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A whole 17 chips!! Ever thought of saying to her, “That will do for starters, but where’s the main course?” Haha
Sounds like that security monitor is like Japanese torture.
Funny post, have a great day mate.
Charlster.
Those sausages sound great!
Hampstead was an old stomping ground of mine. The Bull & Bush, The Hare & Hounds which was next door, but no longer there and Jack Straws Castle which has also been redeveloped and was a health club when I last saw it.
Things really aren’t as bad as they seem to you at the moment. You will feel at times that you are trapped with absolutely no way out of a situation that seems impossible, but I can assure you there are ways out of the deepest, darkest places.
Don’t beat yourself up for not being able to see a way out of your predicament, you wont be able to without time and help, that is why I urge you to focus on your family and staying gambling free day by day. In the whole scheme of things and at this present time, nothing else matters. You’ll be able to deal with everything else when the time is right and when you are stronger and more able to see things clearer. It’s all about prioritising and salvaging your family life, material things don’t matter.
Just focus on having a better day today than you had yesterday and do the same tomorrow. I’ll say it again, it’s all about keeping it simple.
Have a good one mate,
Charlster
You keep focussing on your business and past losses which is clouding everything else.
The biggest thing anyone can lose other than their life is their family and you’ve still got yours. You need to realise that what you have lost is nothing compared to what you could still lose.
There’s nothing I can say here that I haven’t said in previous threads to you, but if you lose your family, there’s a long, long way back from there.
Businesses can be rebuilt or you can get a job, focus on keeping your family together and concentrate on staying gamble free one day at a time. That’s all you need to focus on right now and of course getting to GMA.
As hard as it may seem, keep it simple Mav.
Take it easy,
Charlster.
Gosh Adam, you live dangerously! To me you’re playing a dangerous game, but we’re all built differently, but just beware, this thing can hook you back in when you least expect it.
There seems to be a resilience about you, but it’s a game of brinkmanship I personally wouldn’t dare play.
Still, you’re to be commended on your progress thus far.
All the best,
Charlster
If you achieve just one of those things you would have had a good day, couple that with being gamble free for another day then it becomes a great day.
You don’t have to do everything all at once. Try to make your workload manageable and realistic Mav otherwise you may put unnecessary pressure on yourself.
Hope you had a great day.
Charlster
Depression makes you feel hopeless and makes you only concentrate on the negatives, that’s why it’s called a depression.
The only way out of the rut or trough is to do one positive thing and build on it. It could be anything. Getting a date for the GMA residential treatment is a massive positive to work towards, you just need to do at least one positive thing each day leading up to your therapy. Once you have done a few positive things no matter how small, you’ll have a foundation to keep building on. It’s a slow process, but achievable if you make your target each day realistic and attainable and will provide you with a feel good factor.
I’m sounding like a stuck record here, but you can’t run before you can walk. You could focus on something positive that you want to achieve each day when you wake up and spend the day working towards it. You could post what you want to do each day on here in the morning and then post in the evening on how it went. It will give you a welcome distraction at the very least.
Take care,
Charlster.
I can so relate to your post BU. I’ve used gambling/gaming as a pastime for so long now that I find it hard to fill my time doing anything else. I haven’t had to think about what to do with my time for years because I’ve always had gambling associated activities to pass the time of day. Trying to be imaginative and creative is extremely hard when you give it all up.
A friend suggested this website to me, meetup.com, here’s the link. http://www.meetup.com/
I haven’t fully explored it yet, but it looks interesting and a good way to meet people and get new ideas. All you have to do is register, enter your town and search activities and groups within a radius of where you are.
Keep strong, you’ll get to where you want to be.
Charlster.
Morning Mav,
I said it a little while back that you should go and see the Citizens Advice Bureau regarding your debts. They have specialist staff that can point you in the right direction and go through your options with you.
I feel bankruptcy may be an option for you. Two reasons why I say this.
1) An old boss of mine told me how everything got on top of him over a period of time and he was swamped in debt and he finally decided to go down the bankruptcy route. It gave him a foundation to build a new start with a clean slate. When I started working for him, 5 years had passed since he declared himself bankrupt and he was in tip top form. He and his family were happy, he had steadily built up his rating again and he had absolutely no regrets having taken that course of action. It sounds drastic, but you’ll have a better chance of bouncing back and seems a much better option than living your life in shackles, drowning in debt. I’m not advising you to do it, but it could be an option for you to consider and I’ve certainly seen the positive side of doing that.
2) At the moment your head is being crushed from all directions by numerous major problems, all of them interlinked. It’s a pressure cooker situation and what you need to do is release some of the pressure and you’ll find that most of your other problems wont seem so huge and insurmountable. At the very least they’ll ease somewhat. I’ve been there a 1000 times and as soon as you attack one major problem in your life, momentum builds and life doesn’t seem as dark as it once did.Keep fighting, after all, you’ve got a helluva lot to fight for.
Charlster.
Hi BU,
You’ve done the right thing regardless of the initial fallout it causes. It’s the right thing for you and also the right thing for both of you as a couple.
You haven’t just told him so you can cope, it’s much, much more than that. Yes he’ll be shocked, upset and there may even be trust issues initially, but when the dust settles and he comes to terms with this and starts to understand your problem, you’ll both realise that it was the best thing you could have done.
This secret World that you were living in, that all CG’s live in, is now shattered and exposed which will make it more difficult for you to gamble. A problem shared is a problem halved and you’ll be much stronger as a unit rather than trying to face this alone.
I would be devastated if a partner of mine was suffering in silence, I would want to know everything so that I can help and I’m sure he’ll feel the same.
It is much better you both discuss this face to face so it’s probably a good thing that he hasn’t text you back.
Good luck BU, you’ve done an incredibly brave thing, really hope everything works out for you sooner, rather than later.
Charlster
Sorry to hear of your relapse BU.
Don’t beat yourself up, that’s counterproductive. You’ll no doubt feel that you’ve let yourself down and maybe even have doubts in your mind as to whether you can abstain from gambling. This is the time you need to bounce back and push even harder than before to get to where you want to be. I’m sure you know that anyway.
Gambling wants to get the better of us and will try and grind us down until we submit and it wont be happy until it’s taken all it get from us and totally consumed every last part of us.
Day two gambling free puts you in a far better place than waking up this morning knowing that you gambled last night so put a positive spin on your situation. Don’t be bogged down by what you’ve just lost either, the important thing here is to not lose any more. You need to grab every chink of positivity from your situation and if you clear away the negativity you’ll find those positive chinks to cling to.
I used to talk to myself every time I gambled. A major part of my brain was telling me not to gamble, it gave me every conceivable reason why I shouldn’t, yet the tiny part of my brain that was telling me that I could win everything back that I ever lost and much much more always won the day. As CG’s, when we’re in gambling mode we never listen to logic, if we did we wouldn’t have an addiction would we! So again, don’t be too hard on yourself.
We’re all with you as you know and we’ve all experienced what you’re experiencing, so stay strong, take stock and go again. You know you can do this.
Take care,
Charlster.
Great post Adam and spot on. We can never win enough and there is only too little.
Your post tells me that you have a real understanding of your problem, it took me 30 years to understand mine!!
You’re also right when you say that you needed to lose it all before reality kicked in. I hope you wont be as stubborn as me and live for years thinking that you’ll one day win everything back. I can save you a lot of wasted time and heartache by telling you straight that things only get worse if you gamble, they’ll never get better. I think you know that deep down anyway.
I genuinely mean it when I say that you are doing great. You are faced with temptation every time you go to work, so I take my hat off to you for the way you’re handling this.
Keep strong,
Charlster
Hi Adam,
In all the 30+ years that I have been gambling I have very rarely heard a gambler talk about their losses.
Gamblers, myself included, will talk from dusk until dawn about the great wins we’ve had when in the company of others. Never will we talk about the losses that outnumber the wins massively. No one wants to be a loser, so we portray ourselves as winners, not just to appear great at what we do, but to convince ourselves that gambling is justified. That’s my experience anyway.
The chances are that guy may have had a lucky night in your establishment, but one thing is certain, he is hugely down over all, that is a fact.
Keep it going, we’re gambling free for a similar length of time.
Charlster.
Hi Mav,
I’m gutted you relapsed, but it’s pointless dwelling on it. You need to concentrate on getting your new gambling free run going again.
Sadly you think you’ve lost everything and that negativity is getting the better of you. In truth, you still have a lot more to lose if you continue to gamble. You have the roof over your head to lose, you have the opportunity of seeing your son grow up to lose, you have the years ahead of you to lose and I could go on. Sadly people with addictions push everything to the very limit and beyond.
You often post on here that you are depressed and in an extremely miserable place and I totally understand where you’re coming from, we all do and we’ve all been there. You need to ask yourself, why if you hate the way you feel right now, do you do everything in your power to stay in that place or for that matter move on to an even worse place?
We’ve all done what you’re doing Mav, but you have the wisdom and experiences of the people on here to help guide you, enlighten you and support you.
I feel I can see your problems clearer than I can see mine sometimes. I hope I don’t sound like I’m preaching to you, as that’s not my intention, but I do feel I can pass on what I’ve learned from my experiences and the effects that my actions have had on my life.
Stay strong and keep it going and always remember there’s still a lot more that you could still lose if you continue to gamble, trust me.
Charlster
I’ve got to say, you are doing brilliantly. You are facing temptation at work everyday and still managing to resist the urge to gamble.
Fair play and long may it continue.
Charlster
Mav, is this a holiday your wife is taking in Colombia?