Thanks IDI, Monica And P for posting.
What you say is true. I had a lot of great days racked up until i started gambling again and I have had more since I stopped.
My day one, of my long stretch was horrible. My world was going to come crashing in and there was nothing i could do to stop it. Nothing it seemed anyway. I was in so much pain from the hurt I was going to cause and the mess that I had made that it hurt to b-r-e-a-t-h. I pecked out a sad message into the darkness. I wanted to hide. Waiting for a reply seemed an eternity. I would check and check my thread and read others. I was so scared and sick to my stomach. Time seemed to stand still.
It was a full couple of agonizing weeks later before I told my husband that if we didn’t get financial help we were going to lose our home or have to file for bankruptcy.
I was trolling this site for friendly advice the entire time. Thankfully I found a lot of that at the time and i have received the rewards of that every since.
I had just shy of 6 years of gamble free living. It was not easy to come back from the brink or maybe the bottom of the pit. But I did. I paid my debts. I made amends. I made things better for my kids. There was a lot of progress in that time.
I have not lost the benefit of those years YET. The patterns are still ingrained. I am not missing gambling and other than using this forum I don’t think of it often.
I need to work hard at reinforcing the lessons I’ve already learned and continuing on the path of recovery as I am worth it.
I need my current abstinence due to illness to be recovery.
Laura