[G Rec]

Good to hear that you have some things planned for the weekend, I try to do likewise to keep downtime/temptation time to a minimum. Really hoping with can both stick with it and be here on Monday with our gamble free days increased, and ready to start another week in a good place.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 11

Happy to be approaching the weekend and staying gamble-free. I have a nice weekend and plan to try to limit work to only a few hours, and take some time for exercise, catching up on chess learning and practice, spending time with my girlfriend, and also attend a meeting on Sunday.

[G Rec]

Hi Sunny

I am on board with that, pledging to be gamble free for March 2021

2) GRec

[G Rec]

Привет, Санни, я согласен с этим, обещаю, что в марте 2021 года не буду играть в азартные игры 2) GRec

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 10

Good morning Sunny,

I am doing good today, happy to be at the 10-day mark. Yesterday I attended the 2nd intro meeting for SMART and again I found it very useful. The program initially can seem overwhelming with so many tools and resources, and an undefined direct path, but after 2 intro meetings and a regular meeting, I feel I have a much better vision of what is available and what might be useful.

Yesterday’s meeting was an introduction to some of the tools/exercises that can be used to help create and maintain motivation. One of them was the Cost/Benefit analysis that I participated and completed on Sunday, and the others included a Hierarchy of Values (documenting what is most important to you).

We did not have time to deep dive into any of the tools, that will have to be done outside of the meeting or alternatively in general meetings. I plan to explore them more over the coming week, and also attend another general meeting on Sunday.

I definitely found the meeting again very helpful, I could see clear overlap with some of the topics that we have discussed with Charles and others when motivation was the topic on here on a Monday night, and I think going through some of the exercises can help reinforce and potentially expand on what was discussed in those meetings

[G Rec]

Hi wally,

Glad to hear that you had a good time with your granddaughter, but sorry to hear about the recent gambling.

On the + side, you are still here posting, and continuing to take positive steps to help get gamble free. Telling your mother is a nice step for adding accountability, and you can already see it helping with it being a motivation to not want to let her down despite the urges.

Soon after I first joined this forum, one of the most useful things I found was making a list of ways in which I could make myself more accountable, and barriers I could put in place to make it more difficult to gamble. I also try to regularly review the list to see what items are working well and if any new ones can be added.

Given that you have the day off work and your current motivation to stay gamble-free is strong, perhaps you could give something like that a go.

Some examples of things to consider

• Telling one or more other people about what you are going through
• Reducing or removing access to funds
• Providing someone else with visibility of money that you spend. There are a number of ways to do this one such as allowing someone else to see bank statements, keeping a spreadsheet tracking all spend and where it goes, etc.
• Getting excluded from any Casinos that are in your area.

These are just some examples, but hopefully, they might help with this. I look forward to following your list if you do decide to give this activity a go, and feel like sharing once you are ready.

[G Rec]

Hi sunny,

Well done on getting to day 3, having just completed my first week since my own relapse I know it can be a tough one.

Glad to hear that you found that message helpful, I agree that it is a strong message and I find it a helpful way to sign off each day and prepare for the next. I can’t full credit for it though, the first part was provided by astrofly. Great to see we are collectively helping each other.

[G Rec]

Thanks, Sunny and wally, it is nice hearing that this journal might be helping some others as well as myself.

Days Since Last Betting: 9

Today I plan to attend a 2nd Intro meeting for SMART.

[G Rec]

Thanks for the added comments wally, kin, and Charles.

Days Since Last Betting: 8

Attended the topic group last night and had a good and useful discussion. The topic being Preventing Relapse, looking at items including when are we most likely to relapse, getting access to money is a big one for me including payday along with stress and being overwhelmed. Next we looked at what we can do to prevent/limit the chances of this. There were a number of steps identified including raising barriers to gambling as much as possible, reducing access to money, and/or increasing accountability for any spend, and having go-to activities for when urges do come such as walking, running, a TV show to watch, writing in the forum, jumping on a meeting call.

[G Rec]

Hi nflfan44 – Welcome to the forum and well done on taking a positive step.

Everything you have mentioned (gambling for many many years, regularly gambling away a large portion or all wages, gambling affecting you badly etc) are all things that I can directly relate to, and the same will be true for many others on this forum so know that you are not alone.

I would recommend attending one of the New Members practical advice groups that are held on Monday and Thursday, there you will receive some direct and practical steps that you can help.

One of the things that will be discussed in these meetings is how you can put barriers in place to make it as difficult s possible to bet. The sooner these barriers can be put in place the better and with Cheltenham coming up, it is going to be very important for you to have these barriers in place before then.

Barriers include items such 1)Permanently closing all online betting accounts. 2) Having yourself excluded from live betting shops 3) Reducing or removing access to funds or alternatively making yourself accountable for any money spent be that through a family member or a friend who has visibility of where your money is spent.

[G Rec]

Hi wally,

God to hear that you had a chance to spend some time with your granddaughter on Saturday, I hope that went well, and that you managed to remain gamble free as well.

[G Rec]

Hi Sunny,

Sorry to hear about your relapse but well done on getting back here to start fresh.

Congrats on the pending arrival of your 2nd baby, as you mentioned it would be an amazing welcome gift for him/her and you to be GF at that time and continue to do so from there.

I look forward to following your progress.

[G Rec]

Days Since Last Betting: 7

Yesterday I completed what I found was a very useful task/tool, a Cost-Benefit analysis of Gambling where you list the benefits of gambling broken down into Short Term and Long Term, and then do the same for Not Gambling. The idea is to help identify some reasons why I bet, to reinforce the negative consequences of doing so and how they compare to the positives, and to have a quick reference to go to whenever urges do occur as a reminder to how the benefits will not outweigh the downsides.

For the benefits, I listed the following

• Relive Stress – Short Term
• Potential Money – Gain Short Term
• Escape from problems – Short Term
• Avoid Boredom – Short Term
• Fun / Euphoria – Short Term
• Remove the urge to gamble

For the Disadvantages(costs) – I listed the followign

• Potential Money Loss – Short Term
• Worse financial situaiton – Long Term
• Lose sleep – Long Term
• Added Stress – Long Term
• Casue difficulty with relationships – Long Term

The glaring thing that stands out with the resulting lists is that all of the benefits tend to be short and usually very short term whereas the disadvantages tend to have a much more long term impact. Another thing that stood out to me is that the benefits and downsides are closely related with most short-term benefits later turning into more significant long-term disadvantages.

I hope to complete some similar exercises over the coming days and weeks, and this evening I plan to attend the topic group here.

[G Rec]

Thanks sunny

Days Since Last Betting: 6

A short update today for a daily check-in which I want to keep up with during the early stages of my latest staying gamble-free effort.

I attended a SMART meeting today and found it very useful, we went through a nice exercise of a Cost-Benefit analysis, I will share more of my thoughts and learnings tomorrow.

[G Rec]

Thanks markwi27

Days Since Last Betting: 5

I had planned to attend a SMART meeting today but I mixed up the time zone difference and. Three is another general meeting tomorrow evening so I plan to attend that one instead.

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