[I_Maverick]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for posting. I am waiting to get on the course for myself. I would lobe to hear your thoughts.

Well done, it sounds as if the course worked for you, and that you are moving on. Good luck with everything.

best
Mav

[I_Maverick]

Thanks everyone for your support I feel very clear headed this morning last night my wife had a great idea. She unhooked the router and hid it. We have agreed we will do this every night. I understand now why there can be no more relapses. Because one bet leads to another. This needs to be staunched like a wound. I don’t want my future to be one gambling. It is ruining me. Will power is not enough. When I have a urge I am going to imagine me winning. But not stopping. And then losing the winnings and more. Because that is the pattern. No wn will ever be enough. So why bother. Let’s look at cost benefit analysis. If I win I wil only lose it. If I win and cash out will I do anything with it? No. I’ll play again. Then at some point I will lose with interest. There is no benefit in gambling. The house always wins. Why do I want to destroy myself? That’s what I need to find out.

I thank everyone here offering their advice. I believe I have reached the end of this cycle. Lots to do to prepare for my upcoming stay at gma whenever that is.

I am going to stay off the blogs until tonight. Off to GA tonight. I know the urges will come but that’s normal. I have so life to give and live .

Love to all

[I_Maverick]

http://www.nfattc.org/why-gamblers-never-win/

This pretty much sums it up.

I need a hobby. I will let you know when I get some ideas.

Thanks all see you soon

Mav

[I_Maverick]

You’re doing fantastic dude. Rooting for ya. Well done on the self exclusion. There are no poker sites left for me to play now, as the ones left don’t work for mac – good thing.

Keep posting, I am into 36 hours now. And I have thought about gambling all day.

You are another hero sir.

[I_Maverick]

Harry, huge apologies for forgetting about you and the staff. Very rude of me.

I have been thinking a lot about why I gamble. I used to believe I could win money. Even when I win I lose it it again, so that can’t be it. Do I enjoy the challenge of the game? Don’t think so, I get bored of poker quickly and start calling random cards for a laugh. That night 2 days ago on BJ was the most I have ever ‘won’ even though the winning was recouping losses. There is part of my brain that is frighteningly intrigued by that.

I think I have continued gambling, despite knowing it is bad for my mental health, because i have nothing else. It seems to stimulate something and I think I am punishing myself as well. SO doing something that hurts me, AND losing money knowing that when I get caught I can feel sorry for myself again, woe is me etc etc etc. There is a strange cycle going on here and one I must break.

Which brings be back to GRT? What is my GRT?

Smokers have vapes, nicotine gum and various other things.
Smackheads have methodone.

What can I replace my gambling with. It needs to be something that gives me the same rush, endorphins.

Answers on a postcard please.

[I_Maverick]

The depth in the conversations in these forums is amazing. Everyone contributing has said amazing things, and the level of thought on the subject is truly astounding. I thank and love you all.

No one contributed to my lapse but me. And it happened quite by mistake. A small £10 deposit turned into much more. An I watched myself do it, become more detatched from myself. Even when I neasrly 1K up from essentally a £10 desposit. It wasn’t enough – and I said to myself. Prove you;re not a CG by takng the winning, and going to ned. If you;re CG keep playing because you’ll lose it. And then when I deposited more and was chasing losses it all became clear to me. I have been lying to myself more than I lied to anyone. The reason I keep relapsing is because I do not take the condition seriously. That changes now.

At 9am tomorrow I will be 1 day gamble free. Properly free, of my own free will. No one in the world can make me stop gambling. if I choose to gamble I will. if I choose not to gamble, I will. My choice. That gives me power. if I have an urge, I will consider it and give myself 10 mins. Because towards the end of my binge yesterday, through depseration more than any skill, I turned my final 2K despoit into 4.5K a part of my brain believes you can win money at gambling. And that is true – but that makes me sicker. And if I had left the table yesterday 4,5,6K up, whatever, that would be the worst thing in the worst. Worse than losing it all. I had the best outcome – I ended up essentially at zero. For that I am grateful.

GA was good this evening. I was first to give therapy. I am going back on Thursday and then on MOnday again. 3 days a week until I hit 90 days. That is my target.

JD, Geordie, JN, Vera, Sad68, Seri68, ButchUgly, Adam, Charlster, Fritz and all the other amazing posters, I love you all and wish you sleep gamble free dreams
Gute nach, buenos noches, good night.

xxx

[I_Maverick]

All good points. No one on this thread made me gamble last night. I did it. It started with £10 and grew and grew and grew. I think there was a part of me that wanted to have one final big win. And actually, I got what I wanted. As I deposited 2K in desperation at the end and turned that into 4.5K. Obviously I was 2,5K down at that point – but by finishing even I am a winner because now I know I am a CG.

I just came back from GA where I knew loads of people and my mentor, who has not gambled for 9 years. He has been brilliant.

Anyway guys, I am off to bed. Gonna put the computer away out of site.

[I_Maverick]

I sorted out all the id stuff before I started playing. Deep down I think this was pre-meditated on the part of my psyche. I checked – my withdrawel was pending when I closed the site.

I deposited 4300 on my company debit card amd eildrew 4300. I deposited 140 on my PayPal and withdrew 130. I am astounded it ended up like that – it could have been disastoerous.

I remember thinking when I was 2K in the hole I heard a voice – right then laddie, you are chasing, you have joined the CG group. Welcome.

This same voice was goadin me to quit when I was 900 up at the start saying “quit now and you’re not a CG, If you keep playing you are a CG cause you know you’ll lose it all, then more and then you;ll be fucked.”

Somehow I did this on purpose – that was scared the living bejeesus out of me.

Right, off to GA and find out more about the steps and start to arrest this nasty little habit. I’m going to go out and get the weaponry to shoot a monkey. Except I don;t know what ammo I need, or what the monkey looks like.

Take care all, lots of love. And thanks for being interested. Once again my selfishness has dominated proceedings.

xxx

[I_Maverick]

I agree with every word you wrote. The gambling me is not the real me – its i the child trying to be cool, clever etc – while actually being a prick.

I believe now as I write this that what just happened is for the best. It has convinced MOnica she needs a break for me, we are shutting the office, and that makes me feel relieved. I am meeting someone next week about possible freelance work, and I know there is a future for me. I now truly understand what it is to be a compulsive gambler. The inabaility to stop. I knew this last night – I had a commentary in my head as I was doing it.

I did all the classic CG things – which makes me think that part of this is a weird act, a way of defining myself. Well —- that. I need new terms of reference. The truth is, I just couldn’t stop last night and part of me thinks I lost on purpose so I would have to chase my losses. I would lose to say I won a huge amount of money, but if I had I would be convinced I would win. As it is, the financial loss in minial, the emotional and familal loss massive.

That is the hurt and the damage.

Time to move on.

I believe what happened had to happen – last night was destiny, just as how I move forward is festiny.

I am off to GA shortly. I have had a mentor for several uyears who is always there and he has become secretary of the Tuesday meeting, so we will meet up. I love him loads, he is a great man. And I am going to speak with him about the steps.

This morning, as I tried ot recover from a deep hole, I ctually asked the higher power to let me win my money back. I didn;t want any more. But if I could recover my losses I would give in the ilness and surreder and start the 12 steps. That is what I am going to talk about.

Over the last few days I have been carrying round the orange GA book and reading it. Everything applies to me. So now I surrender. Gambling has beaten me, and I can’t beat it in the long run. NO matter how much I enjoy it, it is destructive. And I don;t want to be saying in 10 years that I have been trying to quit for 10 years. Time to get off the merry-go-round as my mentor calls it. Time to own up to my defects and mature and grow up.

Much thanks

M

[I_Maverick]

EDIT* This is a long rambling post. Read it at your peril, I am not sure how interesting it is 😉

Jansdad (I want to call you by your first name as have chatted on Facebook etc but not sure of protocol) you wrote an interesting post, which pricked all kinds of reactions in me. I had to re-read it several time so that I was sure I understood what you meant by what you wrote.

I have always understood, and I believe this to be true, that the actual amount of money each of us has lost over time is irrelevant. What is a small sum (less than what you spent on hookers) to you, was my life’s savings. Context is all important. What’s true is that I have not everything. Yet. And yes, I was playing micro but the fact that playing c25/c50 or c50/d1 tables for such a length of time meant I lost 25K over 1 year (1K a month while running a business making 7 short films in 2012) shows how much time I was losing to it.

You cannot put a price on the damage we have wreaked on our psyche’s, families, futures. That is priceless. My wife has no had enough. I have to move out AND pay the rent as well as rent somewhere else.

You say you never took my gambling seriously. That really got me thinking deeply about what just happened. I have spent the last 2/3 weeks in a deep funk. I lost a tiny amount of money previously, but tons of time and self respect. But after reading many of the posts here (and what I am about to write is meant in no way as critical except with regards my own faulty thinking) I felt I was not a real CG like everyone else. My losses were small, I wasn’t reduced to penury, I didn’t know what it was like to gamble serious amounts of money. Last night started innocently, but I believe it was the really childish part of me that wants to do what others do that took over. What started off as £10 with £20 free (which when I realised I would have ot gamble 40 times to access any winning I cancelled) and then through careful playing built up. But as I was playing i realised I wasn’t going to stop. A part of me WANTED TO BE A COMPULSIVE GAMBLER IN FULL FLOW. WINNING BIG, BETTING BIG, LOSING BIG, CHASING DESPERATELY. This was very different from POker.

I think I suffer from obsessive habits, though I have never been diagnosed as OCD in any way. But I had no interested in roulette as you have no decisions to make there. That is PURE chance. Blackjack is a game I have always enjoyed. You believe you have some choices to make based on the information available.

As I was playing I got deeper and deeper into “action”. I loved it. I have not had a rush like that since doing really good coke about 10 years ago, or really good pills. I was ALIVE. The money was numbers, I was up, I was down. I was round and around.

Last night I lived the life of the CG as I have read it. PUtting 1K on a single hand of Blackjack and hitting Blackjack was intense. 1.5K winnings plus stake.

At some point I believed I had mind melded with the algorithm and was timing small bets of just 10 or 20 when I though the dealer would win, and then timed bigger bets. Obviously this is insane, but sometimes that paid off and I am a lucky bastard to have come out with a 10 loss. I am astounded and grateful to the world and the universe.

Last night I managed to combine all aspects of CG apart from walking away with a really big win. I have thought about this. Part of me (a small childish part) wishes I could have walked away with 1 or 2K up. But I know that would be BAD, as it would encourage me to think about it again. I am very HAPPY I did not end up 4.5K down. I ended up £10 down – after a 7 hour spree. I do not know how that happened, I am just grateful.

ALl us CGs are the same I do not think I thought I was the same. I think I needed last night to confirm it. INterestingly I have no urges anymore. I do not feel sorry for myself. I have not been wailing like a 5 year old. Something resnapped in my head. The best analogy I can make for me is to compare it to a night almost exactly 4 years ago and I spent 7 hours all night consuming Nitrous Oxide on my own. I went through 600 cannitsors with huge balloons that could take 4 or 5 cannitors as a time. I have never hallucinated like that night previous or since – and I believe that night broke me. I encountered parts of my mind that should never had been encountered. I think last night fixed it. Don’t ask me how.

I showed myself that, yes, I understanding what gambling is now at larger stakes. Still nothing compared to some people here, but it gives me a glimpse of that reality.

I want to help people, as well as help myself. My gambling is symptomatic of something in my life, but last night I needed to prove to myself I am a CG. Because I don’t think I believed it.

My final point is this, and this is something I have just learned. I loved the rush. It was like drugs. I was in another world. Playing poker never really put me in the same world. That was something else. What scares me truly is that I have never been in a casino, and there is a part of me that wants to do that, as an experience. Like a holiday. Go in and suck it up. It’s terrifying, but at least I am coming to terms with how this illness affects me.

I think what I did I did to be like others, and that is sad. I have psnet my life acting in ways that I think are cool when others do it. NOt doing it for myself. This is a ghost of a childhood that I realise is haunting me.

JD, I thank you for your post. I could read the love in there, also the cynicism and the casual acceptance of your degeneracy (no offense). I appluad you and want to see you and everyone here get better. You are very honest.

Please accept my love and thanks for taking the time to read y post and offer advice. It really means a lot considering you know nothing about me.

See you soon soon

M

[I_Maverick]

The counter is reset to 7am 3 March 2015.

Many thanks to all of you who read my post and especially those who took the time to comment and feedback. It means a lot. I am very dazed at what just happened, but weirdly I haven’t felt happier or more like myself in months or even years. I am starting to think that last night I lanced a boil. It was painful, neceserry and could have led to an infection. But somehow, by the end, the operation was a success. I feel blessed.

I am going to write a fuller blog later, which goes into more depth of myself and my gambling history and it is just for me. If you want to read, please feel free. But what I am going to write is to get it out of my system. All my gambling, going back to childhood.

Many thanks and see you later

Mav

[I_Maverick]

YOu can do it Adam. I am starting from scratch again after the biggest binge of my life. I am on day 0. I love reading your posts, you are very honest and I know you will do this and you will come out of this richer – not just financially, but spiritually and emotionally.

Keep posting and keep going gamble free. There are no answers on that road, only heart ache and misery.

Much love

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Charlster, thanks so much for posting on my post. I am starting to get some theories as to how last night happened. I can honestly say I had a truly out of body experience whch probably only people who have done psychadelic drugs or been CGs understand. My body was doing something and my head was somewhere else, focused on recovering the money.

I am no longer in that place.

I wish I could buy you a coffee and help you out in some way. You sound like a great person with tons of self awareness going through a difficult time. My heart is with you, and the time you are taking to post on my blog and reply means a huge amount to you.

I am going to write a short piece on my blog now, and then nothing until I have achieved the tasks I need to do with regards my business so I can shut it down in as orderly an organised a fashion as possible.

Much love, hang in there. Great news about the rent. I truly believe that as I go now without gambling my life will improve. I have finally found the moment to stop, because of what happened last night.

Big love

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Fritz,

I love reading your posts. I see from them what I could be like in 2 weeks, and god knows I need to get my head clean.

I love the way you describe the fog clearing. The real you. I realise now that the gambler me is not me.

Keep posting, we love ya!

[I_Maverick]

Hi Charslter,

It sounds like you are doing ok. Im really please for you> I just had a meltdown last night that came out of the blue. Even now I am a little numb. For some reason I logged onto a casino site and started playing BlackJack. At one point I was massively up and I said to myself “Prove your not a CG and cashout now and go to bed and no one needs to know”. That didb’t happen. I cannot for the life of me understand why I didn’t cash out and chill, and spend my money on something nice. God knows I could have done iwth it. Instead I lost it all and then started depositing on my company card again. The full story is on my post. I just don’t know what happened. I at once poit I had despoited 4300 and I was down to the last 800 or so. And then it turned around and I cashed out exactly what I put in – and then I was caught.

Stay away from the gamble mate, don’t do it to yourself. My wife now wants me to leave the house – even though I;ve not hurt anyone. I have to be honest, I cannot see the problem – no money was lost. But that’s not the point is it. I need help seeing the hurt I have caused.

I need to get on the GMA course so badly – I hope we are there together. I dread to think what would have happened if I couldn’t win back my losses. I went into full on loss chasing mode, totally insane. I think I went mad last night, totally mad.

Charlester, you can do it fella. I have so little urge to gamble right now, I am all gambled out.

See you soon

Mav

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