[Dark Energy]

Day#10,
“two digits again”, I wrote the same many times, anyhow I am happy about that.

today started in a good and productive way, but around mid-day, all my demons popped up, and really couldn’t get myself to work, it took me around 3 hrs with multiple coffee and cigarette breaks to get out of the depressive mood and back to focus at work.

I know what has been damaged through all the gambling years can’t be fixed in 10 days, I need another 1268 days to reach a normal life. but what I need to learn is how to live and enjoy life during this period.

[Dark Energy]

Day#9,
it is going ok so far,

Hi Don,
I think the key to success is to admit that you can’t fight that gambling thought all the time, you may win 99% of the time but this 1% when you get tired from fighting the urge, you will surrender to it and it will pull you back to the same hole.

so the solution is to protect yourself from:
1. the extra money that you may use to gamble,
2. from access to casinos by self-exclusion, or blocking the gambling sites.

after that, you can start addressing all your life issues, your personal flaws, and all that led you to gamble in the first place.
but this can’t be done when your mind is busy fighting the urges of gambling. you need a break and points 1 & 2 will give you the break that you need. to see things clearly. and to start to reclaim the life that you deserve.

[Dark Energy]

Day#7,
one week passed, and this time the withdrawal symptoms didn’t last long “only 3 days”, glad for that.
I guess the reason is I relapsed for a short period “2 days” and the financial damage from it was not that hard.

I read somewhere about the difference between lapses and relapses, what I had is not a lapse and it is not a full-blown relapse.
I guess it is good to think about the small relapses in this way to not beat yourself about it and back on track again.

[Dark Energy]

Day#5,
nothing to write, just counting…

[Dark Energy]

Day#4.
one of the best days that I had at work for a long time. and this is with just a 30 – 40% focus, I got a lot done, felt confident and my self-esteem increased.

As a side note, today is Day 44 out of 1318 days to reach my goal of living a normal worth living life.

I am not going to reset this part of the count unless the relapse is very tough, the last relapse lasted for 2 days, and didn’t harm me much, my weight loss plan still going well, and didn’t affect my overall financial situation much. yes, I will have a tough month but overall it is ok.

so to keep me motivated I guess I should keep both counts,

[Dark Energy]

Don, I am seeing you supporting all the members here, but I am not seeing your progress, what you are doing, or how you are planning to beat this addiction. write more and give us the chance to support you as well.

writing your progress, your ups, and downs, your feelings, your gambling free count, and your plan really helps you to assess later on and modify your plan until you get it done.
the other members also can support you and advise you.
wish you all the best.

[Dark Energy]

Thank you Don, you are always supportive.

today is Day#3,
I manage to go to work today, and things start moving again, I am seeing some financial relief in the next 2 months so this gives more positivity today.
That’s it for today I have to work now at home for 4 to 5 hrs to cover the pending work.

wish you all the best in fighting this addiction.

[Dark Energy]

thanks Don for your support,

Today is DAY#2.
the first few days are tough, I am afraid of the future afraid of another relapse afraid of repeating the same cycle again and again.
I stayed in bed till 1:00 PM, I was not able to go to work today, I hope tomorrow will be better.
I need to pass 3 pay days without spending any penny on gambling to start saying yes I am on the correct way to recovery, before that it is just not enough based on the past relapses.

[Dark Energy]

thinking about it, I could have done it in a better way, for anyone who has the same issue and reading this post in the future,
create a new email linked to the alternative mobile number only for recovery, change the email first in Binance, then change the mobile authentication to the alternative mobile number, then cancel the alternative mobile number, and the last step is to change the password of that email number ( like type any random text copy it ).
after doing that there is no way to recover the Binance account.

for me, I think it is ok because I think the chance to recover it from the email account only is not possible, but to eliminate the recovery chance completely I suggested the above.

[Dark Energy]

well, I did a great step now, I don’t know why I didn’t think about it before, it could have saved me a lot of money and could have protected me from many relapses.

my main issue was blocking the Binance account, and I was not able to do it, what I did is I changed the authentication mobile number from my current mobile number to another mobile number that I have, then I cut that sim card, now I have no way to access it until I get a replacement for that sim card, which is a long process, the next step is to cancel that number completely to prevent any possibility to recover that number again.
now there is no way to open another account with them since the account with my identification is still active.

it is a workaround solution but if they don’t have the ethics to offer permanent block or permanent self-exclusion for a vulnerable group like us then we have to find a way out.

wow, I am really happy now. it is a huge burden that I have removed from my shoulders.

it looks like a good start for this recovery trial.

[Dark Energy]

Day#1 again.
it is really sad to find myself again on day one, I did a lot of preparation this time, I get rid of my salary once I received it. but after doing all of that I squeezed my monthly expenses budget to figure out some amount that I can trade with, and I relapsed, once that amount was lost, I squeezed it again and lost more money. now I will have a very very tough month I have to live it with 40% of my normal monthly budget.

overall it didn’t hurt me much from a long-term financial perspective, I still need (1278 days) to reach the normal life that I need.
but mentally and emotionally it hurts a lot, I didn’t want to wake up today, and I was not able to get myself out of the bed until 5:00 PM.

I need one more road blocker which is to prevent myself from doing wire transfers online. this will close this final loophole. I will approach the bank to do so I hope they can do it for me.
I am not able to block my Binance account, I approach them many times but they are saying they can’t do it. They have a 30-day maximum cutoff period on their futures account. I did it but it is not enough I need a permanent one.

blocking the wire transfer will prevent me from doing P2P transactions so I will not be able to deposit anything to the broker account, this is the only way left as I have scratched all my cards long back.

anyhow I have a tough month to survive and rebuild

[Dark Energy]

Hi Don,
to be honest, i don’t remember, but that period is captured here in this forum under the subject “Forex addiction” my first journal here.
but in general, the first week will be very tough then it will start to fade and by the end of the 3rd week, the withdrawal symptoms will fade completely, from the 4th week onwards what I will experience is some bad mood days, a depression from time to time that last one to two days, and the feeling of regret from time to time about the wasted time and money, but I can’t really label them as withdrawal symptoms, based on my experience a 3 weeks is more than enough to get rid of the withdrawal symptoms.

there is something called a post-acute disorder, this will occur from time to time and will stop after 1 to 2 years. but I never reached that long period to speak from experience about that but you can google it and learn more about it.

finally what you need is to have a period of 2 to 3 months of staying free of gambling to kick start your real recovery, and to give your brain a break to think clearly on how to overcome this addiction. the easiest way is to not have extra money. so you will not have anything to gamble with. today I received my salary and the urges start to pop up in my mind but once I paid all the bills and get rid of the extra money the urges went away.

Don, you seem like someone who is depending on his willpower to overcome this addiction, from experiance and from reading books about this addiction and posts here in this forum you can see that willpower alone will let you down. so plan ahead how to prevent yourself from gambling using something more than willpower.
Remember the analogy from Ulissios’s myth that I posted in previous posts. it really helps me to visualize our fight against this addiction and I hope it will help you as well.
wish you all the best man, we deserve to live a better life. I am not sure what I will achieve in the future, but if all that I will achieve is living a life without the stress of the gambling, without wasting an additional minute on this addiction. a life without wasting an additional penny on this addiction, I guess I will be happy to just achieve that.

[Dark Energy]

Day#37,

thank you kamirr for your kind and supportive words, and your advice “get occupied” is really deep advice.
I need to get busy and occupied after working hours because it is the most vulnerable period for me.

today I received my salary and I managed to get rid of it immediately. so I am safe for another month, this is the 2nd salary that I didn’t waste any part of it to feed this addiction.

to be honest, still I am having some bad days where I am depressed and demotivated and other days where I am in a good mood and motivated, I hope as time passes the good days will be much more than the bad days. frankly, I must learn how to enjoy life again, it is a long road and I should enjoy it otherwise I will fail.

[Dark Energy]

Hi Losingitslowly,
just checking on you, you didn’t post for a while, I hope you are doing well.

[Dark Energy]

Day#36,
tomorrow is my payday, everything is arranged to avoid any temptation, and so far the recovery is going well.
a lot of work needs to be done, and it will take time to regain my life again. I did a mistake last time when I had 188+ days free of gambling and my debt was about to reach zero, after that I had 2 years of relapses. during that recovery period, I focused on recovering financially, counting GF days, physical health, friends, and relations “it is recovery from outside”. even from the outside, I did some mistakes. but what I didn’t focus on is to recover from the inside, recover mentally, to solve all my inner flaws and issues that caused me to gamble in the first place.

this time the decision to screw my credit score will give me a grace period of 2 years during this period I will not have sudden access to a large sum of money by loans or credits, the money will be saved gradually and I will have time to deal with it. and I will have enough time to recover from the inside and from the outside as well.

I wish I had understood this addiction deeply enough when I started my recovery trials years ago, but all that I can say is I am learning from my mistakes.

[Author]

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