Abstain and maintain.Stepping forward never back.

Afternoon diary.

Thanks DFand sandra, as always I take great heart in what you say.

So the home straight is in sight, four more sleeps and I will be back home to enjoy the love of my family, to prepare for the celebrations of xmas, really starting to look forward to a few days relaxing and enjoying some great company, stress free, no wasting money, no wasting food by over producing, just a few days to show those folks I love how much they mean to me.

The fella I hace given a sausage sandwich to each morning moved on today, his reason made me smile, he said 'I am off out of town today, don't like the crowds and don't like there judging me'

So we shook hands and I wished him good health, even homeless he showed such dignity and humility.

Me I refused to judge him, he the same, I would have emptied my pockets had I had any money, but through my own choice I don't have any, why would I gift my addiction an in road, why leave anything to chance.

f**k I did that spectacularly well for twenty years, lived like a chancer.

I gave more thought to Captains post yesterday, it made me think about what I wanted out of my life whilst I gambled, what I was aspiring to be??

Funny I wanted to be someone else, from the wanting shoes for there value not there style, for wanting to always wave a load of folding, show my wealth through a pocket full of notes, everything for show.

There is a saying I think summed up my personality whilst gambling.

'he's got all the gear and no idea'

APT

today I walked through the town I am working in, busy to the point of window shopping was a no no.

But it made me think, I have always at heart had a style that I enjoy, square toe kickers, cords, check shirts and always try to look smart, clean shaved, deoderant, maybe a splash of something nice, oh and topped with my trusty old stetson flat cap lol.

When gambling I often left my self respect at home, not shaving for days, never a splash, not bothering to polish my shoes, who gives a f**k I don't, then the shoes changed for cheap runners, jogging bottoms featured.

Why I don't Jog!!! lol I stopped caring, loads of false promises that with todays winnings I would buy some Armani or stone island.

Today I look back and think why??

Did I think the world would like me more dressed like that, I would get the worlds respect??

All that resulted was I lost my identity, it became diluted, then I wanted to steal someone elses, to hide behind, maybe.

Today I fashion those cords again, always iron a shirt, always shave and am proud to present myself.

Ok the square toes have been replaced by clarks but in them I walked today in comfort, comfortable with myself, today I am proud to be me again. My conviction to be a better person starts with me giving a f**k about myself, I dont stand out in a crowd, I blend in, I feel accepted by this.

Gambling will just steal my pride, I know there is one thing worse than being skint, looking skint, it drags my belief out of my viens, it bleeds me dry.

Today I do love my recovery, it does gift me something amazing. MYSELF

I ask myself a question each morning.

If you had cash today fella would it find it's way to the bookmaker??

Today my answer was NO.

I did win because I did stop.

Lastly a huge shout out to winning post

Four years today gamble free I salute you!!!!

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Love your posts duncanmac,- they really do make me think.

Your self analysing and thoughts make me take close look in the mirror,so much strikes a chord.

Whilst your gambling everything else plays second fiddle-family,friends,finances,self respect,dignity. Its only after abstaining for a while you realise this.

My long road in recovery has always stuttered into just giving up,I've never tried to change me.

Its something I've gota work as well as filling that void left,I suppose the 2 go hand in hand.

I applaude you for the constant support you give others,well done mate.

All the best Robby.

Yo,

The positivity as always Duncs , leaps out from your posts , and can not help but infect ( in a good way lol )

others .

It brought back a memory of when I was in rehab , and the councillors were less than impressed by the attire .

To me I looked ok , but in there eyes I looked like I did not give a s***t about myself . On reflection they were right to a degree , on the other side they wanted to me to conform to how they believed I should look .

We ended up meeting somewhere in the middle .

Waffling on there , not long till you go back home , I have no doubt that being away from has been challenging , but can assume that as we used to say it has put a few more bricks in that wall between you and your addiction.

Take care mate ,

Shiny xxxx

Hey Duncs,

Inspiring post as always 🙂 thank you for sharing.

Not sure if you already back with your family ( i am a bit lost in days lol ) but if you are, then i'm sure you take it all in and share the love with them all. If you still away, you are a day closer to come back and hug the loved ones 🙂

Wish you all the best

You are great man, thank you for being here, sharing good and bad..always lessons for me

Take care

Sandra x

Sandra, shiny thanks for popping by, 36 hrs more and I will embark on the journey home.

The choice I made to come away not easy, the easy thing to do was carry on.

But i ceased the opportunity and Have learnt alot,

I don't want to gamble, really dont want to gamble, not a penny.

My resolve grows strong.

Change only comes through putting in the mileage. I love my Sarah and the kids more than I do gambling, with honesty a question that had a different answer too many times.

Today I am proud to be a recovering gambler, I will live in harmony with my addiction, I am the one with the choice.

There are many folk who have had a positive outcome on my recent events, some from suprising sources.

My advice, never leave a stone unturned, uncover the sh#it and deal with it, and enjoy the rest

I did win because I did stop.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

You sure did win Duncs and continue to do it every day.

You got back all the things that in this life are important ...the things that matter ..People are not replaceable.

Nothing changes if nothing changes ....but your life has changed cos you made it happen and you made that change..

You could have spent your life sulking that things hadn't gone the way you planned but you didn't..you were willing to be taught another way ...which is the literal definition of humility.

100% Respect to you Sir.

R and D xx

Morning diary

Well my bags are packed, I have an hour to fill, then homeward bound.

By the time Sarah leaves school today I will be home, a nice cheque to bank, and further to follow at the end of the month.

The satisfaction that I have achieved a great deal in the past 16 days, I have found my resolve grow, been humbled by the amount of homelessness in such an affluent city, to which folk appear to turn the other cheek.I have worked with folk who have a half empty glass outlook on life, to which I learnt negative thoughts breed negative thoughts.

Me my glass is half full, I refuse to let the trivial things in life manifest, then the bigger issues can be better dealt with.

That triangle I have used so well, through abstinence turns those things into positives.

By taking at least one of the three out of my life.

I HAVE TIME for the important things in my life

I HAVE MONEY due to not having access, it is there for spending on the right things.

I am in the right place at the right time, rather than when gambling I was always late or lying about were I was.

Gambling has no part to play in the bigger picture. I wont be turning my back on it again, I learnt that harsh lesson all too recently. I will stand and stare, live in harmony with the fact that I am a recovering compulsive gambler.

Today it gifts me through a choice I made

NO BET TODAY.

Here's hoping for an early night ;)) and a whippet free bed lol.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Hi honourable Duncs,

Big day for you my friend 🙂

You keep taking everything this recovery got to offer. Be proud, enjoy your loved ones company. After all this braeak just showed you how this recovery is important to you and how determined you are to make it work.

I am very happy for you Duncs. You give so much out, and i see half glass full on many aspects of my life.

Thank you and take care

You are indeed stepping forward my friend

Have a good rest tonight 🙂

S x

Hey duncs,

It's been a while since I've caught up on diaries and for some reason reading yours made me reel slightly that's because I always had such faith in you , in your determination , in your strength of character and mind, that hasn't changed because of a couple of hours of madness.

I always had faith in you and always will, just adjust the sails slightly....

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward

Take care

Blondie x

Morning mate,

Hope this finds you well.

Continued best wishes,

gazza

Evening diary.

Blondie great to hear from you, thanks for the kind words, yes i did do what i see many thought the improbable but entirely possible. Addiction will always be there, lurking looking for the opportunity to lure you back, for me one episode too many, three f*****g hours of madness, the outcome was inevitable. Loss of focus, a mind f**k and the usual losses. For me i did use it as a valuable lesson, as i have stated to just arrest my addiction through setting blocks and not addressing the why every day led to complacency and me gifting my continued abstinence to my addiction.

Learn i did and today i march on relentless in my pursuit to abstain and maintain. I have a much better handle on what to do, that is communicate my emotions, worries and work through them. Without gambling in my life i can focus on living life. In the same breathe i understand i will never turn my back on my addiction, its results are devestating.

It is great to be home, i have had a fantastic 24 hrs. The results of alot of combined effort. To which i thank all of you who have helped massively over the past three weeks. I know today the true value of recovery.

My name is duncan i am a compulsive gambler no bet today. Stepping forward never back.

Afternoon diary.

Once again this forum gifted me a great big dose of resolve.

Sometimes it is very sobering to think about what an 'ar##se' this fella was.

I will happily share that with anyone

Because I learnt, love to learn how to prevent myself from returning to that STATUS

Thankyou GAMCARERS I today salute you!!!!!!

Took the hounds for their xmas nail cut lol, hovis was delighted he got to bite the fella!!

Oh the shame of owning Whippets, the fella is brilliant, he just laughs it off and makes a real fuss of them, rather him than me!!

Off to find something delicious for supper, brilliant to be home and be able to cook what I want again, and with my understanding the true value of money that recovery gifted me it is nice to be able to know we can spend a pound or two extra to treat ourselves once in a while.

My name is Duncan I am a compulsive gambler No bet today stepping forward never back

Morning Diary.

So my extra pound went on a chunk of chorizo off the deli counter to enhance the chilli we had for supper, delicious!!! and all because today I do value what money can buy.

For me all the time I gambled I never had any focus, except that of where the next punt was going to be waged. I would begrudge the amount of toilet rolls we consumed, the kids needing shoes, so on and so forth, I look back in disgust at what I let gambling turn my outlook of money into.

To want to forgo the simple every day things to fund a bet is pretty disgusting behaviour and this in turn would lead payday into becoming a war of 'who can spend it quickest??' me in the bookies or my Sarah trying in vain to get me to see clarity and go to the supermarket, buy a massive pack of those toilet rolls rather than the four I had put in the trolley.

Gambling addiction taught me to survive on little or nothing.

You break from that cycle and it is very sobering to look back, f**k what an ar##se I became.

Today it would be a champagne lifestyle the one I let addiction make me beleive I wanted.

Today I enjoy the simple things

True value.

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

Hey Duncs

A jack Russell running the show eh??? Never!!

I fell in love with them as the exes Mum has one called ..Rosie!

They are characters are they not? ...but also love love love my pals greyhound just as much ..

Also thought today about the value of money just as you said. They say that money and energy are the same thing . I guess I am trying to get the balance right and to conserve my energy rather than just fritter it away willy nilly on everyone as I used to.

I am energetically bankrupt!!

I also value money now so much more ...I value every penny I earn and put it to good use. I'm still impatient to "get back " to where I was happiest in my early 30s and start to build again , i.e reboot pension and have some savings but right now I'm still stabilising this plane and piloting my life still through turbulence..I do have a blue sky vision now but it's still a long way..

I think the skill which is hard , is to compare our lives less to other people who seem to have it all and more to where we all were 2 years ago? ...

We are not out of the woods but boy..,have we come a long way! ...out of intensive care and stabilising ..lol

R and D xxx

Afternoon Diary

Well what lovely weather we are having !!!

it is blowing a hooligan here and pouring down, still made good use of my morning, we have the outlaws up tomorrow for a celebration supper, the kids can exchange gifts with them and wish them a happy xmas as we are away on monday morning to somerset, Sarah's kid brother is away in Canada for the festive period, he and his girlfriend decided 'why not' and flew off yesterday, good luck to them!!

So all the shopping done, some onion marmalade made for Sarah's teaching friends, to which we will drop off tomorrow for there xmas feasts and found myself an hour to pop to the library and top up on my resolve.

Gamcare is a place were I always find inspiration, I take the good and bad I read in equal measure today and above all try to learn from it.

today I learnt another valuable lesson, that gambling put blinkers on my view of sporting events and there outcomes.

To see a 'cup shock' used to bring a smile to my face and I always rooted for the under dog in games I watched from a neutral view, but today looking at sport without my 'gambling goggles' I can see that in most sporting events the playing field is a much more level place.

Take last nights fantastic darts matches which saw the reigning champion knocked out, to which it was hailed the worlds biggest shock upset.

It made me smile, because the fella who won is the world youth champion, he is in the top 64 players in the world and like many young up and coming pro sportsmen he showed No fear, something which rattled the champion greatly, but a shock by an unknown???

Only for the folk who only turn on the tv once a year to watch darts, for me I could see it coming.

So today i found myself emphaising with Captain, I get why he sees an educated bet is a way for him to live with gambling still present in his life, I can see why folk who dont gamble against the odds probally enjoy gambling, trully I do.

But and here is the huge BUT.

I cannot be one of these folk, I cannot entertain a punt, not a pound on the lottery, not an accumulator on the football or the winner of the world champs in the darts, a sport I know a huge amount about, funny a sport with numbers at it's heart, the thing I find myself constantly doing, number crunching!!

I cannot have a bet on the outcome of any of these things because I know the outcome will be this, I cannot stop, I will have to feed, my constant formulating, I will need to lance the boil so to speak, win or lose the outcome for me would be the same.

MISERY.

I accept this fully, I beleive this the reason I can still enjoy sporting events so much, because the outcome is purely immaterial.

To see two nine dart finishes on the first day of the tournament for me Fantastic, the irony for both players who hit in there sport Perfection, they both got knocked out that same day!!

But me I just enjoy the brilliance of the game, the standard of those 64 playing is amazing, so the eventual winner, it won't affect my enjoyment.

To arrest gambling from my life gifts me the ability to thimk straight, to have my rational self present at all times.

That for this fella gifts so much satisfaction, it also rewards me in many more ways than my addiction ever did.

I today therefore learnt this.

IT IS NOT THE GAMBLING IT IS THE GAMBLER

This has topped up my belief once again. I know why I do what I do.

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

Stepping forward never back.

Abstain and Maintain.