[Monica1]

I read your post and was touched by its deep honesty. I like reading your posts. I think you are a very bright guy and I am really sorry to hear the job didn’t work out. My last contract didn’t work out either. It is a blow, but it happens sometimes when you are a contractor. What happened, if you are Ok to talk about it? No worries if you don’t. i agree with you when you say how do you quantify another persons suffering through this addiction? My view, for what it’s worth, is Vera talks about the trap doors and how far you can fall with this addiction. I have fallen a long way to my personal rock bottom where some serious health issues have emerged as a result of the financial stress this addiction has caused. I think geordie hit the bottom trap door and talks from experience of the worst that this addiction can bring. It isn’t a competition though and as I said no one can say anyone’s suffering is worse. Like you in five and a half years, I know that I cannot take another relapse and never want to gamble again. What makes it different this time? I have suffered enough and cannot bear that I have done this to myself. Like you I never want to make another bet as a service to myself for whatever time is left in this life. I personally have found GA and a sponsor to be the only thing that has helped me, and I tried many things along the way which didn’t help at all. The 12 steps are quite painful to do, which is why some people avoid it for some time or do not do them at all. The pain within that caused us to gamble and for me the existential grief needs to be released. Not that I like it that much. This addiction takes so much of ourselves away from us, yet there are many deep spaces within us that hold a large degree of pain, that triggered gambling, that we tight maybe we had dealt with but hadn’t really. I am it advocating or saying this is the case for you. I am just saying that it is my experience and different people find other things more helpful. I hope you get another job soon Jonny.

[Monica1]

Quiet day today. Woke up feeling positive. Still spending my time in my bedroom and haven’t really got up from my sick bed yet but will tomorrow. Still coughing but. It as much. Got the tv working and watched X factor. And had roast duck and mash as my one meal a day. Had a nice chat in group,with idi about reinventing ourselves. Things are looking up!

[Monica1]

I ask myself the same questions. Who I was a 54 pre cancer is not who I am now. I got angry inside at the unfairness and loneliness of it all and I gambled. I felt and still do that I was in a stagnating situation, Things and ourselves do change as we get older. One thing I can say is that you are not havng a breakdown idi. This situation has upset you and you need, in a calm way to get some clarity on it. I see the unfairness and the cruelty in this crazier by the minute world and sometimes it upsets me a lot. But we do our little bit, we pray and focus on the good things like love p, family and ***** our blessings. Some days I say I can walk, talk, breathe and occasionally eat. And in my situation, sometimes that is just enough. When we get older I think we are like the film as good as it gets. Sometimes our dreams are crushed, as mine have been, with all the wasted learning. But I am not giving up, I got past that. With the gambling was me giving up. And it gets us precisely nowhere. More pain and more suffering. You will be ok idi. Change is difficult, particularly in the workplace. You need to stop upsetting yourself about it and get some clarity on the whole situation and your position in it. And you will come through it.

[Monica1]

Well, as I mentioned I last went to step change in may when I was working and they said that my next step was bankruptcy if I could not
do the debt repayment, which was 2k a month just on the debts for around 3 years. Totally undoable as I was on a short term contract of just 3 months. I am on sickness benefit and well below the poverty line because of the bedroom tax. Iva or bankruptcy messes up my career. So I am kinda stuck. I will go back to step change soon but my housing association are looking into grants to help with an Iva or br. I have lived with this debt situation for so many years, and have had my fill of it. I now just want it to stop one way or another. I did go to CAB but they weren’t much help two years ago. I always find the budgets they do a bit of a fairy story. There are always things that come up that we need to buy that are not part of the budget. One thing I would love to do if I do an Iva is tell the council tax office to stuff their debt. They carry it on year after year, it never gets written off, That is the rebellious me coming out. Seriously though years and years of debt even pre gambi g make you seriously question the society and culture we live in. It is all just,pay pay pay. Never mind if you have t got it, pay it! Would not surprise me if babies are bar coded as consumers at birth in the next decade. There I am, clerly jaded by too much debt and hounding for too many years.

[Monica1]

Throwing them all away sounds like a really good idea to me geordie. Except I am expecting some serious crap i.e. A big creditor filing Bankruptcy etc at some point soon. You know the world is mad. I had my first ccj a few weeks ago and this week an email saying your credit rating has increased. Bonkers, this world is bonkers!

[Monica1]

I have a lot of these. Havent had the strength to open them. Got to at some point.

[Monica1]

That at least isa good thing. Some of these on line casinos make it so,hard to self exclude, even by not being able to,find it on the site. Can you not just email support and close the account?

[Monica1]

Delete it or e mail back and self exclude. You do not have to go into your account. I remember in a period of abstinence, not recovery when I got 10 10 quid spins free by email. I asked my son to play them, as i dare not and all the time got the flutters and that feeling again until he told me what happened. One win early on and then they played right through, as they do. It is a tempting con and it is rigged just like cash back. never wins. They know what happens i.e. Deposit and they rely on it. I delete any random bonus emails I get or Email back support and say I am a cg, don’t send me emails. Logging into existing accounts is danger territory. And what are you doing with an active account?

[Monica1]

Well, met with my sponsor before the meeting for a chat which was helpful. I was feeling a little low before the meeting which may be down to just eating two biscuits today. No food in the house. The topic to night was abstinence v recovery. I coughed and spluttered throughout the meeting. Interesting shares and views on this. I had been thinking about this all week. I shared that I knew very early on within six months I had a gambling problem, went to Gamcare, had some superficial counselling, knew very little about the disease. It was called problem gambling, not a compulsive in sight. And I thought I was cured. Was abstinent for 9 months and started again when I had been working hard, with no social life and was bored. Each relapse progressively worse. I was in abstinence not recovery. It was only walking through the doors of GA and starting the steps that recovery began. And it was and is painful on occasions. My brain has taken a long time to settle from the rewiring that playing slots for many hours cause and my emotions have reared and are all over the place. That is the start of recovery, or at least I hope it is. An example, a song just came on the radio, three times a lady and I start to well up. No idea why! Went through the Step work on powerlessness and justification at the end of the meeting. All in all a good meeting tonight. 4 of us girls this evening! Got home quite late and Pete was out but left me a supermarket curry. More junk and first meal of the day at 11pm. I gotta sort something out! Got my hospital appointment for next week. From seeing Gp on Monday, appointment for this coming Tuesday. Next step how has gambling affected your physical health. Now let me see… I think I feel a novel coming on!

[Monica1]

Hi idi. Been to GA tonight so not posted today.
My last relapse was triggered by a big disappointment. What I have learned through GA is that it does not matter what the trigger or disappointment is, there isn’t an excuse that should trigger us to gamble. It was one of the first things I learned on quite a deep level, particularly as the disappointment that triggered my last self destruct,was,quite a big one. Plus,whoever said that you have to grin and bear it when we are upset or feeling emotional? It,is hard feeling these emotions that seem to rear their heads in early recovery. I walk out of meetings before I blub! I know that I have,put up with tons of crap,in my life until I decide that I no longer will. It has taken me a very long time indeed to get to that point. We need to understand why we are feeling that way and then do something positive about it. If angry, don’t lose,it, but just say what is making you angry. It sounds like you have made some positive steps,today anyway. What did you do?

[Monica1]

Good poem.

[Monica1]

Good poem.

[Monica1]

I enjoyed the groups tonight I did it to the extent I did 4 or maybe 5 through to the midnight one with me and p, from the start with the 7pm new members one. I think because I missed GA this week I needed them. I need the support,with so much emotions coming in that I had cut myself off from. I feel a bit like a baby. Particularly when I feel the things that. Are me angry and I so do not want to cry at a GA meeting, I had to leave promptly last week or else they would have seen my blubbering, I am sorry that you had name calling in a group, that is unacceptable, I think we need to be completely non judgmental at these things because this addiction is so,tough on the mental health. I think the word I am looking for,is compassion. I know I have it for all humans who are suffering but particularly for this addiction. It has taken us to places that are so painful and miserable and destroys lives. But not today for us or tomorrow. Am at GA tomorrow evening but will try and catch a group soon.

[Monica1]

Thanks for the chat.

[Monica1]

It was fun. That is 4 groups today. I need them right now,with what I am dealing with. And you are right, the boys hate him because he was, and I have to stress was, a y violent man,who transformed himself,with my help through anger management. The women in the family accept him. My mum and daughter like him but we finished six years ago. I mean, talk about procrastination. I could not out him into the street as I was the earner. Now he is and I am on my knees financially. So,I,will have to deal,with this at some point.

[Author]

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