp Spearmint 9s, but the Drifters combo packs are getting a hard look soon. Regardless, at the first of the month, my next round of Alp will be here. And after working with these yahoos at FE, thank God for that.
Cost: Varies, depending on the sub.
Pros: It shows up without fail. You can’t beat that.
Cons: Alp is still hard to find in some locales. We all hate adding more subs, in a world where everyone is trying to make a sub out of you (see what I did there?). But this one will keep you in the game long after the others fail you.
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