Been having a tough day and I think they are going to get harder. Finding it so hard to relax. I just cannot get out of my head what a prick I have been. Thinking how it would be different. Last year when I knew my gambling was getting out of control a colleague (an employyee actually who has known me for 5 years) asked me if I was gambling again. I remember it clearly. I lied. I could have told the truth and then we could have talked about it but I was so ashamed. After that my gambling and depression, going hand in hand, got worse, and I reliase now they were and are linked. If I had looked for this site back then and stopped the gambling, and focused on my business, I wouldn’t be in this mess. But that is me through and through. Always leave things until they are too late and fucked up. Well, the cat is out of the bag now. I have 2 months to sort this out. That sound slike a lot but 2 months has lareadt gone this year and I have got almost nothing done. I have spent 6 weeks since my last discovery in a state of almost constant terror and hatred.
Still, today is 8 days without a gamble. That is my longest self imposed break on gambling, not counditing holidays to isalmic countries where gambling is forbidden online. I tried this Christmas when we went to Abu Dhabi for Christmas and NewYear. Websites were blocked, thankfully.
Still, I didn’t have to start again when I got back – but I did.
Sometimes I think I have more gambling memories over the last 3 years than I do other memories. And that includes the birth of my son – and while my wife was in hospital I was playing poker at home. He was 4 weeks premie, and over that Christmas (he was born Oct 20th 2013) while my wife tried to nurse him I played poker. I am such a degenerate. I am surprised she has stayed with me for so long.
This addiction turns us into horrible people, liars, sneaks, unable to communicate, always thinking of the next bet. Well now I don’t think of the next bet, I think of all the shit I have done. I need to find a way of containing it, accepting it, and rebuilding otherwise I will never move on.
I was to say that I once had a gambling addiction, that I will always be a CG, but I have not had a bet in… years. And that the rest of my life is getting sorted – job, stable income, able to keep paying bills, outgoings, save money and feel like I have a future again. The disease robs us of the ability to enjoy what is good in life. I heard so many people say it but I am only just realising it. I think ut is worse than other addictions because it exists only inside your head and everything about it is based on a lie.
The lie is that you will win money – you might, but you don’t see it. And then you lose that and more. I feel bad because I never won big, but the truth is I did have a winning streak 2 years ago which won me back almost everything I had lost up to that point. 3 weeks later all that was gone. There is part of me that craves the big win – but how much is big enough?
I have to stop here because I don’t think if I do it will end. And then nothing else will matter.
I had to speak with the samaritans today. I was thinking of suicide. I worked out how to do it, and make sure it worked. I spent 30 mins thinking about it – and it made me feel worse. To leave my son without a father, to ruin everyone else’s lives more? No, that’s the easy/ difficult way out, and just leave sother people in the shit. No, man up and deal with. be a better man, for once. See something out. There are no shortcuts to this, and what I am feeling is what I feeling. I need to find other ways of coping. I need to start eating better, excercising, making an effort.
An effort. I have been so lazy, all I have thought about is poker for 3 years. And if I wasn’t playing how could I play – how could I get away with it? Which cards could I use that she wouldn’t find? How could I leave work early to get an hours worth of play in. All for what? I never won. What’s the point if I am not winning? But the disease had such a hold on me, it makes me childish, petulant, irritable. And people know and when questioned I lie. It has made me hate life, as it thinks that without it there is no life.
My bad feelings now are connected to the no gambling – but that means the disease is winning. So why not say: Yes, my life is a mess. It is a mess because I made a mess. But it is still life, and that is prevcious. I am healthy, I have relatively intelligent, I am sure i can get some sort of a job in my field. NOt at the top, but somewhere midway, something I can work at, prove my worth again. BUt before that I need to work on me. The lazy me, the arrogant me, the gambler me. Because they are my enemy. Even if I do not want to do it, I have to. That’s what we have to do. I am a long way from that person.
I think if I couldn’t wirte on here I would go mad.
I know I need to sort stuff out here and with my business before I can go on the GMA course, which I so want to do, just because I need a break.