[G Rec]

Sorry to hear that you had thoughts of betting yesterday, but great to see that you decided to post on here when you got that urge. I hope you managed to resist.

[G Rec]

Отлично поработать еще неделю без азартных игр. Продолжайте на неделю вперед.

[G Rec]

Nice work going another week without gambling. Keep it going for the week ahead.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 17

Short check-in today. Looking forward to the weekend ahead, and then the meeting on Sunday evening to close it out.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 16

Another weekend is upon us. I am looking forward to some free time from work and hope to limit working at the weekend to just a few hours. Outside of that, I plan to do some exercise, have some relaxation time with Netflix, play some Chess, do some house work and then on Sunday attend a meeting.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 15

I attended a 3rd intro group for SMART yesterday. This meeting was focused on identifying and managing urges, and Trigger. As with previous intro meetings, we quickly looked at some of the tools that are available for this looking at each tool at a high level. On Sunday, I plan to attend my 3rd general meeting and look forward to working through another one of the tools in more detial.

[G Rec]

Hi Dan,

Welcome to the forum and well done on taking positive steps addressing your problem gambling by informing your family and posting on here.

For changing your lifestyle, one of the most useful initial actions I found helpful when I first came here were adding as many barriers as possible to make it difficult to gamble such as –
Permanently closing all online betting accounts. Getting banned from live betting. Removing or reducing your access to funds, this could be done by having someone you trust manage your funds, or if you are keeping access to your funds, add accountability so that someone else has visibility of where your money is being spent.

I also found the new members meeting very useful, these as Dunc mentioned are held on a Monday and Thursday, and you can get some great advice and tips.

[G Rec]

Привет, Дэн! Добро пожаловать на форум! Вы сделали положительные шаги по решению вашей проблемы с азартными играми, проинформировав свою семью и разместив здесь сообщения. Для изменения вашего образа жизни одним из самых полезных первоначальных действий, которые я нашел полезным, когда я впервые пришел сюда, было добавление как можно большего количества барьеров, чтобы затруднить игру, например: – Окончательное закрытие всех учетных записей онлайн-ставок. Получение запрета на ставки в реальном времени. Удаление или ограничение вашего доступа к средствам может быть выполнено путем поручения кому-то, кому вы доверяете, управлять вашими средствами, или, если вы сохраняете доступ к своим средствам, добавить ответственность, чтобы кто-то другой мог видеть, куда тратятся ваши деньги. Я также нашел очень полезными собрания новых членов, они, как упомянул Дунк, проводятся по понедельникам и четвергам, и вы можете получить отличные советы и подсказки.

[G Rec]

Hi wally.

I am very glad to hear that you did not gamble this weekend. That is great going especially considering that you had real urges.

I hope this week goes as well for you, I look forward to reading further updates.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 14

Yesterday, I attended the topic group on here. The topic this week was testing ourselves. We looked at ways in which we can test ourselves, and what are the pros and cons of doing so are. We basically categorised testing ourselves as anything we do that puts our recovery to the test. Examples would be placing “pretend bets” i.e. picking out bets you would have bet on. Looking up odds, using Free Bets, going to a venue where you know you will have access to betting, etc.

We discussed various downsides to doing these activities, all of which led to the same end result, they put added stress/pressure on staying gamble-free and increased the chances of relapsing and placing a bet. We then flipped it and tried to look at the positives, and these were minimal, or non-existent leading us to the conclusion that as a general rule, we have a better chance at staying Gambling Free if we limit testing ourselves as much as possible.

Later today, I will be attending a 3rd SMART intro meeting.

[G Rec]

Thank wally, gad to hear your weekend went well also.

Days Since Last Betting: 13

[G Rec]

Hi wally,

Good to see you fighting through, I find coming on here can be a big help whenever I get an urge. I hope the weekend went ok for you.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 12

I attended a meeting last night and again found it very useful. During the meeting, we ran through a tool called Playing the Tape.

The way the tape was described is that it has 2 sides – A and B – Side A is a full record of what has happened any previous times that you gambled (and what will happen if you gamble again). while side B is what life looks like now that you are to stay gambe free (if gamble-free a while) and/or what life can look like if you stay gamble-free.

There are a number of ideas behind this exercise

• Icrease motivation
• A go to task for when you feel an urge to try and help control that urge
• Help prevent/ limit Euphoric Recall – When we look back at and activity, we tend to remember the good stuff, and not the bad stuff

The final point really resonated with me, whenever I feel an urge to gamble, my mind often thinks back to any good feelings or times that I had while gambling including any previous winnings, completely ignoring or blurring out all of the bad things that also came from it (finance trouble, hurting relationships) as well as the fact that even when winning bets occurred, any winnings and more were later lost back.

This wasn’t covered in the meeting, but thinking about it further afterward, I think there is also an extension to this Euphoric Recall where our mind tries to effectively record over some of the tapes by saying “what if we bet, but limit it to only one bet, that was the damage is limited to a small loss if we lose, but we have the upsides and no downsides when we win” Again the counter to this blurred way of thimking is both playing a tape the whole way throug,h and then looking at how many tapes we have from previous experiences where this started out as our intention but is not how things ended up.

[G Rec]

Thanks Wally.

Days Since Last Betting: 12

The weekend is going well so far, and plan to attend a meeting tonight. I will share any learning/thoughts from the meeting tomorrow.

[G Rec]

Thanks kathryn

Days Since Last Betting: 12

Looking forward to the weekend ahead, and then closing it off with a meeting Sunday night.

[Author]

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