Hi guys, on day 65 here, wanted to share some of the things that help me stay gf. The list is in no particular order -
1. Forgive yourself your losses. The money is gone and you will never get it back.
2. Never forget, you never truly win because you will always give it back.
3. Estimate how much money on average you spent every day on gambling. Write that figure down every gf day, and watch that figure rise.
4. Write a recovery journal on gamcare. Every day to start with. Several times a day if you need to. When you get further on in your recovery, be sure to read it back so you can see how far you have come.
5. Register for support with gamcare.
6. Drop by the chat rooms when you can.
7. Put all the blocks in place. All of them. No exceptions. Because if you can't gamble, YOU CAN'T GAMBLE.
8. If you are unable to put all blocks in place, consider handing over financial control to a loved one.
9. Every time you get an urge (and they can be almost constant in the early days), go on gamcare and read as much as you can of the forum.
10. Comment on other peoples posts. Peer support is the best support.
11. Challenge yourself to find another activity that will give you pleasure. Mine is swimming.
12. Tell people in your life what is going on for you. Its a huge relief and being accountable will help keep you on the right track.
13. Reward yourself for how well you have done, buy yourself a treat. Because its good to remember how it feels to spend money on something that isnt gambling.
14.take it one day at a time.Â
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Wonderful post. Thank you.
Day one again for me after being stopped for 6 years. I am in the horrible sickening phase of what have I done! Especially after coming this far.
I am what a supposed they would call a binge gambler where I stop for longish periods of time but then can lose an unaffordable amount in a short space to stop and try again. Thankfully not in any debt this time but managed to drain a significant chunk of savings.Â
Blocks are being put in place and now i am just rying to stay focused on the future, what's done is done, easier said that done to think like this at timesÂ
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Day 2 for me. Love these and keen to try them. Thanks for sharing.
Wishing you both the strongest of wills. We got this 💪Â
Lovely read Roxy 👌👏👏🩷.
Pink Lady 🩷🍎.
Brilliant post, thank you!
I’m at the start of my journey, but I’m already seeing the value of many of your points here.
This is the strongest and most positive I’ve felt about defeating my addiction in a long time and that is because of posts like these 💪🏼
Thank you so much pink :).
And thank you redcurtains. It means such a lot to me to think my musings may be of assistance to someone else :). It's a very difficult journey turning yourself back to the person you were before gambling took its insidious hold. My gamble monster was very big in the first few days and weeks. But if you keep ignoring it and refusing to feed it, it will get smaller. Probably never disappear completely, it will always be there in the corner hoping you feed it a scrap so it can grow again and become huge and overwhelming.
Wishing you the very strongest of wills.
Xx
I got so emotional when I read your post! I managed to be GF for almost 1 month, but ended up relapsing yesterday and feel awful. Temptation got the better of me and I ended up inside a bookies, feeding notes into a stupid machine. X
Hi Tak1
I've had a couple of relapses prior to this run of nearly 100 days. And as an ex smoker of 6 years duration, I lost count of how many false starts I had before it finally took. The important thing is to never give up on giving up. You've fallen, it hurts, but what matters now is how you pick yourself up again. Sometimes the road to recovery is two steps forward then one step back, but it's still progress. You CAN do this. Just keep coming here every time you get an urge. It totally saved my bacon (and all my hard earned money) in the early days and weeks.Â
Wishing you the strongest of wills. Take it one day at a time, one hour at a time if you need to. All the best x
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