[I_Maverick]

Hi Kevin,

Well done for finding this site. Thanks to the support here, and my GA meetings, I have not had a bet for 30 days today. It has been hell stopping gambling. If I hadn’t had a lapse 30 days ago I would have been on day 48. 30 days is my first major milestone. It is the longest I think I have gone without any kind of a bet for 4 or 5 years. I am a mental wreck but I trust in my higher power that I am in recovery.

As with anything you get out of this what you put in. If I had found this place a few years ago I would probably not be in the position I am. But I cannot change the past and I can only be grateful I have found it now, even though my life right now is a total wreck due to gambling and other factors.

Please feel free to write your story, as much or as little as you like, and people will offer support and advice. This is a terrible addiction to someone we can never win. When we win we put it back, when we lose we chase and lose more. It is lose lose. The only way to win at gambling is not to gamble. If we could walk away with winnings, we wouldn’t be here. What characterises us as CGs is that we cannot stop, we are emotionally invested and we chase and chase.

Have you looked for a GA in your area? Stopping gambing is hard as it is a learned beavhiour, but I have seen so many people in my GA meetings who have done it I know I can. People who lost homes, jobs, families, were homeless – now, many years later lead productive lives thanks to GA and support groups like this.

I hope you are ok, it is a while since you posted. Take care.

[I_Maverick]

Charlster, I just wanted to thank you on your thread for the support you have offered me this week on my thread. It means a lot. I am so heartened by the way you came through your lapse, and have taken the bull by the horns. You have expressed your thoughts here with clarity and more importantly taken advice in the right frame of mind and you have achieved some great successes, so that you can focus on your time at GMA.

The work you have done with the job people, housing people, letting agents. By letting people in, even though you don;t know them, they have been able to show sympathy and help. I have been finding that. By being honest with people, it means they have a better understanding of where my head is. That means they can offer better adbive.

I have 9 days to go and that is not much time. I still have a lot to do, but if I focus (which I have not been able to do for a long time) I can get as much done as possible.

I really respect your attitude. Keep posting.

Have a great weekend

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Hi Charles,

Thanks for asking. Mornings are the hardest, where I have to face the facts. I am usually fine late at night, but in the mornings my head is full of negative thoughts but this morning I started challenging them and trying to turn them around.

My life right now is a hole. Gambling coupled with depression coupled with lack of planning, laziness, ego, big-headedness have all combined to create a person who is a long way from their best.

I find it depressing just how I have lived my life, full of fear and. I feel I have achieved very little, and the truth is I haven’t becuase I have held myself back by never fully believing in who I am. I have always convinced myself I am no good, even when trying to achieve things. This is a deadly combination.

I see you just posted, so if you want to chat in one of the open chat rooms.

How are you feeling? You have achieved a lot in the last week, I really respect that.

Have a great gamble free day.

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Feeling inspired. Watched a very entertaining movie, realise that I am where I am supposed to be. That’s all I know. I am where I am. Time to grow up and accept that, warts and all. This is my journey, dammit – why am I so scared of my own journey. Why should it have been any different? It is what it is, just like all our journeys are.

Thank you everyone who reads and posts on my blog, it means a lot, really it does. Knowing that there are strangers out there who understand and care is amazing to know. There is so much knowledge. I am hoping that my posts will get more positive from now on, I have crossed a new personal benchmark. I think this might be the first time in almost 10 years I have gone 30 days without a gamble of any kind. No lottery tickets, scratch cards, poker games online or off, now fruit machines. ANything. I actually realised today I have always been a compuslive gambler, it just didn’t chance to take over until I found online poker. I am a long way from understanding addiction, but I realise I am an addict to whatever. Right now it’s still cigarettes. I can live with that for now. ALthough I do want to give them up as well at some point soon.

I am feeling stronger now, a bit more together. Time to get ready to rumble.

Have a wonderful morning

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Feeling inspired. Watched a very entertaining movie, realise that I am where I am supposed to be. That’s all I know. I am where I am. Time to grow up and accept that, warts and all. This is my journey, dammit – why am I so scared of my own journey. Why should it have been any different? It is what it is, just like all our journeys are.

Thank you everyone who reads and posts on my blog, it means a lot, really it does. Knowing that there are strangers out there who understand and care is amazing to know. There is so much knowledge. I am hoping that my posts will get more positive from now on, I have crossed a new personal benchmark. I think this might be the first time in almost 10 years I have gone 30 days without a gamble of any kind. No lottery tickets, scratch cards, poker games online or off, now fruit machines. ANything. I actually realised today I have always been a compuslive gambler, it just didn’t chance to take over until I found online poker. I am a long way from understanding addiction, but I realise I am an addict to whatever. Right now it’s still cigarettes. I can live with that for now. ALthough I do want to give them up as well at some point soon.

I am feeling stronger now, a bit more together. Time to get ready to rumble.

Have a wonderful morning

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Just a quickie. Watching Kingsman online and almost at the end of the movies. Colin Firth quotes Ernest Hemingway:

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

If that does not sum up recovery, I don’t know what does. Thanks Ernie.

[I_Maverick]

Still no gambling, Day 29. But over the last week I have been reserahcing the 2 poker sites I used to use. I kept a record of all the bad beats I had where I would go all in against somewhere where I had them massively dominated and they would suck me out with miracle cards over and over again. Turns out there is a lot of noise on the internet about how these sites rig the acrds for action, giving lots of people in the hand great hands to ramp up the rake. eg, AA, KK, QQ or multiple straights/ flushes. I found myself going back over my old losing hands and found so many insane hands that were simply designed to lose me money. Where I have 88 and flop and 8 but am going up against someone with 999 etc etc.

I am sure it is mot a good idea for me to look at them, but along with being addicted to the damn game (so much time spent, so much time lost, so much money and energy lost) it was a game that was rigged against me. Sure I had the odd win, but if I started playing too well then the cards turned against me. Good example I have AA and raise, someone goes all in and I call they turn over 34 and the flop comes A25. Or I have AA go all in someone calls and they have Q9 and 999QQ comes up. So what a fool I was. I was addcited to a gambling game that was rigged against me.

I am not going to look at those hands any more or do any more resrarch. I need to forget about gambling completely and move on. But I still feel I have made a huge mistake by closing my office down (we had a great deal on the rent, granted it was too big for just me and I was lonely in there and it was a mess) and going to GMA. I know I can never win at gambling, because if I do I will never keep the winnings. It also affects me emotionally on so many levels. The thought of ever gambling again sickens me. But I have done NOTHING since stopping gambling except being depressed and unable to function. Utterly unable to function. I am not a living human being at the moment. My thoughts are all focused on teh past, I am tired, I am not eating or sleeping, I hate myself – I am a broken record. I really need help, so what a fool I would be NOT to go to GMA. I clearly need help. Gambling is just one of my issues, but it is the issue which has come to dominate my life, thinking etc.

Are there any people out there in good recovery who have been thrugh this, their first 30 days or so where they couldn’t function – or am I just a loser. I really need strength to change my way of thinking. How can I do this, how can I change my mental attitude? It seems without gambling and secrets I am not who I was – it seems I need to radically change my way of thinking and being.

My life is dead. Long live my life.

[I_Maverick]

Thank you for the posts. I have just got back from A&E with my wife and son. My little boy can’t walk on on eo fhis legs and has started crawling everywhere. So we went to A&E with him. He had jis first x-ray. Nothin broken. The doctor thinks he has sprained his ankle, nothing more. Reminded me of what life is really all about. The addiction has made me so derelict in my fathering duties to the point where my wife has had enough.

In all the time gambling I have never been made to feel to low. I think it’s because I only lost money before, not everything I hold dear. Now I want to go back in time and made different decisions but I can’t. None of us can. We can only go forward with time’s arrow. Make me feel even more foolish, but I cannot allow this addiction to wreck any more of my life. As long as I continue to gamble everything else stops. The act of gambling takes over my brain. I can only assume that these feelings are the addiction crying out to be fed.

Now I feel stronger, I feel as if it was wrong to close the office and go to rehab. That feels like a cop out. I have gone 29 days without a bet. I can go longer – I need to fix my business. BUt the truth is the office has closed down and the company is insolvenet. I have to face that fact. I also have to face the fact that I am very depressed, my moods swing about and I need more tools to ake sure I never start gambling again. It is such a waste of time and yet… and yet… I know I would love to gamble, but I would never be able to stop. I must live without it.

I hope that this is the right decision, to go to GMA. I know I cannot ever face going through what I ave just been through again and hopefully this will be the making of me.

Love to all

[I_Maverick]

Thanks Charlster. I am trying, I really am. But the sick feelings I have just won’t go away. I am finding it so hard to let go of my stupidity. I know this is something that many people on this site feel/ have felt. I just don’t understand why I have done this. Looking back there really was no other solution – I’ve been a mental and physical wreck for 3 years, ever since starting to play online. But why couldn’t I see it, how was I so blind? Why couldn’t I have been in this position last year, before we started the big project. How could I have not put blockers on years ago as I did want to stop, but I kept finding ways to play. And by god when I played I LOVED it, even this year. The rush etc. But the consequences are so great, so final.

[I_Maverick]

I have to go to GMA Charlster. There is no doubt about that. My wife wants me out of the house, and to be honest I thought I would be feeling stronger after 29 days but today it is awful. But it is more than the gambling, it is the last 20 years or so of my life, which is not all gambling. gambling is just my latest destructive addiction. I have explained before how I have been addicted to many things in the past. These numb my emotions, numb my feelings – so I don’t have to be me. But emotionally this is the worst – I never lost my business through other addictions, and when I came out of them I was ok. This though has wrecked my self esteem more than anything.

I just know I had the chance last year to make the biggest positive difference in my life if I had stuck to my plans. But I got lazy, and so the difference is negative. People say I can start another business – of course I can. But I have had this one for 14 years, it has been me. By breaking this business I have broken a serious part of myself. But the truth is I was negligent – businesses don’t run themselves. They need to be cared for, nourished, loved. The same is true of people, ourselves. I haven’t done any loving of myself in such a long time, all I have done is punished myself. And here I am, doing it again.

No, I will go to GMA. APart from learning ways to stay away from gambling I intend to learn about myself. I will be in a safe environment, I need to take care of myself again (I have become co-dependent on my wife to a scary degree) and I need to be free from gambling so I can live the rest of my life.

I realised I have gambled on and off all my life, I have always love dit. So no wonder when I found online gambling I became hooked immediately. Oh what I would give to go back 4.5 years and never open an online account.

Take care and have a great day

[I_Maverick]

Charlster, today it feels like nothing has changed in 3 months. The only difference is I have’t placed a bet for 29 days – but the ramifications of the gambling are all around me. I don’t know how I will cope. I have no income and I have just gone into my overdraft for the first time in 12 months – at the start of this year I had savings. Now I have nothing, not even a way of earning money. As much as I want to do GMA, I feat it will bankrupt me as I have debts going out which I cannot service and I am seriously worried.

Today we are seing the accountants whom I owe 3K too to discuss the company. I just don’t know how it led here – actually I do. I didn’t stop gambling, and so my focus was not on my family/ myself/ business but just on finding ways o gamble without getting caught. So pathetic.

Glad things are going well for you – the potnetial of a job when you get out is awesome. Is that from the interview you did? Well done mate.

take care

[I_Maverick]

HI BU

It’s been a while since you posted, how are you doing? I pray you are still gamble free and that you are moving into recovery. Things are tough for me at the moment in terms of my mental health but I haven’t placed a bet for 29 days which is a personal record. The truth is that I have no urges to gamble, what’s the point? I have achieved everything I wanted to do through gambling and that is ruin my life. I am starting to believe that deep down that is what I wanted to do, what I always do. Ruin everything good in my life as I do not deserve anything better.

You take care and let us knowhow you are doing

mav

[I_Maverick]

How are you doing JD? I am on day 29, but my mental health is worse than ever. Cannot stop thinking about I have screwed my life up. I know I need to let it go, it’s in the past, I can’t do anything about it. For my future I need to move on but struggling to. You should be day 56 today, that is so awesome. You are close to beating the 63 – keep posting with your recovery.

take care.

[I_Maverick]

So didn’t sleep last night. Just full of panic, worry, guilt, self hatred, self loathing for what I have done to my life. It’s not just gambling, but how I live my life. I was recovery but don’t know what to do. This is not going to fix itself, I have to fix me. But how. I have thrown away everything that is goo din my life. Am I going to feel like this forever? Is it all lost? I honestly see no future for me today. Yesterday I felt ok, but today all is lost again – the severity of what I have done all too apparant.

I am close to thinking of ending my life – what is the point of going on? I know I won’t as I don’t have the guts. But I have screwed up my life so royally in so many ways, and so much of it is to do with what the gambling did to my mind.

yesterday while walking my sleeping son in the cot I started daydreaming about gambling, about hands played at poker, losses, bad beats etc etc. I caught myself after about 20 mins. Hadn’t noticed he was awake. Playing that stupid game has dominated my life for 3 years, turned me into a lazy, stupid person who cannot see what good he has in his life, or how good his life could be. I am big headed, egotistical, thinking I could have it all. I could, if I could control the gambling and not let it control me.

I am still addicted to gambling even though I haven’t placed a bet for 29 days. This is the longest I have ever been – pathetic isn’t it. How could something like gambling have such a profound affect on my mind.

I truly hate myself this morning, hate the fact I have no future, hate the fact that all I can do is live in the past. Paid the company debts, rebuilt the copmany, refocused it, did what I dreamt of it – instead I did the minimum work to deliver the project (which could have been so much more effecient if I had been more organised) and the found new clients, new staff, got advice etc.

I had my dream in my hands and I threw it away because I didn’t value it. I don’t value anything, least of all myself. After my first year of proper compulsive gambing I lost 20K which set me off into a depression. End of 2012 – U started GA but carrued on playing in secret – then getting caught, promising I would never do it again – then getting better at lying.

It all aught up with me until I lost it all – and I did it, no one else. I have no one to blame but myself. How can I forgive myself this?

I pray for recovery, I try to be grateful for what I have. My son, my health – but I have no future at the moment. Apart from going to GMA, on May 11, to sort this out. Maybe I will have a future if I put all my energy into that.

I love you all, and I love reading stories of recovery, so please keep posting.

[I_Maverick]

Wow Charlster, what a superb post. Truly inspirational. I had to read it 3 times. I too have had a lovely day today with my young son. I am trying to get as much time with him as possible before I go to GMA.

I am slowly working through my tick list too. This just goes to show that there is human kindness out there. People listen and can understand. You sound as if you are through the worst of it in terms of the depression after your lapse, and that you are now thinking more clearly. Well done, it is such a pleasure to see the switch in mood in you.

Maybe see you at 7 on the support group?

Take care mate

Mav

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