[peacegirl]

Way to go on May be gambling free!! I am here for you, just like you have been for me!! We can do this girl, we can!! We have to change for good, so our lives are not remembered for this terrible addiction and instead for the good that is inside us, because I truly believe most addicted gamblers are hurting inside, are really good people who are just a little lost! ODAAT:)

[peacegirl]

There are no words to express how awful we feel when we slip up, or how devastated and sick inside we feel and lost and guilty and on and on.. One week ago, I too felt crazy- sick- horrible!! I had went over 2 months with no gambling and thought I was totally done, thought I had no urges- no need for any of it! It took me those 2 full months to even begin to get back on track from the destruction of the gambling binges right before that! So, to be back on track somewhat and then after 2 months or really over 2 months, to go and destroy everything I worked so hard for, finances, emotions, urges all that was shocking! I couldn’t believe myself, still can’t really! But after 1 week that lump in the throat that wants to spill over and make us sick starts to just barely go away a little and so please please hang in there. During this past week I had urges so strong to go WIN my money back, to make up for the huge mistake I did last weekend, but I somehow didn’t go and now the urges are a little lighter and I know over time will go down less and less! But I have to keep my guard up, you do, we all on here do- even months, years after we quit! We just can’t be social and casual gamblers, we know no control! All the best, please know you are special and important and take it ODAAT..

[peacegirl]

I couldn’t have said it better Vera, I think I was meant to meet her! I kept thinking the whole 3 hours drive home about what it would be like if I kept gambling and kept going down the pit of darkness until after I died everyone knew- and they were mad at me, like she is struggling with those feeling towards her husband. I just want to be better, and never look back, but it has crept up on me so many times in the past- I know I have to just keep on guard every day! How are you coming along Vera? I hope you are doing alright and staying away from our greatest temptation!

[peacegirl]

Enjoying a day at home with my dogs and my son and husband! I have stressers in my mind because I have a $3000 hospital bill right now, that I sure could pay easier if I wouldn’t have gambled, but I guess that is just one of the many costs of this addictions! For today I will not gamble…

[peacegirl]

Yes I am very firm in my resolve, although I realize now I have to guard myself all the time, every moment and just keep pushing forward. I just got home, was away for 2 days helping my husband with work. It was long hours and hot, but at least I was busy- no time to gamble… How ironic is it that I met this really sweet woman who is 66 years old, and just lost her husband last year and after we talked for awhile, she said that he had in the last few years of his life developed a gambling problem. She said even though he’s been gone a year, it still took her until now to really be able to forgive him. He wiped out their savings, which wasn’t alot- but was $3000 and alot to a retired couple, and he had been borrowing from everyone she found out, to play slots! I din’t tell her the extent of my problem of course, but I did tell her I have been around gambling and it’s very easy to fall into it, and that I am so sure her husband is so sorry for it! I hope everyone is having a good weekend, and a has a great mothers day tomorrow. I am not sure if it’s mom’s day over there, but I am so happy I still have my mom! I talk to her everyday for hours on the phone when I can, she lives 1400 miles away, but she visits often. She knows everything about me, and she loves me more then anyone on this earth has, or I know ever will!! She is often my therapy and often who I cry to! She is wise and helpful, never condemning, never-not once!! I just love her so much!! Will write more tomorrow:) One week no gambling!! Will keep going ODAAT…

[peacegirl]

I am over here in the states and not even sure there is a program that is like the Gordon Moody one I keep seeing and hearing about! What a wonderful opportunity for very serious CG’s to go there and to find peace and learn so many things. I know sometimes from helping others with their addictions (not gambling) that a move to somewhere else, or going away several months can make a huge difference! Great to hear you are headed home, and remember to apply all techniques they taught you and share with us those tools to, so we all can learn and grow together to remain gamble free ODAAT!:)

[peacegirl]

That is something Charles, and thank you!! I will try to make a variety of healthier choices.. I can’t seem to get into the groups at the right times? I will try though again! Thank you for writing, I really liked the story and it made me really think that I have to learn to be well rounded in all areas as I am trying to replace the gambling with new habits:)

[peacegirl]

I read your post Cat above where you said you miss your machines and all that, and wow it was like I was writing it myself! I feel exactly the same way!! But 18 months is huge, what an accomplishment.. And for you to keep posting and realizing that you still need to is amazing. I can only hope in 18 months I have not gambled and that I am still working on things and coming and getting my feeling out! Thank you for that post!!!

[peacegirl]

You enjoy your night Vera!! You are so right, everything else we do that is “normal” will cost us so much less!! I will talk to my therapist when I go about adding some grief counseling in there too! Thanks for the advise on that:) Catch up with you very soon!!

[peacegirl]

What time is the group that Charles will be in? I used to tell my brother a little of the gambling thing when he lived with us, but now well I don’t want to mess him up in any way! He has come so far!! I used to walk every single night with my dog for 7 years. Then last year when my dad had his heart attack, and then the next month my older brother was killed in a truck accident, and left behind his wife- my sister in law who had terminal leukemia- well I spent 9 months caring for all 3 of those issues and totally lost the walking each day!! These are issues I still deal with too right now, loosing my brother last year and my sis-in-law in Feb… I was her care giver for 8 months, was able to kind of keep gambling at bay most of last year due to all the tradgidy… But now being alone so much while hubby works, my brother gone, my sis gone too and the pain of that sometimes is unbearable! For 8 months I took my sis-in-law everywhere she wanted to go, beach, mountains, visiting, eating anywhere… Ironically she saw a billboard for the casino and a singing group that was coming and she wanted to go. So I actually took her, not to group but to gamble…I wasn’t into it much then, too much going on.. I felt awful having her there- in my place where I had issues and her smiling and playing $5 for the whole day and me thinking of the massive money I wasted there and the larger machines I play, so we didn’t go there more- THANK goodness!! I cared for her until she passed away right beside our room the morning of Feb.10th.. She was in a coma at the end, hospice was so wonderful- her nurse was and still is our friend forever! But the pain of loosing them, it really is hard!! I will say it contributes to my problem, it is NOT the problem- I was a CG long before all that!! I remember maybe 6 years ago or so, I went to gamble with a friend and I won $60, but I kept playing. That person told me way back then, You have a problem… Of course I didn’t think I did!! Now I know better, no longer do I play $60, that is like a penny compared to how it escalated to amounts too sickening to think of! Anyway, I’m rambling.. Just so many thoughts all the time, and finally a place to express them!!! Hugs to you Vera

[peacegirl]

Not for me, the more stories I read, the more I think what a terrible shame this whole illness is, and I always think of myself as a horrible CG-and my mind reminds me I am an addict!!! I do agree though, what is it that makes us want to read about others who are CG’s and the things they are going through! Are we trying to relate to someone, or in my case sometimes I read other people’s stories to scare myself into realizing just how serious and awful this addiction is!! And it’s funny how emotions can go from good to bad in a day! Right now, just an hour or so after I posted my upbeat post for the morning, work is bothering and stressing me and I felt an urge to gamble… Escape is part of my issue for sure! I could sit for hours, days probably in front of machine after machine and zone out and think of nothing!! Forget all the responsibilities and harshness of the world and I would also forget to eat ect… That is what I think I could do, so that is very scary as the longest I have gambled at one time is like 9 hours at once, and I never eat. Oh I did the free buffet a time or 2, but I was in a hurry to get back to it-and so usually just grab a coke or something and zone back out! I mean even as I’m writing this I feel the urge to zone out.. I used to be able to handle life so well, and in crisis situations, you can be assured I will be the one to be there for everyone, the strong one- in fact everyday people see me as that. Nobody would guess I have this lurking huge problem. Well anyway, maybe for today I will take it one hour at a time, one minute at a time! I sure am struggling here lately to keep the demons at bay!! Great to hear from you Vera! I hope today is a victory for you!!

[peacegirl]

Not for me, the more stories I read, the more I think what a terrible shame this whole illness is, and I always think of myself as a horrible CG-and my mind reminds me I am an addict!!! I do agree though, what is it that makes us want to read about others who are CG’s and the things they are going through! Are we trying to relate to someone, or in my case sometimes I read other people’s stories to scare myself into realizing just how serious and awful this addiction is!! And it’s funny how emotions can go from good to bad in a day! Right now, just an hour or so after I posted my upbeat post for the morning, work is bothering and stressing me and I felt an urge to gamble… Escape is part of my issue for sure! I could sit for hours, days probably in front of machine after machine and zone out and think of nothing!! Forget all the responsibilities and harshness of the world and I would also forget to eat ect… That is what I think I could do, so that is very scary as the longest I have gambled at one time is like 9 hours at once, and I never eat. Oh I did the free buffet a time or 2, but I was in a hurry to get back to it-and so usually just grab a coke or something and zone back out! I mean even as I’m writing this I feel the urge to zone out.. I used to be able to handle life so well, and in crisis situations, you can be assured I will be the one to be there for everyone, the strong one- in fact everyday people see me as that. Nobody would guess I have this lurking huge problem. Well anyway, maybe for today I will take it one hour at a time, one minute at a time! I sure am struggling here lately to keep the demons at bay!! Great to hear from you Vera! I hope today is a victory for you!!

[peacegirl]

I woke up today and had several things in my mind. My first thought was of the article I read last night about a woman who lived up north in my home state where I grew up and once they opened the casinos she became a CG. She tried and tried to quit, banning herself from all the casinos in the surrounding states and her state as well. For a year things improved and her family thought she was doing great! From all accounts it appeared she had conquored it! Then one night her sister got a call from the hospital. She had overdosed on anti depressants. Her sister found in her car gambling reciepts for the ATM withdrawls in a state that was 2 states away.She had returned to gambling even if it meant driving that far away to do it. She died 5 days later! I cried and cried last night when I read it, I felt so much pain for her- pain for others and I felt anger too at the casinos themselves and the states that are allowing gambling, almost everywhere now and it’s killing people!! I then thought about my younger brother who struggled with drugs and alcohol addiction for nearly 20 years. He reached his bottom after many visits to mental inst. and jail and almost dying many times, as well as breaking his leg, getting a super cell infection in his arm from shooting up that almost killed him (in hosp for months and months), and so many more stories that he went through! I thought about when he arrived at my home to live with me, with nothing but the clothing on his back and a messed up head, and how he had to just keep going with us everyday, he had no license to drive, so we took him to work with us and we monitored all he did. For a year and a half he was with us every moment and got somewhat better! Then we gave him an opportunity to do his own work for a weekend by himself and he had just gotten his license back and that weekend he got drunk. It was the only time, he came home to me and cried-and I told him that he had to like himself fully- and he has not drank or used since, that was years ago, he is happily married- works in our business and has the other half of our business and works by himself always!!! BUT I thought about this, he is addicted to something, it’s not much but he spends all his time painting action figures and selling them!! He belongs to groups just for that, and he buys all the stuff for them.. I thought about this and I realized, we are all addicts to something. Perhaps we have to find another focus that is not so harmful. If that is all he is addicted to, then that is a blessing!!!So I determined myself to focus on my hobby more.. I mean geeze if my brother can overcome all that- what in the world am I doing! Well ODAAT, that is all I can do right now… For today I will not gamble and I will not obsess over my losses as hard as that is for me to do!!

[peacegirl]

You are right Janey, I am not wanting to even think about returning to gambling on a lesser level.. I’m not sure I believe in this EMDR but I am going to give it a try for a little, even though the sessions are pricey. I will keep you posted on if I feel it is doing anything at all.. Thanks for responding and have a good day:)

[peacegirl]

I really am glad you are here Vera and appreciate you talking to me:) I hope to come here almost daily except when I am working weekend with hubby, then I may not be here.. Otherwise I hope we can continue to talk and be support for each other:)

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