Hi everyone,

I dont write here very often nor do I visit the forum that much lately, but this is probably the only place where I can share my achievment as people here are going through same stuff.
If only one person find this motivational and change their life, I am more than happy 🙂
Here was my 100 days celebration topic in case anyone is interested how it all began: https://www.gamblingtherapy.org/en/100days-mark-done-never-been-hapier-my-life

When I stopped gambling, I remember that struggle was really hard to overcome desire and dopamine release from gambling.
But that struggle was about 1 month long, and in that time your “rational” side of brain will start growing stronger than your “fun” side of brain.
If you continue to grow that smart decision maker part of the brain it will surely improve your lifestyle. Trust me!
You can easily overcome other bad habbits, laziness, procrastination, poor work-life balance, health issues.
It doesnt matter how long have you been gambling, or how deep you are into the problems – quitting gambling will probably be the best decision in your life and your life will rapidly become happier.
Screw the depth of the problem, it doesnt matter if it will take you 2 months or 20 years to recover from the problems that you have accomulated.
You will fix that in small chunks, day by day, and in that process you will enjoy other parts of life.

I will stop giving advices you all know up there and move on personal life 🙂
Here are how quitting gambling has affected my life in different aspects:

FINANCIAL STATUS:
– In wednessday, my paycheck will arrive and I will be completly out of any kind of dept. Right now I am in a small negative balance on my bank account. Like 30% of my paycheck)
-Consider that I probably have already paid off my gambling dept, but I have been buying a bunch of stuff for myself
-Decided to pay 50% of home bills, and pay monthly rent for my mom car. Best decision ever and I have been doing it for past 3 months.
-Bought myself bunch of clothes, phone, books, hiking equipment, car fixing, fitness stuff, courses etc.
-I dont need anything. I have enough available money currently to enjoy life in current situation, and in upcoming time I will improve it even better

JOB:
-Since I have stopped gambling, I started learning more and more every day. I became really good software developer and it became my new hobby.
-I have invested my free time in improving my skills and it reflected on my paycheck. I got raise and really good references.
-Found a side (freelance) job few months ago that is bringing probably around +50% more income based on my main job. This is super nice.
-Started to invest my free time in learning machine learning and AI, and I am sure it will bring me more and more benefits in future.

SOCIAL STATUS:
-As I overcomed my biggest issue in life, I kinda started behaving really confident in my decisions. And people like it.
I am not egoistic or something, but confidence attract people to you. Have no idea how to explain it.
-Started reading A LOT , and that brings A LOT of conversation topic when you are out, and more and more people now wants to hang out with me. That is really nice to feel
-As Im a male, talking to a random girl is now much less awkward and stressful than it was when I sucked in everything. Now, I dont even bother with it, I am polite, normal and it is working great.
-Included myself in several activities with friends (board games, sport, running, workshops etc).

HEALTH:
-My health status started to became really awful in times of gambling, now I feel healthier then ever. I dont have any kind of problem with health (that I know of) and it feels good for a change!
-Started eating healthy! I really enjoy food, but I am trying to enjoy it while I do complete intake of healthy nutrients first. And when I do, then I can reward myself with something fun.
-I did my blood test 3x times on all parameters in last 150 days and all parameters were perfect. Gambling was really most dangerous thing for my health,. Stress, bad lifestyle, fast food, no-activity etc.
-In my last topic I kinda developed some anxiety or something like that, now there are no signs on any kind of mental illness (as far as I am aware of lol)
-Sleep is perfect, sleeping like a baby without any stress over my head. (probably most satisfying thing of all stuffs here)

EXERCISE:
– Started doing crossfit 2x times a week and never gave up
– Started to streching and doing easy workout when I wake up
– Started to running, and exercising daily when I have a lot of free time.
-Started hiking and climbing on weekend.
-That all results in INSANE health status and body improvments. For the first time in my life I am happy how am I looking and feeling, and people are starting to asks me for advices lol.

LIFESTYLE:
-Since I stopped gambling, I non-intentionally stopped playing video games and started enjoying outside world more.
-Every minute of my life is now occupied with activities, boring or fun, it doesnt matter, I enjoy all of it.
-Once or twice in month I take a day off from everything and use it just for me, and then I enjoy movies at cinema, reading books, laying on the beach, you name it. (but gambling is never getting on my mind as I find it boring now)

There is bunch of other stuffs that has improved, and all it needed for me is to start making good decisions.
Most of my problems were connected to gambling, and once I fought against that habbit, I started fighting other negative aspects in life.

In this period I had like “two” tempting situation that were so easily handled.

First one: I received a mail that my self-excluding period has finished on my used to be favourite gambling site. I just ignored it for a month lol.
Then, another mail came with some kind of good promotion. What I did? I downloaded the client, logged in it, went to promotion and turned off mail notification and disabled an account.
I had spare money at that time, but I really didnt want to give up so much good stuff for some stupid “pleasure”, but in reality it would not give me any kind of pleasure like it used to.

2nd one: I was out with two of my friends, few weeks ago, it was 03:00am and we were out having fun. After pub closed, they wanted to go in casino as that was the only thing that was opened at that time.
We went there, ordered a beer and all of us sat on roulette table. They put their money in and started playing.
In semi-drunkness, I looked at that roulette and trying to figure out why was this super boring thing was even part of my problem. And two of my friends were enjoyed losing money on stupid numbers with a ball.
At that situation, I had enough money in my pocket for playing all night, but I just didnt want as I found that extremely boring after 200 days period.
I told my friends that I wont be playing, and I just sat at bar and talked to bartender for about 20 mintues. He was super nice guy.
Those two guys were playing all the time, and I told them that I will call it a day and go to sleep , and that they can continue playing, And that “tempting” situation was nothing lol.

Thats it for my 200th day post.
I would like to point out one obvious thing for a people that are searching for the help for the first time.

DO NOT blame anyone about your gambling problem. Your friends, your parents, your genes, your government, your job, gambling industry etc are not responsible of your problem. It is you and it is fixable!
Start reading about how gambling affects your brain, what chemicals are released when you are gambling, how you can substitute them. Start reading about dopamine release from gambling, and how to fight off of it.
Our brain is responsible for all kind of addictions (gambling, drugs, alcohol…) but we are living in times of internet where you can easily google out what is causing the problem and how to fight off of it.
Good luck <3

Thanks everyone for reading and wish you best of luck in your mission of becoming a addiction-free person!