Hey MurrS7,
First, I want to say this is honestly one of the best journal pieces I have ever read on gambling addiction.
You are so transparent and descriptive with your storytelling.
For someone like me who was clean for several months (roughly around a year) and relapsed about 2 to 3 weeks ago into last week and has been battling urges ever since, this is exactly what I needed to read.
I’ve been gambling throughout my entire life with spurts of clean time and I am trying my best to kick the bad addiction completely. People who have not been in the grips of this addiction would not understand or be able to empathize with the honest journaling you have shared here.
I need to finally get it through my head that that money is gone and need to get it through to my head that getting it back through gambling is a non-existent concept, and I need to understand this every day for the rest of my life no matter how many months or years I have been clean, because this is an addiction that one can relapse in at any moment if they are not careful.
I want to thank you for your transparency and being so open about your battle in such great detail. I have literally been battling this addiction throughout my entire life so I completely understand every single thing you wrote and the thought processes that come with chasing, being up, being down, losing it all, feeling sick, wanting to give up on life, etc.
With that being said, I am roughly around the same age as you and am also dealing with massive debt, bad credit, and not much to show (financially or monetarily) for everything I have worked for up to this point, but I will say that life is not over for either of us. We can both beat this addiction and have a brighter future. Understand that there are people who are much older than us who have never opened up on a gambling forum site, who have never been to a GA Meeting, who have never admitted they have a problem, and they wait until their last days to submit to this admitting they have a problem (these people will often tell you they wish they addressed their gambling addiction way earlier in life). You and I have started earlier. We can quit for good today. As one of the elders says, we don’t lose our clean days even when we relapse, but more importantly than that, we take things one day at a time and fight to not gamble for that day and eventually the days will add up and our desire to gamble will slowly decrease as we focus on other things in life such as our health, careers, relationships, well-being, etc.
I want to repeat once again that people who have not experienced being in the grips of this addiction will not understand, so it is important for us to not focus on the negative things they have to say, as it may come from a judgmental perspective rather than an empathetic one. With that being said, there are several people (and there needs to be more) who have experienced and beat this addiction who can offer us some great advice and some great input to help us also beat this addiction.
I am rooting for you MurrS7 as I am rooting for myself. May God bless us and free us from this very truly sick sick addiction.