Izzi,
Well done for coming back on the forum and admitting your relapse. Let’s focus on the positives because that is ultimately what will help you beat the addiction. I do believe that your partner can play an important role in your recovery and you should rely on Him for help (as well as others) he can take away cards and have access to your finances to help pay for things. He knows you best and will be able to pick up on the signs when things aren’t going well and respond to that. Perhaps he can join the friends and family forum on here and read some of the threads others have posted, including mine!he needs to know what he is dealing with amd How best to support your recoverY.
It does ultimately lie with you to make the right choice. It is a choice to gamble or not and with the right help you can overcome your responding to gambling urges.
I understand about you concealing the actual amount you lost. The amount doesn’t matter, what matters is you relapsed. Now your focus should be on avoiding this path and finding strategies to stop G.
- Keep coming on GT and posting or reading others threads. I have come on almost everyday to read others stories, post myself and I due to this I feel a sense of Achievement in my journey. I have read about others challenges, relapses and also success in years of GF days. I have even gone way back to 8 year old posts to read people’s experiences.
- Stay vigilant. Know that you can slip if you become complacent in your recovery. Keep the struggles you felt, lived alive in your mind to act as a shield against gambling
- Believe in yourself. I personally dislike the defeatist mindset. If I give up on myself and think gambling will always be part of me or that it will always win, how will I possibly be free of it? I don’t give a second thought about so and so that relapsed after 10 months clean or 10 years clean. I think that I can be clean because it is me. I will choose not to gamble and I won’t. I will never even entertain the possibility of a relapse because it would weaken my resolve to be free of it. Believe that you can be free of gambling Izzi. Do keep us posted on your experience.