Thank you everyone for the responses. And I would like to extend my help to anyone else who is finding their self in a dark place.
Hopefully this is my last day 1 without gambling, but today I feel pretty good. Yesterday I had a deep cloudy disturbance in my brain. I think it’s because of the hours of trance state I was in, and the realization that I had lost a lot of money when I came out of that trance. Gambling is poison to our brains, but their is hope. The brain is an extremely powerful organ, and it changes all the time given the environments you put it in. I am not sure how you guys feel about meditation, but I am going to give it a try. I feel like I can change my habits through this, as well as changing my subconscious minds thoughts. If I had to guess, I feel that a lot of people on this site probably have negative thoughts about themselves running through their subconscious minds. You can always challenge these thoughts with logic, this is something they do a lot in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and I think it is extremely useful in any addiction recovery.
Anyways, this has always been the easy part for me. The next few days after losing my paycheck, I feel at peace as bad as that sounds. There is no temptation for me to spend money because I have none. I am thankful I have not crossed the threshold of digging myself deeper into debt. In fact, aside from a few payday loans I have to take out to get by the next few weeks, I am actually paying down my credit card and student loan debt every month. The hard part is when I will get paid again. I need to really understand in my subconscious mind that gambling is not socially acceptable. Even though it’s made to look like it on TV, gambling will never be acceptable. It is poison and a form of escapism, just like drugs and alcohol. If you can find a healthy activity that lets you escape to replace gambling, then you can kick it to the curb. Hope everyone is having a great day.
EDIT: I would also like to add that I firmly believe the best way to break a bad habit, is to create new good habits to replace them with. This is something I will be exploring as well. Take care
–Nick