2015 Challenge

Appreciate your support Greggsboy. If I can get through this week I have a week off work coming up. It's stress at work that's triggering these thoughts. I am reading the forum and looking for help and know this is the best place I can be at this time. You're right I need to focus on the ending and I'm also thinking really I do already have a gambling budget built in to my finances. It's £171 per month for the next five years where I 'm paying for the gambling I've already done !!!

Boxing Day 1

Hi everyone....just a quick check in for this week.

Loads achieved, loads planned and no thoughts to gamble. Giving up was singularly the best and hardest thing I've done but still taking it one day at a time. Got through 10 months this week...wouldn't have thought it ever possible when I was in the eye of the storm.

Have a great week

just got in with a late check in, day 38 for me. Had a few urges today early doors but then work went crazy so it distracted me and I'm ok now.

The main thing that has helped me to get to day 38 is honesty. Being honest with myself when an urge comes and working through the likely outcomes and what I would do if I won or lost and honesty with my wife knowing that she now knows all - which was tough - helps so much, it's taken a bit of heat away and feels like a weight is off my shoulders and I know aswell that there are consequences to any future mistakes. So however tough it is, if you can I would confess be it to your partner, parents, family or freind, it will help to get it out there.

Hi All,

Checking in day 38 gamble free.

What works for me. The blocks on my computer/tablets. Without these I know I wouldn't be 38 days gamble free. The other main thing as other have said is honesty. Talk to those closest to you. Lots of positivity on here.

Checking in on day 7 of gamble free, i have no urges why? because i have no money left! Heres to staying strong and walking away from the urges that the 26th will bring...PAYDAY!

I check this site as much as i check my facebook page, to constantly remind myself of why i am giving up!

Checking in Day 38, still going strong, longest I`ve done in probably five years. Blocks definately the answer, need hundreds to get the buzz, only having access to a few quid takes the possibility of that first bet away. Stay safe everyone.

Checking in, around a calendar month now and does feel great and gone quick. Amazing how busy and productive I am without ever wasting so much time and money on gambling. Really hope others are feeling the benefits and not given in, more money than ever and my obsession with having more and more of the stuff has simmered right down. Loved the north london derby today, so you can tell who i support and used to not give two hoots about my team winning, very very often backing against them and just ruining my love of a sport. Trying to throw myself into as many clubs and activities as I can, eating, sleeping and feeling positive. Stay strong everyone and love reading all the comments and individual stories x

Evening soldiers!!

Checking in for the week - 426 days and still going!!

In answer to the update questions Phil (and what a superb update it was) - running the risk of duplication.....

1. Be true to yourself and those around you - only honesty works in the game.

2. Don't trust yourself with excess money......take what you need and no more......with no access to any more.

3. Be good to yourself - ou are doing an amazing thing in stopping - don't skin yourself so badly that you have nothing - you will just fall over.

4. Put the blockers in place and maintain them - self exclude at a bare minimum.

Have a great week everyone!

Mr B!

Sorry for the late check in Phil. 50 days GF today....I really didn't think id be able to get to this position given where I was at.The constant urges, the stress, the irrational thinking, the lies, the complete listlessness of life. 50 days is minuscule in a life condition, but the difference I have felt being GF in this timeframe is immeasurable. Life is getting better day by day and I need to stay focused and remain positive. Every aspect of my life was controlled by my gambling and my relationships with those I love deteriorated to the point and of complete severance. My focus is to build this trust back, to show that I can be a good partner, son, brother and friend. My train ride to work consists of logging on and reading check in's, therapies and stories and this gives such a massive boost for each day. So I'd like to thank you and fellow soldiers so much as I wouldn't be at this point without these forums and the 2015 challenge. Have a good week. Andy

checking in 544 GF days, sorry feel like i have been MIA.... doing stacks of overtime just now for 2015 holiday 🙂 want it paid for by march so needs must. hope you arenall well.

Del 🙂

Last call for check in, come on troops we are missing 21 check ins this week. I'm just off out and I really hope when I come back tonight there are a load more check ins.

Well done to everyone who has checked in, together we are marching onwards making this year our year and not gifting all we have to a gambling organisation!

I am 49 days clean and looking forward to Day 50 tomorrow.

Had a really difficult time with home life this evening, I felt REALLY frustrated and irritated. Long story short, future mother in law is staying (we have a small flat) and my partner behaves differently around her and we cannot communicate freely, I don't know, terribly cliche (the mo in law effect, lol) but god d**n it I became so agitated by it I found myself out in the car park having a cigarette and the PULL towards gambling was not short of immense :-/ I just thought f**k this I'm going to the bookies.

I didnt..... But I was so very close :-/ (having the triangle stopped me!) I guess it was an 'escapism' urge.

I think now as I'm typing this and reflecting on research before that agree there are different types of gambling and I always have tried to identify my specific type/form of gambling in the belief that I could address the underlying issue involved that provoked me to gamble. Thinking if I fix it - once I know what it is - then I won't gamble.

Well now I believe that I do not have any underlying issue in any specific area that causes me weakness and results in my gambling, no, I just KNOW now that there are a number of life scenarios and thought processes influenced by external factors that MADE me gamble or rather convinced me that I should gamble and they do not fit neatly into 1 or 3 labelled boxes.

If I had crumbled tonight and gambled this situation would have been multiplied x10 by the financial loss, emotional self loathing and mental anguish - I AM SO VERY GLAD I DID NOT GAMBLE!

My defences have been strengthened by this and for the first time I can stop thinking about and looking for understanding as to why I wasted so much in the gambling arena getting myself chewed up by the broad spectrum of virtual and unforgiving beasts of illusion and trickery getting there hooks into people for profits grown from the misery of real people with some of those poor souls taking there own life because of the wickedness of their affliction. rip all those fallen.

I guess there are not any complex formulas an individual can discover to understand their reason why they do (done) this to ourselves, the inexplicable nature of the compulsive gambler I guess.

Anyway, I don't need to look any longer as the answer is something I've had suggested to me before but I didn't realise the weight of it's simplicity... "Just for today"

Thats it, the simple answer, one day at a time, not an all consuming focus because I'm scared of gamblng but just a relaxed understanding of whenever the urge lures me for whatever reason I just tell myself 'just for today' nice bite sized manageable 24hr chunks and in time hopefully the polluted water stretch will be far far downstream and distant memory. I will be enjoying myself on the pebbled river bank upstream with my feet feeling the cool water enjoying life, not down and out struggling with the chaos of compulsive gamblng stinking up my everything.

No, Just for today. Simples.

Ps. Any advice for insulating myself from a compulsively irritating in law situation ;-D

Just checking in. Day 6 no gambling. Hope it continues!

Apologies for late check in, still going strong, 24 days GF for me!