[Liberty]

Loved this Mickey, so very true.

[Liberty]

Loved this Mickey, so very true.

[Liberty]

Vera, oh yes the dreaded postman, a good day is when he does not call, looking out of the window and seeing him walk straight past, is a good day!
When you say some days I don’t think about money at all, they really are a blessing, after all our worrying and anxiety does absolutely nothing to change our debts does it, I spend the day transfixed in fear what has changed at the end of that day, not a thing! Except perhaps my health and the stress on the body caused by the mind.
Yes, I went back to the counsellor yesterday I am emailing him later as I feel I know more about him than he does me at this stage, I thought counsellors were meant to ask questions as to statements you make, all he does is sit there and nod! the only thing I was asked was, how has your week been? I felt he was disinterested and quite bored lol
I think I have had more engagement waiting for a bus with a fellow passenger…..
I told him about a problem I have with one of my own well a problem she has actually, and how I feel totally responsible for it, self loathing etc etc he just nodded so I felt he agreed yes everything is your fault!
I think that was what happened to me on my last gambling spree, when I was even more anxious gambling than not gambling I gues you could say it was like due to the consequences so great the medication had worn off, due to over use I developed an immunity to the supposed cure, then I knew I need to mean business, and got rid of my beloved ipad (I miss you ipad) but I don’t miss what you allowed me to do, ipad you were an enabler!

So it certainly has done nothing to help me at this stage!

[Liberty]

you do have a lot going on right now no wonder you are feeling anxious, if you are anything like me the gambling is used to escape from the anxiety trouble is it magnifies it. I am not sure about the property and debt management I do think it would be worthwhile doing the free assessment tool on step change website, putting in all your situation and all your debts, you don’t need put your name in or anything and it will advise you as to your best course of action.
It’s ok to cry let it out Gov, you have hurt yourself with the gambling, you are a good person and do not deserve to suffer, just try to deal with one problem at a time when we feel we have so many issues to deal with it all gets too much creating ideal addition gambling situation. Do something good for you today, you deserve it.
Today is a new light, you are here because you want to live in the light and can do that, have been doing that and will again now.

[Liberty]

ok, firstly we must accept that the 400 or whatever the amount is has gone, we will never get it back by gambling what we will do is turn that 400 loss into a thousand loss and so on, we then feel we need to work even harder on it as we have so much more to chase to get back, fast forward sitting there, why did I not stop at 400 I could have coped with that, now it’s 4000! that’s the reality of our addiction our inability to accept its got us beat. When I finally admitted to myself that I can never ever beat it, it’s an illusion cos any win ultimately becomes a loss, and we know we don’t mean just the loss of the money!
You are not a big headed person at all Gov, you have fallen into the trap of complacency which I have done many times with stops of six months and so on, but that’s ok you now know that so you are in a better position to do something about it.
I think if you look back to your earlier posts, I can’t see it now but I remember one a few days ago about you being annoyed due to the huge payments you were having to make to your debts on the cards, this was the gambling addiction getting back in, trying to I think, lying to you again that you can win to pay off.
I can never say I will never gamble again as I have said that so many times in the past and then gambled and gambled my head in! never again is out of our comprehension once the pain wears off, so today, today I will not gamble forget about eternity, just today it works Gov.
x

[Liberty]

I think your daily 3 things to be grateful for are brilliant, I check them out each time I come on site so thank you for posting them.
Good move on the sport supplement 🙂
reading is good, but when we are not gambling we sure do need structure and aims in our days, your cliff walking sounds wonderful there is nothing like being outside in the glory of nature to see how truly fortunate we are, how much has been provided for us freely and it is priceless.
I live by the sea and I can’t remember the last time I went to the beach for a walk, you have reminded me how wonderful it is, thank you for that Micky.

[Liberty]

For posting your description of fear, I can relate to it, especially
“I want to make you so afraid that you will not want to try anything new.”
so true!
Have a great weekend SJ, good to speak to you in chat, chat soon x

[Liberty]

Very kind of you to post on my thread.
Depression is terribly difficult to live with and when we use gambling to escape from the depression all it does is make it worse, it’s taken me long enough t realise temporary measures like gambling are not a long term solution, gambling kills your very core an aftermath I can not endure any more. Some days my anxiety is so bad my legs won’t even move it’s like I have forgotten how to put one foot in front of the other, so consumed by anxiety, all the time I was gambling it eased it (temporarily) however, the situation that I now have to live with, (the consequences) intensify anxiety, it takes courage to face up to the consequences of my self medication, anxiety is based on fear I think and hopefully as I get more courageous the fear will lessen hence the anxiety will be arrested. Well in theory, but I have a long way to go yet, what’s that saying every journey begins with a single step.
This will be with me for the rest of my life, yes I will always be a CG, but I don’t have to live that life of torment in action I refuse.

[Liberty]

Sorry to hear that you gambled last night, I know the feeling too well after years of it.
It’s really important that you see it for what it is a moment that you succumbed to this gambling addiction, this does not take away all the work and effort that you have put in so far, you still have all the gamble free time that has not gone away, so you know the difference in how you feel living recovery and now the terrible way you feel right now. All is not lost, what could you have done different to prevent last night? What was the feelings you had before you gambled?
Cut up the card, do what ever it takes to help you recover from this slip as once enlivened this monster knows no bounds and now its been fed you must get the blocks higher to protect you from it, you have learned from this Gov, in time my biggest trigger was complacency, believing that I could ‘contol’ it well that will never happen because I am a compulsive gambler and once the reels start spinning there is no stopping, sending you hugs Gov, you can do it as you have been these past months, its not easy but see it for what it is, a blip on your pathway in recovery you have not failed, you will be back in recovery yesterday is dead and gone and so is the money, just accept that and don’t be hard on yourself Gov, you are dealing with a terrible addiction and dealing with it well. x

[Liberty]

chronicles of my journey 🙂

[Liberty]

chronicles of my journey 🙂

[Liberty]

I have been reading your journal and wanted to say that I think that you have done an amazing thing by telling your son about the true extent of your gambling problem, you should feel very proud of yourself, I think it is even harder to tell our children simply because we feel we must stay high on the pedestal of parenthood, and the worry about the burden that we feel we can not pass to them since we are ‘the parent’ and not the child. You say you been playing some panda game, I used to spend hours playing candy crush until I realised that when I was not gambling I was using that as a replacement so it kind of kept the compulsive gambling alive, so I no longer play any games since I become compulsive on those too, just my experience. 🙂
I know all about the piles of unopened letters, it took me four months to get the courage to open mine and have recently got debt help from step change. Gambling for me at this stage frightens the life out of me as I know I can’t stop once started so I have no access to online gambling, the urges are there at times, sometimes extremely strong but due to the blocking of access I am safe for me at the moment it is the only way.
I am glad that you are going on the residential next week, I attended that too you will get a lot of help and learn new strategies and reasons as to why you gamble, I will be praying and thinking of you all next week its a beautiful place I wish I could gate crash.
You are doing well Andrea, to not gamble with all that happened yesterday is fantastic, you can have a better life, life is not about money, we born with none we leave with none its the love and life we lead that counts and we can all live a good moral life without gambling, it’s not easy but anything worth having never is. Take good care of yourself Andrea

[Liberty]

Vera and Kpat for your advice.
My anxiety certainly seems to have hit a new level since not gambling, so it was definitely my medication for anxiety,
I have done nothing about my appointment tomorrow, I was going to email the counsellor but decided I would speak to him about my concerns face to face, which is half way to being brave for me anyway.
We can advise each other, but of course the only thing for sure we all have in common is the compulsive gambling, advice helps a lot but we each have to find our own way and what works for us. I have many reasons that the male session is uncomfortable for me, it is not just because I relate better to ladies in general. Anyway I will see how it goes tomorrow.
The worst thing about anxiety is the fact it has no logic, half the time I don’t even know what I am anxious about, I don’t feel as depressed but I seem to have exchanged that for a bigger helping of anxiety. I have a lot of things happening within my family that I can’t make perfect, someone I love is suffering and I know that the problems she has have been caused by me, that’s a fact and I am fighting the self despise a lot of the time. The gambling did that, my gambling as I would never have suffered so much mental health problems if I had never gambled and to live with someone who is like that for years is bound to have an effect.
I can never get those years back, all I can do is do my very best to stay on an even keel and that can only be achieved by not gambling. Gambling has robbed me of peace forget the money, its the destruction of me.
I need to be able to make everything better take away her pain, I wish I knew how. How could I have let it go on for so long! How could it ever have been fun? actually fun stopped long ago. Maybe I should have called myself humpty dumpty……

[Liberty]

great to meet you Jenna 🙂 It’s great that you have got your barriers in place to protect your pay in the early days it really is the only way.
Gov you are doing amazingly well you should be very proud of how much you have put into place to keep you safe from this demon.
I am not doing too bad except my anxiety has been really bad the last couple of days, even the littlest thing I need to do, sets me into I can not cope mode. Just getting ready, just having a shower is like a stressful task, an every day event like a mountain to be climbed. I think the anxiety has worsened as I was due to have an apt with a councellor yesterday which I did attend, however although the chap was a very nice chap I felt most anxious throughout the session which he picked up on and it did not lessen even at the end of the session. I have some difficulties relating to men, a lot related to past events that go back a long way and also I really have not had anything to do with men for years, gosh that sounds like I am a man hater but I am not it’s just that I know I won’t be able to talk to this man about certain things, I am already dreading next week so I think I am going to have to email and explain and ask if it is possible to have a female even if that means I have to wait a while, I am not sure if this will even be possible but I don’t think there is much point in going if it just makes me feel more anxious, I really don’t know, everything is such a struggle right now. In a way the first couple of weeks without gambling were a lot easier than they are now, I noticed that in previous stop attempts, it’s as time goes on things seem to get overwhelming for me and that was when the gambling option of escape became the release. It was never a release though not ever as I always felt worse after than I did before the event, I have to admit though that during the event I had peace, relief but so short lived. I guess it would be the same for folk who had a really good night out drinking with friends it was great until the next morning but multiply that hangover by about a thousand and you will be almost at the gambling hangover place, not nice not nice at all, so I can’t have that place anymore, I have to learn to deal with my anxiety and be brave. I have been meaning to buy this book called face the fear and do it anyway for a long time, I could not afford it though! Now, I think it is time I spent money on things that can help me, not destroy me, so I will buy it.
Yes, I just made a positive decision 🙂

[Liberty]

Thank you for your post and well done to you on realising that the only way to win at this is to stop. We can never erase the past, but we can learn from it and what I have learned is that this addiction is sneaky, crafty and it does not want to go away, if I had a pound for every time in the past I had stopped and truly believed that to be true, I be a far wealthier woman than I am today.
I can’t really advise you as to what you need to do in your relationship as I don’t know the dynamics of your relationship. What I can say is this is a really difficult ‘secret’ to carry alone and I know that in order to be able to recover from it, you will need as much help and support as possible. It seems like you were an online gambler like me, do you have anyone helping you with blocking access on your computer?
Jenna, you said how can I expect him to still love me, you are not a bad person you have fallen foul to an addiction that you are now going to be doing your best to address, love is patient love is kind, you are still the same lady he fell in love with and you don’t just give up on someone who has a problem, but you do need to make sure that it is impossible for you to gamble on line so its good to get a trusted person to help you with that, because it does not just go away even when you are feeling determined to stop, well it never did for me anyway!
I will check out your thread Jenna, good to meet you.

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