[I_Maverick]

Well done fella. What more can I say. Keep up the good work, I am on day 97. A I am not drinking at the moment I have not thought about how I can celebrate day 100 on Saturday. As I have started going to NA to get more insight into recovery I guess a Spliff is also not on the cards.

Good to see that despite a good deal of abstinence you have not given into the thoughts.

See you around.

[I_Maverick]

Welcome back Smee. I remember when you posted before. Have you tried GA? I know it’s not for everyone and many people have preconception about GA, but it has really worked for me and continues to work. Also, have you spoken with the National Problem Gambling CLinic and self referred? GamCare?

What blockers have you got in place when the gambling thoughts return?

Keep posting. I am on day 98 but a long way from recovery. I think my recovery is just starting. But every day I have to work on me, who I am. That’s what led me to believe that Gambling was an answer to any number of problems. It isn’t.,

Good luck and use the forums here as well as the support groups. They were vital to me in the early days.

I will keep you in my thoughts and ask my higher power to help you.

[I_Maverick]

Hi M. I have been away from the blogs for a bit but came back today as I had kept promising to pop back and say hello. I noticed that my last post was on your blog, so that popped up.

Someone much wise than me once told me that when you have an ok day and don’t gamble it’s a good day; when you have a shit day and don’t gamble it’s a GREAT day.

You appear to be very tuned in to your triggers and emotions that might make you gamble. It must be hard with a partner who doesn’t seem to care and is wrapped up in their own world/ addiction. I still feel massive shame when I think back to how I treated my soon to be ex-wife/ mother of my child. She’s at the top of my lit of people I have harmed and every time we meet I try to act in a way that will make amends. I am not doing well at that.

You sound like you are doing amazing, knowing how sneaky this addiction is. Well done. You are in my thoughts and I wish you the strength to make the right desiions despite the difficulties. Jane wrote something amazing:

“stopping gambling is really the start of the journey, LIFE is what happens when recovery is well underway. ”

This is where I am. Today is day 97 without a bet but I feel I have very little or no recovery in me. But I cannot do anything about that, except live my life one day at a time and promise myself at the start of every day that just for today I will not gamble.

All my love

M

[I_Maverick]

Micky,

Just caught up with your thread. Really happy you have an appointment at the Gambling Clinic. I had my assessment last week so I can get on the psychodynamic treatment. I am now on the waiting list. I also had a call from them today and I have another meeting with them next Friday 3rd.

I love your lists. I find them truly inspirational. You sound like you are in a good place mate, so amazing to read. Your thread is top but I am now catching up.

Take care and speak soon

Mav

[I_Maverick]

You always make me smile Vera. So much to say, just catching up on threads. Indeed I am now in the NPGC (National Problem Gambling Clinic) system and I had an awesome phonecall from them today. Will update my forum soon. Micky, what an AWESOME thread this is. SO glad you;re in a good place. If you’re in London at the same time as me we could me for a coffee. What do you think?

[I_Maverick]

Hi MummyRichards (love that name by the way). I am on 74 today, and back in SToke after diving almost 500 miles over the weekend to see my little boy. Had him all weekend.

You ask when will recovery end? As far as I understand (finally, it took me a long time to grasp this) my recovery will never end. I will ALWAYS be in recovery because I want recovery. That’s the thing about recovery, it’s a lifetime job. That’s what it says in the Orange Book.

Recovery for me is not just about not gambling. It’s about making a new life, one without lies, deceit, hiding, being ashamed, fear, guilt. It’s about the ruth, honesty, acceptance (such as today I feel low, but that’s ok and today I feel but and that;s ok. Neither is right or wrong, it’s just the way it is.) I am going to take up mindfulness again now that I have stopped gambling. I actually learned mindfulness but I was gambling and tried to use mindfulness techniques to become a better gambler. How truly twisted is that?

Anyway, I will write more on my blog about my weekend away and what my tasks are this week. My weeks are getting busier and busier, but I am careful not to create too much stress for myself. I am in a very delicate part of my recovery.

Take care and I look forward to seeing you around. Did you do the GMA course for women? I hear great things about that, hope you got a lot from it.

Best

M

[I_Maverick]

Hey JD

100 days is AWESOME mate. Monica has not gone to Colombia yet – long story. Will fill that in my my blog as I know more.

But well done mate. Really proud of you. Yours was one of the first stories of a terrible relapse I read, after your 66 days and after that we got to know each other a little bit.

You do not need gambling, nor do any of us. Without gambling in our lives we can deal with so many other problems.

Keep posting the odd update of how your recovery is going. What does recovery mean for you JD?

[I_Maverick]

If you ever do become a mum, and there is nothing wrong in what you call the ‘older’ mum as both my ex-wife and I were in our forties when little Val was born and i would not change it for the world. Even if I do not see him in person everyday we FaceTime every morning and most evenings. As soon as he sees me he says “Papa” and it breaks my heart. But the time I spend with him means so much more to me than it did when I was gambling and when I was going through withdrawal.

Right now you might be going through withdrawel. Your addiction wants to be fed. That leads to lapses and then relapses. Accept you want to gamble, you have done it for so long it is a deep groove in your psyche. But also know that you cannot rush recovery. At day 71 I feel great but I am not complacent. Hence I travel a 50 mile round trip to Derby on Monday to go to GA and then 30 miles roundtrip to Stoke centre to go to GA on a Tuesday. And Next Thursday I will add my London meeting, so discounting I am in London to see my son that would mean over 400 miles to do GA. And my god it’s worth it. Just being around the other members, sharing the thoughts in my head with people who understand, and seeing the pain of new members reminds me of what could be if I ever get cocky and think gambling was not that bad. It was. It broke me mentally, spiritually, physically, professionally and emotionally.

You’re doing really well, coming on here, sharing, getting those nasty thoughts out of your head.

One day At A Time.

Rome was not built in a day.

Abstinence is not recovery, but without abstinence there can be no recovery.

Find things to do, things to think about. The addiction will make you feel pain, want to be fed, try to convince you that a gamble will make you feel better. That’s why i lasped 18 days ago – I thought it would be me feel better, just a little bit of the sweet sweet sauce. But it made me worse but more determined to stay away from and forever and since then there were no more lapses.

Charles writes that for some people lapses are a part of the recovery process, they were for me, but they are not obligatory. You DO NOT have to give in. YOU CAN GO WITHOUT GAMBLING.

I trust you and I send you all my positive thoughts. Think of the child you will one day have. You dont want him having a gambling mum – I don’t want to be a gambling dad. I have met people whose parents were CGs.

They couldn’t be trusted, they couldn’t love, they ahd no time or money for their kids, they lied, they were unreliable.

Neither you nor I want that. But you do want to be able to say you found recovery and when he or she finds temptation as they get older (which they will) you will have more tools to understand when they go down dangerous paths and, without preaching, will have a better sense of how to deal with it.

have a great weekend. I leave at 4am tomorrow morning and in less than 12 hours I will be playing with by boy. It has been 9 days since I saw him in person and i am so excited.

take care

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Totally fair enough mate. This is my first proper recovery and I cannot afford to slip, so for me GA is the best way to avoid that. I have lost enough, not just money. I see people at GA who gambled their whole lives and lost so much more. But it is the mental state I have lost the most of. IN 3.5 years I gambled ALL of the time I could, and as I ran my own business I could gamble for days, weeks, months to my hearts content. I battered my mind with the rush of chemicals. I cannot go through that again. And anyway, recovery looks like such an amazing journey, one I can be proud of and shout from the rooftops.

take care and keep posting mate. I would be proud if you were my dad 😉

[I_Maverick]

Hi MummyRichards, I have just caught up on your thread as you started it before I joined. Having read the whole thread you are an inspiration. GA, GMA, GT can old help us when WE want to actually get better. It won’t work for those who do not want to get better. 153 days is amazing, just over twice my 71 today, but that is irrelevant. I can read in your posts actual recovery taking place, as Charles so wonderfully put it in an earlier post.

Please stay here for a bit a detail your recovery. For me every day I do not gamble means I have head space to do other things – spend time with family, spend time with my dog, slowly start to fix the terrible mess I created (financial, business, homelife, self esteem etc). I have my assesment at the National Problem Gambling Clinic on 22nd June and to do the treatment I want I have to have a minimum of 80-90 days gamble free time so that my head is clear. When I have the assessment I will be on 81 days.

For me gambling has just been the latest in a long line of addictions that include heroin, cocaine, crack and almost every other kind of substance known to man. However, nothing destroyed me like gambling, nothing changed my worldview like gambling, nothing hollowed me out and left just a husk of a man who lived only in a world of pain and hurt like gambling. I never got recovery from the other addictions, just stopped using.

Abstinence is not recovery, but without abstinence we cannot have recovery.

Now I am gamble free and I am past the initial period of self hate, self doubt, recrimination, feelings of guilt of all the chaos I created, I can suddenly enjoy time with my boy. I am separated from his mum and I live with my parents in Stoke while she is in London. But I get 1-2 days a week with him and in those 1 or 2 days I am more present than I ever was when I was living at home.

You are a true heroine.

noun
1.
a woman of distinguished courage or ability, admired for her brave deeds and noble qualities.

All my love to you and yours. Please keep posting, I personally need to read good stories of recovery.

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Dude you have done so well. I do hope your relationship with your children has improved. I know that if one of my parents had been gamblers and they had given up for 4 months I would be so proud of them. I hope your kids understand.

Today is day 71 for me now. in 19 days I can start my 12 steps at GA. I cannot wait. Each day I go without gambling is another amazing day.

Are you going to GA and will you do the 12 steps?

[I_Maverick]

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to check in and say I am still wading through the huge number of posts I missed while I was away. I have had my parent’s house to myself for the last 2.5 weeks – they return today. I am collecting them from Hanley Bus Station.

I have loved chilling out here and exploring Stoke again. I have met up with old friends, found a new GA chapter both in Stoke and in Derby. It means 80 miles round trips on Monday and Tuesday evening but compared with the effort I put into gambling (the lies, finding ways and places to play, new credit cards, swapping money from accounts) it is well worth it.

I have moved out of one spare room with a single and into another spare room (actually my old room when I was 16-18) as it has a double bed and the dog has to sleep with a human being and the single was not big enough for the both of us. I am loving having my dog back.

Since getting back I have not posted as much as I have been super focused on slowly working my mind back into doing stuff, setting small goals and achieving them. Before I went away i was sometimes posting 2 or 3 times a day as I was going mad, truly. Now my mind is calmer. I am a long way from being recovered, I don’t think I ever will. they say you never recover fully after an addiction such as gambling, it makes such a mark on your psyche. But recovery is a process one day a time, making better choices, thinking things through, being good to yourself. I used to have a HUGE beard as I could not be bothered to shave. When I went to GMA I shaved it off and since then have been cultivating 2 70’s style mutton chops and a rather fetching tache. It’s looking good now and when I wear my pork pie hat dressed in smart clothes and a nice jacket I look good. I haven’t felt that for a long time. I like the way I look. I am going to find some new clothes and refine a new identity. I do not want to be the old Maverick. that Maverick was a mess – lying, compulsive, lazy, scared, isolated, panicky, depressed. This is a new Maverick, but not TheNewMaverick as that was my poker name. No, this is Maverick_2.0. Taking on board all my dreams and fantasies, which are a part of me, with a new dose of realism and acceptance. And recovery is a blanket I am draping myself in. Life will get hard, there will be tough choices, but as long as I am not gambling and confusing myself then I can look to my higher power and make what I hope are the best choices. And if they aren’t i will learn from them, and keep learning. I used to say the moment you stop learning you might as well be dead. Well, emotionally and intellectually I have been dead for the entire time I was gambling and before when I was taking loads of drugs. This is the cleanest I have been for maybe 25 years. I haven’t even had a drink since 2nd Feb. I have stopped smoking, switching to a decent Vape product. It works fine. 2 days I have smoked only 1 cigarette which I cadged when my battery died last night. Must remember to buy a spare batter to avoid that going forwards.

Going to London on Saturday to see my boy. Just FaceTimed with him just now. I love him so much. I am so much more present with him now than I ever was. Perhaps I had to go through what I went through the experience what is going to happen to me going forwards. There is so much positive stuff happening but I must never get complacent.

I CAN NEVER GAMBLE AGAIN

ABSTINENCE IS NOT RECOVERY, BUT WITHOUT ABSTINENCE RECOVERY CANNOT HAPPEN

I CAN NEVER WIN AT GAMBLING.

WITHOUT MY RECOVERY I CAN NOT HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH MYSELF, MY SON OR ANYONE ELSE

On Sunday I get Valentin all to myself all day. We are driving to a good friend’s house who lives in a village in the South Downs just off the A3 about 30 mins before Portsmouth. We are going for a walk in the woods. He has 2 small daughters who I know will enjoy being with Val and Val will enjoy them. I have not met his daughters and in fact he came into my life just as the gambling was reaching its end point this year and he has been there on the end of a phone whenever I needed him. We were very close at Uni, did lots of mind altering substances together and laughed a lot. When I am with hi, it is like time melts away and the old jokes return. I am very excited.

I would like to extend the arm of friendship to all the oold guard who have always been there for me such as but not limited to Happy, Vera, Liberty, Adam, Fritz, Jan’s Dad, ButchUgly, SlotJunkie, Liberty, TheEnd, Seri and so many others, as well absent friends such as Charlster who is getting the treatment he deserves at GMA, and our new member Jenny, Gov and so many more I cannot remember. If I forgot your name I am sorry but i do not want to break my stream of thought going back and checking.

I cleaned the house today, washed the sheets and everything is pristine. I am looking forward to my folks coming back. I will no longer have the house to myself but I have shown i can now handle my time on my own and be productive. I could gamble if I wanted to as they have an internet TV, but to be honest it is the last thing on my mind. My computer which I use most of all is properly blocked and that’s what matters.

I wish everyone well in their own personal recovery, and I pray for everyone struggling with this insidious illness. And it is truly and illness and it makes you very ill. gambling does crazy things to one’s mind, it distorts everything, changes the way you see the world, yourself. I am starting to get glimpses of how it changed me as my mind continues to clam down.

Love to all, gotta walk the dog.

xxx

[I_Maverick]

1. My dog sniffing and leaving pee-mails

2. hoovering the house in anticipation of my parents returning

3. the smell of freshly washed clothes

Keep going Micky, I love you posts. So much of what you write rings a chord in me and reminds me why I can never ever get back on the merry go round.

All my love

[I_Maverick]

Well done on day 10. I remember my last day 10 – it felt so massive. I couldn’t wait for the days to pass, not realising what recovery actually meant. Day 70 now and I am starting to get a sense of what recovery really means and it is true what they say – it is for the rest of my life. Roll on 20 more days and I start my steps.

Have a lovely evening with your mum and you glass of wine. Something I heard in GA twice this week is that we have to reward ourselves, otherwise the absintence feels empty. Treat yourself to a 10 day reward.

Keep strong and hopefully your back and health will improve, one day at a time.

[I_Maverick]

Well done mate. Keep it up. You have been an inspiration to me through some dark day and the fact that you still post shows how serious you are.

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