Abstain and maintain.Stepping forward never back.

Dunc,

A belated "Happy Birthday" from your Gamcare friend up here in Bonnie Scotland!!!!

Take care mate and continued best wishes,

gazza

Happy Birthday dear Duncs!!!!!

Thank you very much for your support, i will keep making the right choices, even if it means turning my life upside down...Just like you dear fighter:)

Take care

Sandra x

Afternoon diary

Well had a fantastic weekend, went to Brighton and watched a gig, held in a church of all places, the music was folk and the venue without doubt suited the acts, Mr J Flynn I thankyou, the only shame for me was the crowd all seemed to be stuck on his first album, which was released 8 or so yrs ago, and the two albums which followed nobody knew the songs!! Strange.

Got me to thinking, well that and a post on the diaries, another worm thrown as bait to which I happily take.

I dont have a religion, never have, don't believe in god, never have, so I when readabout folk gifting, sorry self gifting a GOD status, found myself pondering what exactly this would be??

What would you do if god for a day fella,

Would you revert to the sterio type gambler, Mr I know the answer to everything and those who dont follow my way are weak, those who stand in my way are trampled, cast aside, those who subscribe to bettering there lives and then celebrating there success Well I will show them, and in the true style of the gambler the result of my godly status would be I would place one huge winning bet, and I am alright jack!!! then wake the next day and punt all my winnings as that's what compulsive gamblers do, I could not walk away because addiction told me I am a winner!!

Or the today, the here and now, if I was granted godly status for the day, I would make a gathering, take the lights guide, the one gifted to me and show it to as many others as humanly possible in a day.

I read on friday in that free paper you get on the train about the vote regarding the limiting of the fobt maximum stake and how government had voted against restrictions, then below it I read about the 5000 odd folk who had phoned gamcare in the last year seeking help through there problem gambling.

Would regulating the fobt have helped me?? well the truth is no, it would have just taken longer for me to lose my dough, but lose I would, so I dont have time in my life to debate regulations, for me they are irrelevent, then I watched the roger radler(gambling addict) interview on bbc(i player 30/09/2013) the one which painted a picture of a particularly sad individual who recklessly gambled his life/wife future away.

A betting company quoted the 8000 jobs that would be lost, and all the millions in tax too boot.

So Joe public would I guess do the math and we the addict would just be a fallen soilder in it all.

So if I could have a godly status, one which I dont and my first visit to a church in many a year did not gift me I would be there holding open the door, the one with the light on the other side, the one which welcomes all compulsive gamblers who seek refuge from the devestation addiction reaped.

No cult or sect at work here, just plain and simply a fellow who is and will always be a compulsive gambler.

One who got shown a light.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

There is no fool bigger than the deluded gambling one.

Hey Duncs

As we all know there is only one God ....and that's Kate Bush ...lol

Did wonder if the reference was me but I'm just your average lil Devil ... Heh heh heh ;-))))

Step 12 ..."we carry this message in all our affairs" xxxx

Hi Duncs,

Just read your post and not sure what's up with the God reference... ?? Selfishly, speaking I miss your daily posts but, totally understand and support your choice to draw new boundaries so to speak. My steaming cup of joe always held up way up Duncs. -joanxxxx

Belated Happy Birthday. I'm glad you continue to post once in a while. You sound so happy. It gives me hope that not only can it be done (stopping the madness of gambling), but that it's also possible to be happy.

Hi Duncan

Hope all is well. Interesting last post - sometimes rather than just regulate I wish they would just ban all forms of gambling outright. Obviously too much free money for the economy to concede.

Many thanks for posting on my wall. I recall that we started our journey around about the same time and appreciate the number of times you have helped me back on the wagon. Trying very hard to stay there!

Best

Mark

Hi duncs,

Just popping by to say I joined this site and I read your diary and you held a hand out and lit the path to recovery for me.

If you have helped just one person and I know it's many many more than that then what an amazing thing that is, Step 12 at its best

Be proud ...

Take care duncs, love to you and yours

Blondie x

Hiya Sarah....:-))))

A really nice surprise seeing you there on my thread and thank you so much for dropping in...xx

Wow ..what a journey we have been on ..I feel I "know" you and you feel familiar in the same way as Duncs is so familiar on here.

Despite being on the other side the one thing that has united me to certain people on here and ones who understand it has been 12 step...different sides, same language ;-))

Always having a solid base to go back to when the waters go choppy or just generally drowning,..

Your family is a living testament to what can be achieved through family unity and Sarah you are up there as someone who has also done and keep doing the hard work.

Duncs posts are about moving forward from gambling but it's really also a love story between you and he in the most sincerest way possible...the power of love.

Reading that ladies post today on the friends and family side made me realise that they could have so easily have been someone on here...like Duncs.

I also am guilty as charged as chief bait taker but these days I think I may have bigger fish to fry. Anyone who knows GA will see that Duncs is practicing his programme when he posts on here aswell as supporting others who are in need by being on the end of a phone or a kind word. Recovery for everyone is not easy but it gifts bigger riches than money can buy.

I read today the step 12 for GA today and Duncs is doing exactly that...spreading the word and carrying the message to others who are suffering in that dark place. he's working his programme!

As you know Sarah ..the GOD is the Good Orderly Direction...it's humans that perform the miracles! :-)))

and I say let's celebrate that!

Raising a glass to you Sarah and Duncs and family

Cheers!

R and D xxx

Duncs, just wanted to stop by and give my best wishes. I appreciate you are less active on the forum these days, and completely understand your reasons behind those choices.

Lots if people on here might 'polarise' what is right and wrong. How things should be done vs how things shouldn't be done etc. in truth, I find this a little frustrating, since we are all basically in this together. Personally, I'll not take sides, but I will thank you once again for all the support you have given; not only to me, but to very single person on here.

Inspirational stuff.

All the best,

D123

Morning Diary.

Just a quick dip into the diaries this morning as I have a doctors appointment regarding my knees which 17 months down the line are still giving me grief, last night I could not sleep as they felt like I was being hit with a very large hammer!! I am actually not to proud to say I said to my Sarah I could cry.

Thanks for the response to Sarah's post Rach, it means a great deal to me that my wife benefits from recovery and the forum as much if not more than I do, I guess for her the learning curve of taking what you find usefull and dump the rest is a working progress, I see it in black and white she reads threads and feels angry and just wants everyone to share the same benefits recovery gifts, ultimatley a better life.

But that for me comes with a price, the price is effort, I threw myself at the mercy of recovery as I was prepared to try anything to stop the madness, the brain f**k that gambling gave me had to stop.

I as those who read my thread am obsessed by numbers always have, I am no mathmetician but I fixate over numbers, the amount of time my brain spends on sums is quite mad really.

I used to spend my whole day formulating the winning potential of multiple bets, and how I would use them to hit the 'big one'

today I know thats just addiction talking, growing, needing feeding more, it bred an arrogance too, a view that I was the solution to all the questions, I was was seldom right but never wrong!!!

I fixate on numbers, I get them fed by reading, listening and today try to use them to help with the terrible affects this addiction reaps upon all it touches, that 3% statistic in my Ga room frightens me, more so because it's seemingly true, the fact that gamcare had 5000 + folk phone it last year yet the recovery diaries for the 21 months I have been here contain very few consistant posters, why?? is it the same as GA the math works out.

I post to aid my recovery first and foremost, the folk that post upon my thread share a common goal, one which was gifted, for free, one which I wont cash in at any odds.

My name is duncan I am a compulsive gambler no bet since 23/01/2012

Stepping forward never back.

It is true you reap what you sow and I am enjoying the fruits my efforts have gifted.

Hiya dunc hope the docs can sort something for them knees, dont sound to good mate. Great last post made me think of all that i have wasted with gambling and if i really want somthing out of this life then i better act now, act now and i can turn things around.

Thanks for the post on the thread. It was great to have you on the last one but understand why your not on this one. I wish you all the best and to be 2 years gamble free next year will be an amazing achievement, very well done. Its funny i have a new diary now but my previous one i started jan 21st 2 years ago so if i had stayed gamble free id be walking right alongside you but thats the way it goes i wasnt ready then i hope i am now. Take care dunc and keep fighting the good fight.

Morning Diary,

After reading Ds 123's post upon my thread and the great contribution Tomso is making to the forum currently I am going to post the reason to why I write the way I do, in doing so I hope it may put an end to some of the speculative posts regarding my thread and it's excistence.

On the 24/01/2012 I returned home after waging my family into circa 50k of debt through the final episode's leading up to my rock bottom My compulsion to gamble had got progressively worse over the 5 or so years running up to the events on the 23/01/2012 a day in which I set out to gift my family my suicide, I had lost a few good jobs, stolen from my family, my boss whom was also a close friend and any friends I had I had tested that friendship through the quest to feed my addiction.

Over the Christmas period I had sought refuge at my mums with Sarah and the kids, no presents, just false promises and an atmosphere you could cut with a knife, still during that period I escaped as often as I could to the bookies or the shop to buy lottery tickets, all in the blinded hope that gambling would be my salvation. I had let my addiction take over my being, I was a hollow shell, no plan funds running short, repossesion order less than a month away, yet I told nobody, alone I let my addiction tell me that everything would be alright.

Faast forward three foggy weeks, comunication broke down totally with Sarah and the kids, I shoplifted dinners to get gambling funds, I would have done anything to wage one more Bet.

Then out of time out of luck I set off to take my life, I rode my pushbike forty miles the first afternoon and camped in Bognor on a bench, then awoke and on to beachy head a place I had chosen to do the deed, gift my family happiness through my own death.

That day a fella approached me, asked for a light, we sat and talked, well he talked, I wished he would leave and I could get on with it. But what he said started to make sense, it was all financial, the whole was money, the fuel that fed my addiction.

I broke, cried, not tears of sadness, self pity but tears of pain, I had all but killed my inner self.

I rode home, twenty miles on a puncture, I had to make things right.

I got home, knocked the door, and Sarah stood, let me in, in silence through a haze I wrote letters, to my wife, my kids, my mum, friends and the court who were about to take the family home.

I wanted to stand and take responsability for the wrongs, not my family, I could see that for the first time in too many years all the hurt my addiction had caused.

Without doubt I was broken, a broken man, the next day it all came out, all the debts my gambling had left, the scars of my addiction had run very deep.

Sarah became like my carer, she took charge of the situation.

On the 26/01/2012 I found Gamcare and attended GA for the first time.

I went alone on the bus, was running late, addiction telling me to turn and go home, but I sh#it scared, full of self doubt walked through the door, my mind expecting to be ridiculed, judged for my shortcomings.

The room was full, a squared circle of chairs, a fella pulled one out, I knew him, a familiar face from a bookmaker or two. I sat numb, wanting not to cry, one of the fella's introduced himself and welcomed me to the group, I was one of three new members attending that night Another member, Bob said a thing or two, the fact that only 3 out of 100 make it to a year gamble free, I did not take much in that night apart from that and the fact that when asked to give an outline of my gambling activity it all came flowing out, the stealing, lying, cheating all was layed to bare. The room did not laugh, mock, criticise, there was nodding of heads, looks of sympathy,understanding.

As the meeting closed I was told it does not matter if you have a bet in the next week we just ask you to return for another meeting, give us 90 days and if you don't like what you hear then good luck to you.

I left went home, with Bob's words echoing in my mind, the statistics and the one other thing I will carry for life.

The TRIANGLE. time-money-location

Take one away and the punt impossible.

The next day as we walked to court Sarah stood and said 'if this goes wrong today we are finished, you have to understand that I will have to sort out me and the kids' this hit me hard, a choice was going to made within the next 20 minutes that would decide on my lifes course, one which I had let addiction steal from me.

The judge said after consultation with the other party, sarah and myself. That he would see thousands of cases in a year, all sadening and the outcome would have to be repossesion, but in our case He had a belief that Sarah would not fail him. Me I cried, broken I sat and he told me that I was a very fortunate man and that he wished I would take all the help I could.

That day I set about a journey, a journey which today I am 100% commited to, a journey in which I have many folk to thank, not least my beautiful Wife, whom has and always will be my best friend, but that judge, my kids and the true friends I have stood by and helped in a way I will never forget.

Then there is GA, the place which gifted me this, a BELIEF, in nothing other than myself, the 12 steps are a way in which you instill a belief in yourself, and how recovery is thing of rare beauty, most of all it's free.

In tandem with that I started to write this diary, Smiler gifted me another string to my bow that first day when he said those words in reply.

'be kind to yourself'

So I make no appollogy for thwe way I react to post's which demean GA or threads in which I feel compelled to reply to as I believe that in recovery there is one major factor in which my success is built on.

That is I have a voice, and for the rest of my life I want to use that to a greater good, addiction locked my voice away, stole my inner self, the decent bloke in there and brought a selfish, arrogant self centered pri##ck to the table.

Through Recovery I took it back.

I am proud to say GA gave me a life, if you give it 90 days and dont feel the same then I will respect that whole heartedly.

My name is Duncan McQuilken I am a compulsive gambler No bet today.

Hey Duncs ....

Just been on the GA website and pulled the exact wordings out ...

"Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps,we tried to carry this message to addicts and practice these principals in all our affairs.

The steps do not end here,they are a new beginning.

The greatest gift is we can only keep what we have BY GIVING IT AWAY.

We enforce our recovery by sharing it with others"

GO Duncs !!!!! Whoop whoop !

Thought for the day : "Now't wrong with that " - Karl Pilkington 😉

Xxx

Hello Duncs,

Wow, what a post, I started reading your thread from the beginning and jumped a few posts to get through.

This is true and utter committment supported by the love of your lovely wife and family.

What shines through is your honesty and the true desire to stop. I had tried in the past to stop even though my family knew of my problem but not the full extent as the true desire was not there.

After being toally open and honest with them (and your posts are an excellent example) only then can the battle be won.

I will keep reading your posts for encouragement and inspiration.

My very best wishes

Hope x