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Hey Steven, that’s great to hear. Also good to hear that you’ll be debt free soon and off on a holiday. I think a fresh start will be great to coincide with your recovery from gambling.
I’ve been ok recently. Just working hard as usual and trying to get into some good habits agai. Stay strong!
Hey Ray, how you been? Hope you’ve been able to hit the 1 month mark of staying clean!!
Hey Steven, how you been? I get the feeling you may have gambled a bit more on the last couple of days. It’s especially difficult to stop after you get a taste for winning again, no matter how small the win. I hope you’re ok.
Hi Jersey,
I’ll keep it brief for now. Making that change is about changing your mind set. Do you truly accept that you can never gamble again? Have you come to terms with your losses and realize with certainty that you will not get it back from gambling? If yes then read on.
There are two proactive steps you must take to start your recovery and give yourself the best chance . Simply convincing yourself that you will quit cold turkey will not work I guarantee you.
1) Block all gambling access: self-exclude, close all betting accounts, install gambling blockers, hand over finances/limit card access. Preplan what you are going to do in your free time. Ensure that the time/money/access triangle is ALWAYS broken.
2) This one really depends on you but emotional/psychological support does wonders for a lot of people in recovery: attend GA, seek counselling/a psychologist, post regularly and read the advice on these forums. If you haven’t already done so seriously consider discussing your issues with your loved ones, they will act as an additional barrier from you relapsing.
Try to focus on self-improvement activities that will take your focus off gambling. Take up a new productive hobby. Go hit the gym. Reconnect with some people who you’ve isolated yourself from during your gambling.
Most importantly you need to be patient. Take it one day at a time and reward yourself for hitting each milestone number of days.
Hi courage,
I think you’ve finally turned the switch and you can see the truth. We simply cannot, and never will be able to gamble without it absolutely destroying our lives.
Like you, I was a fighter, everytime I got knocked over by this addiction, I’d get right back up after some time and try to fight it again. The truth is, we must let go of our egos and accept defeat. We can never gamble. Once we play gambling controls us. BUT what we can control is how we behave when we are not gambling, how we can not be tempted by the lures of this demon. We simply need to truly commit to never putting ourselves in the grips of gambling again. This is the true battle we must fight and win. They say many people don’t actually want to stop gambling, they just want to stop losing. It took me over a year to be able to go from the latter to the former. I think you are taking your first steps towards that mind set of stopping GAMBLING today.
Hey Ryan glad to hear you’re feeling better. Blocking out the negative thoughts is a good start and it will definitely take time to accept what has happened in the past and move on. Stay strong!
Hi courage,
Relapses are ok perfectly normal for a recovering gambler but never use it as an excuse for your actions. Don’t play the victim. Ultimately you were the one who decided to gamble and this means that in your mind you have not given up yet. You still want to play. You need to REALLY want to quit gambling forever to actually stop. Saying “I’ll stop forever” after a big relapse is well and all but it takes true commitment to actually stop gambling. Don’t accept gambling as something that controls you. Don’t treat relapses as something you cannot prevent. YOU are the one in control of your own mind and actions you must actively fight to defeat this gambling addiction. Self-exclude, install blockers, hand over finances and attend GA/confess to loved ones to give yourself the best chance not to relapse. The rest is a mental battle that YOU must take responsibility for and while it may be the toughest battle you’ll ever face, it’s a battle you can win.
Good work on 3.5 weeks gaming free! I’d suggest self-exclusion from these bookies if you can. You may resist them 99 times out of 100 but just one lapse in judgment will be very costly if you do not have a back-up plan in place! Self-exclusion is often the deterrent that’s needed in times of peak urges to gamble.
3 weeks is a great start. We all get those voices but the more times you can deny them, the less effect they will have on you.
Good work on your first GF week! Things will get easier and those negative thoughts will become less frequent as you move onto other things in life besides gambling.
I’m glad you’re feeling mentally strong but remember to never get over-confident! I felt like I had 100% control after 6 months clean but a set of stressful/unlikely events unfolded at the same time causing me to relapse, something I would have laughed at if you told me a week before the relapse. Remember it is a lifelong battle of control.
Hey courage just think about all the good things in life you still have. Think about all the potential you still have to bring happiness to yourself and those around you. Never lose focus of that and whilst the tunnel may be long, there is light at the end if you persevere.
Hey Steven,
I’m glad you were able to withdraw the 1k. But you must treat this as a relapse and something to learn from. How can you prevent those triggers in the future? A win can be even more dangerous than a loss during recovery because it makes us think we can beat gambling again and slowly recoup our losses over time with “controlled gambling”.
When I had hit rock bottom last year I also went through a series of wins (had like around 8-10 winning sessions in a row and recouped a lot of my losses), however the inevitable blowout was just waiting to happen especially as I was getting complacent again about my gambling. Each successive time you hit rock bottom is more damaging than the last, so I hope you do not fall into this trap! Address your triggers and close down the accounts/self-exclude.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Tonyj has bit the nail on the head. While we may come from all walks of life this addiction affects us all in a scarily similar way. Almost no one walks away from gambling after a big win. Nor do they walk away after a loss. So why do we even play? The truth is the majority of compulsive gamblers only stop once they hit rock bottom, and by rock bottom this is often not just financial rock bottom, but the loss of everyone they love, their assets/house, their jobs, their health, and most importantly the person they were. The only way to stop this downward spiral is to give up, accept we cannot defeat gambling and come to terms with our losses (knowing that chasing will only amplify the damage) and move on towards rebuilding our lives and becoming someone we can be proud of.