[Dark Energy]

Hi Marcus,

I am like you wasted a lot of time on this addiction and I will not lose any additional minutes gambling. Remembering lost time and opportunities in my life over years of addictions is much more painful than remembering the lost money.

whish you all the best in your recovery.

[Dark Energy]

Day#28,
2 days more to reach the 1-month mark, my mind is clear, and my mode is not bad.

I am planning to make a good change every 30 days and give it 30 days so this change will become a new habit.
The 1st 30 days were to put my gambling recovery back on track, and now I can say I am back on track and ready to take another step.
There are a lot of things in my life that need to be fixed, Now I am taking this new approach, and I will not overwhelm myself like I used to do, I used to start multiple things at the same time.

my next step is following a diet plan to tackle my weight problem or to stop smoking. Both are very difficult for me at this stage, because I use both of them to reduce stress and I have a very stressful period at work that will last for another 3 months.

I have 2 more days to decide, but I need to select the easiest option to commit to and focus on for the next 30 days to keep this snowball of good changes rolling and getting bigger and bigger.

[Dark Energy]

Hi Jvr,
I think in a physical meeting this could work for me, going to the meeting and seeing the other people face to face, there will be some kind of connection and that would have a lot of positive impact on me regardless of the higher power subject.
but there is no GA meeting in my country, I will search for AA meetings here.

the online meeting really didn’t help me, after your comment I think I should give it another trial this week.

[Dark Energy]

Day#22,
crossed my first relapsing schedule, The 21 days were one of the main days in the past, I relapsed many times at that mark, it is related to receiving my salary, so the typical month will be receiving the salary on the 1st day, then relapse for few days, and by the 8th to 10th day from the month I will be left with no more money to gamble with and then the recovery starts, and in many times once I hit the 21st day of recovery it will be the time when my next month salary arrived. so it is a huge trigger to gamble and I fall for it many times.
this time I passed, I had one urge that didn’t last long, I used the “Have the color of your eyes changed?” question and it worked again and the urge was gone.

this month I used a small amount of 350$ to buy a home office desk & chair, and an additional closet for storage, and I searched a lot to find the best model and best quality with the best price, and all of that for just a less than 350$ dollar, it is so strange how I used to through hundreds and thousands of dollars to this addiction without thinking twice. the money lost its value it was just a matter of keeping that false hope going.

[Dark Energy]

I am glad that the GA meetings helped you, for me I could not pass through the higher power subject. so I have done two meetings and I could not complete them.

you are doing really good, wish you all the best.

[Dark Energy]

hi Marcus,
congratulations on your 5 months free of gambling.

[Dark Energy]

Hi Don,
thanks for your comment, I am feeling better Today, just yesterday all my issues popped up in my mind, I know the trigger was the work pressure, and it is not from someone in the company it is because of the company itself and the management style, anyhow, the point I am so fragile, I have ton of issues and any small thing will put me in that depressive mode. and yes I agree with what you mentioned about these personality flaws playing a major role in us becoming addicted.
I think addiction exposes us and shows us who we really are at our lowest points, and we need to fix or deal with these personality flaws on our road to recovery.

Hi Marcus,
totally agree with you, but after many relapses, I started doubting who I was before getting hooked on this addiction, I was not living a perfect life, I was just living a normal life with a lot of bad personal & career decisions, and all my personality flaws were not so clear to me but it was there, they are not a new thing that has been caused by gambling but gambling exposed them.
I am not sure but the road that I was going through before I got hooked to this addiction was not really a promising road, and this may be what led me to try forex and stock trading as a solution.

gambling addiction is the tip of the iceberg.

[Dark Energy]

Day#16, totally overwhelmed. it is not about gambling but it is about everything in my life and about myself. I am really doubting myself, Is this really who I am? A f*** loser!!!.

gambling made everything much much worse, it set me back 15 years, and worse than that I am currently at a negative Net worth of 54,000 $, and a total of 95,000 $ in debt.

the debt is one subject. work is another subject, At work, I am a ticking bomb I don’t know when I will burst and resign, I am stuck in this job and this career that I need to change, but I can’t because of all that debt. and because of the bad career choices over the past 15 years.

add to that the personality issues from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, low self-confidence, and most likely ADHD.

Also, Health issues started to come up, In addition to that I am overweight, I am 18 kg away from my acceptable level and 28 kg away from my perfect level.

no girlfriend, no marriage, no kids, In two years I will be 40 and I have done nothing.

Friends, only work friends.

and I forgot to add Nicotine addiction.

to be frank, I doubt that this is all because of addiction, I really think this is who I am, and even after fixing the gambling issue, I will have a ton of personality issues to fix.

I can’t really handle it anymore.

[Dark Energy]

Day#15.

this is the place that I am in, a series of mistakes and and bad decisions over the years. there is no magical solution to fix all my problems I just need to keep going and fix what I can fix.

[Dark Energy]

we have the same issue, I have been stuck in this job for 10 years, and I have had a lot of work pressure recently, I thought about resigning, but I don’t have that luxury…

I have to keep working in the same Job despite the pressure, changing Jobs is a very risky decision and I can’t take it now. I am not ready financially for such a move.

[Dark Energy]

Day#12,
Have the color of your eyes changed?
I remembered this from a YouTube video for a psychologist talking about relapse prevention and understanding addiction, he said the addict’s brain is wired differently, and changing that is like changing the color of your eye.
I was about to relapse a few days ago, but I remembered his analogy, and it helped me, I was driving back home after a very stressful day at work, I have money I have time ( 2 days weekend), so why not put in a small amount and do a leveraged trade, why not !!! All the encouraging thoughts started to pop up, and before I reached home” I remembered that analogy about the color of the eye, and then I literally looked at the car’s mirror and asked myself loudly Have the color of your eyes changed???. and this saved me this time.

if I find the link for that video I will share it here It helped me and I hope it can help those who need a reminder that our brain is wired this way and will be always like that so don’t start because you can’t stop.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Dark Energy.

[Dark Energy]

I feel like the relapse was two weeks ago, but I am just on the 5th day of my recovery, the withdrawal symptoms are gone fastly.

[Dark Energy]

it is almost 9 years, I remember that in August 2014 I get hooked on trading forex, it started a few months earlier but from August 2014 I started opening credit cards and getting loans to do forex trading, I had good savings at that time around 40,000 $, but instead of using my saving I decided to use a small loan with low interest and I was delusional enough to think that I will be able to win much more from trading.

almost two years later in August 2016, I reached my deepest rock bottom, I had a total of 150,000$+ in debt between 8 credit cards, personal loans, and loans from family members, I lost all my savings, I was not able to pay my rent, I left the apartment and slept in my car for 7 days, that was my deepest rock bottom ever, and oddly enough till that moment I didn’t know that I have a gambling addiction, my naive analysis was what I have is only a financial problem.

another year passed before I admit that I have a gambling addiction, and start to read more about the subject, frankly, gambling is not a common thing here in the middle east, no casinos, and religion prohibits any gambling activity, so growing up I never knew or heard about anyone from my friends, family or from the community who is suffering from gambling, it is a subject that will be rarely mentioned, this a positive thing that comes from religion, I am a hardcore atheist but I think our ancestors were right by prohibiting gambling.
anyhow, I really read many books and watched a lot of videos at that stage just to know what is gambling addiction, and how to treat it. it was an alien subject to me. especially because I was addicted to day trading, not normal gambling games or sports betting.

then from 2017 till now, I am trying to recover from this addiction, and I am really tired of repeating the same cycle time and again, it has been 9 years of living in Hell, and 6 years trying to get out of it.

today is Day#3 in this new trial, will see how far i will reach.

[Dark Energy]

here we go again, after 9 months of being free of gambling I had a relapse 3 weeks ago, I was afraid that this will lead to a series of relapses… and what I am afraid of it.. is happening.
I have relapsed again ( for one day) then I managed to start over again today before causing any more damage.
Today is Day#1 Again… the rock is at the bottom again and I will start pushing it uphill again.

[Dark Energy]

Day#14
two weeks passed, and I rebounded to my normal state very quickly this time, I think because I am too busy at work, this is really a good distraction.

[Author]

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