2016 Challenge

Garyl1976 wrote:

Hi all,

Thanks to everyone checking in this week...30 people checking in with a total cumulative running total of 6,735 days which is over 18 years. We're now a 3rd of the way through the challenge and I hope everyone is reaping the benefits of continued recovery.

Congrats to anyone who has reached a personal milestone this week but it would be remiss of me not to mention Suzanne (I wished) who has gone through 2 years bet free. Suzanne offers amazing support across this forum and is a great example of abstinence and recovery. If you've some spare time, you can do a lot worse than read her diary which is inspirational.

Also, my thoughts are with Steve (Delboygolf) at this sad time. Glad you've got the right tools to deal with it and can come to the right places rather than the wrong places to address things.

Hats off to those people who have slipped and returned...it's a brave thing to do so full respect.

Things are going a bit better with my dad (thanks for the kind thoughts and messages)- he was well enough to attend my brother's wedding bash at the weekend and enjoyed himself catching up with family. Still a long road ahead but glad to see him with a smile on his face.

Wishing you all a great week ahead.

triangle - 781

delboygolf - 774

Garyl1976 - 759

I Wished - 734

Glads Dad - 525

MrStop - 470

Balvaird - 384

Casey - 378

andy14 - 343

brutus123c - 248

Oldhamktf - 221

Thegerman - 183

Samster - 138

FEB2013 - 124

tilly1976 - 122

xmercx - 88

bjornpogi - 86

Tom_2015 - 86

thereaper - 82

onlyme - 50

Daz71 - 29

8thOct - 29

newbeginnings - 22

Stewart1982 - 20

LifeBegins - 19

Godoicul - 18

justwanttobenormal - 11

Argie100 - 7

Liaison - 2

alasmi21 - 2

Thanks Gary. Checking in for the week. Congratulations to all continuing to work the challenge.

delboygolf wrote: Just read all the wishes. Many thanks to all! This just goes to show that we can't take Anything or anyone. For granted! Richard lasted just 5 months after his diagnoses. We were all lead to believe that the cancer could be controlled and he would have at least 5 years if not 10. The way to look at it is that there is always someone worst off than you! Stay gamble free. Steve.

Very true Steve. Thinking of you in this moment. Keep working the program. Tri x

hi there.really would like to join the challenge.hit rock bottom and now turning my life around slowly.today is day 3.dan

Please can I rejoin the challenge again. I have hit the bottom and need to come back up. I cannot carry on with this addiction, pretending to myself I can control it. It's all or nothing and my future is looking very bleak if I continue to gamble. Holiday booked and again will struggle to pay for it if I don't quit now. Spent all my savings and more besides. I cannot continue like this. Really determined this time. I have to do it and hope this challenge will help me once again.

Boxingdayfresh X

Welcome back Claire:)))

Thanks for the update Gary, and for the mention:)) appreciated,

My thoughts are with delboygolf at this time, he has kept very strong and stayed focused these last difficult 6 months.

Checking in on 736 days. Life is sooo much saner and healthier when no gambling is part of it:))

Have a good strong gamblng free week troops, and enjoy the warm weather that is coming our way at last lol.

Suzanne xx

Very very happy today 90 days gf which is a big achievement being a ga member heres to the next 90

Welcome back Claire...sorry to hear of your problems but you are back in the right place.

Congrats Merc, enjoy your 90 day pen!

Welcome back Claire. Stick with it this time and try and add to what you were doing before.

Merc 90 days. Like the attitude. Recovery is a job in progress. Keep it up.

Well done to all working on their recoveries today. Tri x

Hi All,

I would like to join this thread.

Im Krishan and here is how its all began! It all started at 18 first going to university. Online gambling seemed so accessable and i thought nobody could ever know I was gambling. I was very lucky in the respect my parents paid my first year accommodation up front so i had no outgoings. Started with £5/£10 football accumulators and for the first year or so kept the stakes the same and probably broke even/made a slight profit.

Second year of university came, saved quite a lot from year one which I always vowed never to touch. Stakes started to increase over time and broadened my horizons to tennis as it was always a sport I loved so I thought a quick way to make cash was to bet on a player to win a service game, for example, set one game 5 winner. To me at the time seemed logical because I could back £80 on the server holding at odds 1/4 for example. With this stupid theory I thought I could easily make back what I lost on football accumulators. This got progressively worse and thought the more I staked the more I could have won. Also each service game could be over as quick as two minutes so saw it as easy money. This only lasted so long when all my money in my current account had gone. I started digging into my £3,500 savings which lasted me until the end of my second year. That summer I vowed to stop because my year in industry was coming up which was a well paid job so this was my chance of a fresh start.

Placement year came where I secured a job for a chemical company for my year in industry, based in Frankfurt. Lasted about 3 months before I started to gamble again. I was stuck in a bad place mentally, didn't speak German, had no friends at all I'm Frankfurt and didn't feel I had anywhere to turn. I gambled every evening to pass the time. Again I was lucky as my rent was free as I lived on site so again had no outgoings whatsover so really I thought I had nothing to lose as I had a roof secured over my head. Payday would come and I would buy a big shop so I knee I would have food in the cupboard however the rest of my wages would be gone in hours. I went through a period of then thinking when next payday come if I just make £10 a day that's at least £300 a month..how hard could that be. That's when I started taking out payday loans to fund my habit. Managed to take out £2000 of payday loans in a month and thought I could make a profit and if not I could just withdraw what I deposited and pay the interest from my wages. Some months this was fine when I had a good few days so came out of the end of the first month with a profit. Next payday arrived, same story lost all my wages so turned to payday loans and was entitled to more. Lost all that and was at an all time low. Set up a payment plan with the lenders and paid off a bit a month however every payday would come where I ensured I still hand funds to gamble.

My year placement was over and just about paid off all my debts that I owed. Arrived back to my original home in Wales in July 2011 and first thing I did there was secure two summer jobs, one working at a 5* hotel and other working nights stacking shelves at sainsburys. In total I would earn and £1500 a month and did that for three months. I then quit the hotel job and got transferred stores with Sainsburys to the Huddersfield store where I was studying. With the money I had saved that summer not gambling I managed to pay for my first two rent installments and still had some saved for a rainy day.

This was my final year of a Chemistry could so i knew this was going to be tough! So my first term student loan came and went about a month without an urge to gamble..so far I had gone 121 days a thought this was it now..I'm never going back to the place I was in. I was exhausted working two jobs all summer and thought all that hard work must count for something. Slowly the work load increased, pressure from fellow students for my help increased and felt increasily stressed to keep everyone happy. I made absolutely no time for myself and got to the point where I couldn't face the world so locked myself in my room for days on end. This is when thoughts creeped into my mind about gambling as I would complete and submit work early so had evenings completely free. Unfortunately I returned to gambling with initial small £10 deposits then same old story , stakes increased, losses increased. What drawn my to online gambling was the secrecy about it all and the fact I didn't feel I was physically losing as I never saw the money I had lost..to me it just seemed like a number..almost as if it wasn't real. Went down the same route of payday loans/ payday wages being lost on gambling..maxing out my £5000 overdraft and £1500 credit card. I was at an all time low..managed to stay focussed and graduated with a 2:1 in the end but I wasn't happy within myself. All income I had would go straight in gambling. Again payment plans were set up and then I secured my first job relating to my degree and this was the boost I needed. Still I gambled every day but a little less as I ensured all my outgoings were paid and the rest I had would go on gambling. Got to the point in June 2013 where all my debts were paid off but was still gambling. I opened up to my current girlfriend at the time, my family and friends and told them I had every intention to stop.

This was when I first made this post. From that day, 27th June 2013 I didn't turn back! Been through a lot since..I was living in Cardiff and met my girlfriend in a queue at the killers gig 5th November 2012 and she was behind me. We got chatting and one thing led to another. She lived in Plymouth and I was living near Cardiff so one weekend she would come up and one weekend I would go down. Opened up to her about my gambling problem a couple of months in (June 2013) and have managed to be gamble free since. Life was going well and in March this year we decided time was right to find our own place together. I secured a job in Plymouth and made the move in April. A month in and she ended the relationship with me, stating she wasn't ready for this after all so I was renting a house for us which had stay in for a minimum of 6 months and rent wasn't cheap. Times were tough, I had no connections down here and thought its only a matter of time before I turn back to gambling. The 6 months passed and thought I would move to a shared house where the rent was almost half the price and was an opportunity to meet others. To this day I still live in the shared house, made new friends, taken up new hobbies and most importantly stayed motivated and didn't gamble.

Every day I feel more like my old self again before gambling was ever an issue and have never looked back but only ever forward. Day 1041 but forever treating it like day 1!

Well done all!

Krishan

Thanks for sharing K, inspiring for us to to read.

Well done merc on crashing through the big 90

Suzanne xx

Many thanks for the welcome back you three 🙂 I'm staying close to this site and the challenge and really have comittment this time to stick to it and build up the gamble free days once again. Cannot afford to gamble... Debts are mounting again and been undoing all my good work from last year. Finally come to my senses and put blocks in place.

Best wishes to you all this week xx

Checking in on day 14, 2 whole weeks gamble free and I'm one happy lady xx

Checking in on day 11, still going strong and keeping myself busy, hope everyone else is able to check in with more day racked up!

Checking in on day 15 gamble free.. life is good.. keep going all xx

Check in day 388