Days Since Last Betting: 85
Thanks for the encouraging words Dark Energy.
I attended a SMART group yesterday, the overarching topic being Living a balanced Life.
A number of tools and techniques were discussed to help with this, the stand out to me was the Lifestyle Balance Wheel, this is where you list all of the items that are important to you in your life (Family, Friends, Health, Finances etc) and then create goals, and action plans for how you can improve (or maintain) the most important items.
As well as identifying areas that are important that you can dedicate time to, it also helps reinforce that Gambling is not something that is in any way important.
There is one potential pothole with this in that finances or at least financial stability is an important item for most people, me included, which could lead to thinking such as, “If I gamble and win, I will improve this element of my life”. To help combat thoughts like this, another tool can be used called playing the tape forward where you look at the full story of what happened on all the previous instances where you bet, and ask the question “Were there any instances where long term finances improved as a result of gambling”, and for me, the answer is a clear no making it easier to disregard the thoughts of improving my long term financial situation through gambling.