(disclaimer: I am not a professional counselor or any kind of expert. If you find this helpful, good; if you think it’s annoying rubbish, just discard it).
If you’re at the stage where you’ve been gamble-free for, say, an entire week - - or an entire month - - or year - - and want to continue your success, here’s a suggestion.
= = Do the math. Recognize the prizes. = =
1. Compute your discretionary budget.
Start with your income. Subtract all expenses that are required, that you have no choice about - - food, fuel, rent, and so on. What’s left is the discretionary budget. You get free choice in how to use this money.
2. Compute what you spent per week/month when you were gambling.
Okay, it might hurt. Remember, at this moment it’s just a number.
3. Take the smaller of those two numbers.
This recovery tip is not about going into debt; only about discretionary money.
4. Multiply by how long you’ve been gamble free.
If your number from step 3 is five pounds per week, and you’ve been gamble free for 12 weeks, then there’s 60 pounds to think about.
5. Appreciate where it went.
Maybe you used it for debt reduction. Maybe you saved it in a jar. Maybe you spent it on movies and candy. It doesn’t matter. Whatever you did with it, IT DID SOME GOOD FOR YOU. Take a moment to enjoy the fact that the candy was fun to eat, or to admire the savings in the jar, or respect your accomplishment of debt reduction.
The point is, you got a reward. And you’ll get another reward in another week,month, year.
The point is, the recovery path isn’t all about grim determination, deprivation, or punishment. It’s about collecting prizes and enjoying life.
“Do I really want to continue recovery?”
becomes
“Do I really want to continue receiving prizes and goodies?”
Hi dogfan
It sounds like you have started posting and making interesting recommendations, which could be helpful for many, however it is our policy at Gamcare that people do not add any links to their post. We will usually block an account in situations where links are added to a post on our Forum.
In view of this I have deleted your second post : 'Recovery tip #2of 2', that had two links, but will not block your accounts in this instance as you have other post that may be helpful for some forum users, but would ask that you re-read our Forum rules and observe them in future.
Take Care, enjoy your recovery, and keep posting.
Regards
Florence
oops sorry will not repeat
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