Hi Steev, I am happy you found the video useful and thank you for reading and commenting on my recovery journal.
It has been a fairly quite week for me just spending a lot of time with family and on my work..and both of them are going great.
A few days ago, my boss asked me to make arrangements for business trips for the remainder of the year. There are only two major ones, one is in Province K later in August, it will last one week and another one is in Country E north of Africa and will last 6 weeks.
The first trip in Province k has been on my thoughts for a couple of days and for two reasons. Firstly i realized how far i have come. Just 47 days ago I was willing to throw this man out of the third floor window, today i have no issues at all to go together with him, sitting on a plane , sharing a rented car and staying in the same hotel. I cannot believe it, my colleagues cannot believe it. I once googled..”will I be arrested if I beat up my boss”. Seriously!! I was willing to get fired..if that was the only punishment I will receive for beating him up. So i thank God, I thank this platform, because right now that sound like so absurd. I could not even bring myself to call him my boss.
The second reason this trip has been on my mind is that I know, almost certain that I will gamble if I do not make prior arrangements or put up mitigation measures to prevent it. It has been on my mind for such a long time and i know it will happen. The stage is so well setup, it my most favorite place in SA, my self exclusion does not apply, I played there before, I will be away from family probably with some cash..and things are starting to take a good shape in my life. I have toyed with the imaginations..me sitting on the black jack table..having fun, smoking, drinking and laughing..I know for certain that I will be defeated. I have been thinking about my options….and non is as water tight as extending my self exclusion to cover the entire country, something I should have done in the first place. So I will do that before my trip.
The second business trip is to highly religious and Islamic country and i have not thought of it as much of a thread, at the moment. So I am not so worried about it and in any case I will be in a very very busy conference and hopefully there will be no time to wonder around.
Two days ago I was informed of the passing away of one of my high school teachers, A man who contributed a lot towards my upbringing, he was a really good person and we were all very shocked about it. So I will be attending his funeral in the weekend of the 20th which will be held in Province O, again where my self exclusion does not apply. I have also played in the Casino there, but somehow, I do not feel that edge like I do with Province K, but one will never know, so I would like to have this self exclusion done before Friday the 19th.
Other than that i feel so good, I have so much time on my hands, my mind is never intensely stressed, family is great and work is begging to shape up. I have avoided thinking too much about creating another income stream to help tackle my debts more rapidly. I did not want to overwhelm myself thinking to much about my debts at the begging, but I am much stronger now and I will put some attention in to it.
So back in Day 1, my most primary concerns were family, work and debts…it is just day 46..family is great..work is shaping up and debts will follow…who knows what I will achieve by day 1000…
It is a long way to go still and I am very careful not to let my guard down, every day that I am not at Casino it is victory for me..but only for that day…tomorrow is a completely different day and I know too well that this monster has many tricks up her sleeves..so I just take it easy and one day at a time.
Lastly, thank you to everyone who has contributed to the development of this platform. I dont go to GA meetings for my own reasons and I am avoiding professional counselling for now..because once you attend six sessions you are eligible to uplift self exclusion..and that is a no-no for me. So this is my only real refuge and thank you so much.
God bless all of you in your recovery journey.