I really need to stop chewing on the side of my thumb like that. It has become worse lately and turned into an awful habit. My family and friends keep warning me to stop before it is too late. I am in denial and I have been ignoring their many pleas to quit, not thinking that it is really such a big deal. Actually, it has gotten out of hand, but I'd rather not think about it. Sure, bad habits are hard to break, and I keep promising myself that some day I will stop, but not yet. That is when to my sudden dismay, I realize a large portion of my thumb is missing. I had been gnawing pretty hard into the skin I realize, and there is this gaping wound where my teeth had been chewing. An open hole had appeared and this stringy whitish meat was hanging out loose like slightly cooked chicken. Half of my thumb was gone, and panicking I tried to pull the two sides of skin together to cover it up. But that didn't help at all. The first thing I did when I woke up was to double-check the damage just in case, but to my relieve it had disappeared and my life was back to normal again.