fair play full respect for paying it , not sure what i would do, but one thing i do know is being the council it would be a ball ache to dispute the debt anyway, weather you owe it or not , so paying it is defo the most stress free way to move forward.
Morning DM
Great post from you and your certainly in a great mindset, i am learning all the time ! it is actually somewhat both sobering and strangely inspiring to write every debt down and come to terms and accept this is what you have done and then what are you going to do about it. I did this previously when i had a long break from gambling but know the thought process !
Well done again for facing the reality of your reap, speak soon Dark Place / together we stand !
I'm glad I read your last post Dunc, because it'll help myself and others when life bites us on the behind. There is true value in what you wrote, thank you. Sorry about the Bailiff business it must have stirred a few emotions again but at least you turned it into a positive and didnt let it get you down. I agree, its about regaining honour. This takes time but those here have chosen to take this path and when we read the words which you wrote it shows us the way so again thanks for that.
I really liked the idea of the clock and converting the beds into planters, all duly noted in my little book of ideas. I'm working on cooking crickets at the moment, I need some good flavours though. This idea is a winner because theyre full of protein, nutritious and you can feed them on any old shiite. I'm going to market them towards the health industry, I just need the right flavours. It may seem daft but im just ahead of my time, if you can market people to drink what is basically tap water in a bottle then with the right advertising you can get beefcakes eating my pickled onion flavoured cockroaches. It's just an idea, in it's early stages but it has mileage. Anyway I'll leave it there, its making me hungry.
Steg
DMac,
I know you are busy but was hoping you could give Martin67 some encouraging words today. Nice guy needing some help.
Tomso.
Hi Dunc and all your followers - if only you knew how hard it was for me to ask you about the verification of the ct bill and the bailiff - I felt I was letting you down , as indeed I've always felt throughout my life! But had to question it because I have learnt that being soft and just paying out willy nilly doesn't help you at all and indeed over the years just fed your habit - so I owe it to Sarah to ask. She is so strong standing by you and both Ed and I respect and admire her. We also love the pair of you to bits and will always be here for you and the tribe. Trust can return - I know from experience because your father destroyed all the trust I ever had and even though Ed is as straight as a die it took me some years to trust him implicitly. I always look on the black side and know this is not the way to go. We both thought of you all week with Cheltenham so big in the calendar but each time you show the strength to abstain it cements another little hole in the trust wall. We are so proud of you both for your truth and perseverence.
Evening diary
Thanks for the view from the other side of the fence MA, as I said on this thread I fully respect you asking, I am the one who told the countless lies and wound endless webs of deceipt. It is something that will have scars running deep for life, the innocent victims of this addiction that never get the praise and rewards they truly deserve.
I have today worked on my day off, a rare bit of overtime, paid at a higher rate to boot, so the efforts of recovery seem to shine down on me, making the resolve to continue recovery in a relentless fashion.
With honesty today tomso's post on my thread put gambling into perspective, because yes it is there, we could all find a million and one reasons to go back at it, then blame it all on our 'addiction' well I do know how hard it is to resist the 'call' of addiction, I walk in those shoes every day.
Today I don't feel the pressure of it too much, the constant presence here is a massive contributing factor in that, it is a reminder of the destruction that waging a single penny would bring, it is a very healthy place for me to be.
So I made an arrangement to pay the council tax bill off in installments, so it will be paid.
Sarah is a tower of strength, a gentle voice in the world, but she also gifts me the space to re-grow and think about my actions.
Our joe turns 20 on thursday, someone we are both very proud of, he is testament to the huge effort he gives life, he has a very jaundice view of money, not a bad thing, because in the same breathe he also understands it's true value.
Something I myself learn with time.
Todays choice was another to be proud of
My name is duncan I am a compulsive gambler No bet today.
Stepping forward never back.
Hey Duncs,
Another great post to read, thank you so much for sharing. You always put the most important things of life into perspective. Something we can so easily forget while in a gambling bubble.
Be proud my friend, keep moving ahead, you are fantastic person and I'm reall happy to find you on my recovery journey to a better and calmer future.
Take care,
All the best to you and your wonderful family
Sandra x
Hi Duncan
Thank you for sharing this another insight to your poignant past life and ever invading future. It is a form of art to be able to write and express yourself as you do, something that is actually difficult to learn. I wrote in some earlier post, we are all born with gifts and if you do not take care of them, they will leave you. Gambling is the snaking p**d piper for peoples gifts, it brings just pity despair and ultimately a sad and lonely death ! we can and will beat our addiction my friend and peer. Together united, Dark Place
DMac,
I hope you didn't mind me asking you to post on another diary the other day. You have a way with words which has helped give me a kick up the backside in the past and I thought Martin67 needed the same. Thanks for that.
My new baby is approaching twenty days old and your boy is approaching twenty years old. Sounds crazy. I hope your family have a wonderful day and Joe enjoys his birthday.
Tomso.
evening diary
thanks for the kind words folks, it really does give me a huge sense of pride to think other folk take something from my thread, that my ramblings may have a positive effect on other folks recovery.
I do believe this journey is about constantly evolving, about growing what is positive and continuing to eradicate the sh##it, that is present and the past that needs attention in equal measure.
To deal with my past is equally important as dealing with what life throws my way today, to many times when gambling my life it was easy to live by forgetting yesterday and concentrating on causing today's carnage, only to wipe the slate and repeat it the following day, the cycle of constant prolonged destruction that was my gambling life.
I had a really theraputic talk with a fellow member of my GA room yesterday about the meaning of 'recovery'
At first it was simply about putting days between me and the last punt, to arrest the damage was I believed the only way, the answer to recovery.
But this for me in truth was just a time bomb ticking, a count down clock rather than the building of a life away from gambling, a life in which I would be gifted countless free hours to forefill, I simply just kept counting my gamble free time, folk around me let my addiction believe 'recovery' was no longer the most important thing in my life and with honesty the arrogance re-appeared, that wanting to show folk I was in control, pride let my addiction back in, for those three hours I gambled I let myself believe that I was 'doing it for my loved ones'
That is plain and simply a f*****g lie, I gambled because I am a compulsive gambler and had stopped 'recovery' being the most important thing in my life.
For me today recovery is where it begins and ends, without it I know what will happen, I will answer to the call of my addiction.
I do get a great deal from recovery, but I will never be foolish enough to stop giving back.
Recovery is for me a two way street it is what ever you want it to be, but I know that if I let up for a minute I will open myself up to addiction taking advantage.
I don't subscribe to thinking any of the reasons to have that first punt today are acceptable.
Boredom, the chase, the buzz or for financial gain are all pish, they are all just the compulsive gambler trying to bull##s#hit it's way back into my life.
With honesty, I have the t-shirt, book dvd and poster on how to lie and cheat, I let the compulsive gambler within me live at the fore for twenty years.
I could have carried on with the coulda woulda shoulda life, f**k I gave it all I had to give and more, or I could carry on embracing recovery.
Today I know which I prefer, hard graft and to keep making the selfish choice, the one selfish choice that keeps giving and never disapointing.
So we laughed again at the saying our dearly missed long standing member of our GA room (RIP dave)
'All we are asking you to do is not have a bet'
Because that saying is simply beautiful
What is more beautiful is what 'recovery' can gift, the lids off the bottle, drink and enjoy.
My name is duncan I am a compulsive gambler No bet today.
Our eldest boy turned twenty years old today, no longer a teenager, a man, Someone we are honoured to call our Son.
Stepping forward never back
Hi Duncan.
I just want to say you have a great diary on here and are a great inspiration to anyone that wants to beat this horrible addiction.
Stacey.
Great to see you still here doing so well mate. Top man duncan 😉
Because I had never actually started to recover from this addiction, I had just stopped gambling, not understood why I gambled, today I embrace help, it's free and I do believe today I am in recovery for real.
Just lifted this from a reply you posted on another thread. It is so true and yet we have to wade through the garbage to get to this state of mind. Stopping isn't good enough for me today. I need to move forward and work on myself. It is hard to describe unless you are on the path to recovery. I do not seek perfection just self realisation of some description. I have hid myself away for years and now I'm starting to emerge albeit very slowly. Addiction of any kind is a good place to hide ourselves until the time is right. I wouldn't dwell on it too much as it drives me mad! Take care and I'm strolling along with you on the pathway of recovery
Evening diary
Thanks smiler, you gifted hope the very first day I came here, that hope has grown into a belief.
A belief in making the right contributions to life in all forms, sometimes they are painful but for the most I enjoy life today, because it really is what I want to make it, they are not false hopes built on the outcome of a machine.
I really cant believe the time I dedicated to the futile efforts of chasing pipe dreams in a £500 jackpot machine, but the truth is all my life I gambled I could not see life, in the pub as a teenager, my peers would be enjoying each others company, playing pool/darts, me I would be feeding my hard earnt into a fruit machine.
Never walking away until I had fed it all I had in my pockets, truthfully all those peers could have left, I would not have noticed, infront of any electronic gambling machine I do truly zone out, almost willing myself to lose to get it over with.
I don't look at it with a totally negative mind today, I actually see it as a great lesson in life, because thank f**k I never graduated to playing online, something I have along with a casino never played.
I am a mechanical man in a digital world as far as the world of the internet is concerned, when folk here talk of copy and pasting I think of wallpaper!!!LOL I did not know how to log onto a computer before I set out on this journey, I still type with two fingers, my kids roar as I sit posting here.
This forum is 99% of my total internet usage in the world, something I am very glad of in regards to gambling, as I have witnessed here and in my GA room too many times the destruction of internet gambling.
Funny regards casinos I never went because I believed I was never rich enough to walk through the doors, they were another world to my mind, somewhere I would never be worthy.
Another close shave I believe.
You can always see two sides to every coin, I don't excuse my losses, in context the figure I lost through my gambling life is mindblowing.
Even more so because the rewards that were on offer where in fact pretty paultry in comparison to my stakes.
I have written here many times that I view myself as the worlds 'worst' gambler.
A mantle I wear with some perverse pride today.
It gifts my resolve to see why gambling is a total waste of not just my hard earnt but the huge amount of time I gifted it.
So today I was up and at e'm early, caught the worm so to speak, got a barrel load achieved today, work tomorrow, long hard day I can look forward to, then the e'l classico tomorrow night by way of a reward.
The outcome, hopefully a goal fest, but just to enjoy watching the best in the footballing world ply their skills enough, a goalless draw will equally do for me, not a penny staked on the outcome so it really is just for pleasure.
Not that youngest is enjoying the football too much at the minute, our beloved Pompey are getting ever closer to losing there place in the football league!! still his half full glass won't be beaten either, his own words tonight over a well earnt bowl of pasta were. 'well my season ticket renewal will be less in the conference!!
So losing for him may bring winning lol
So I finish typing, loudly lol as the voice just finishes, Sarah seems to enjoy it, for me I can then watch the darts from the other night again a 161 finish to end the proceedings!!! if only I could do that!!! then the goal fest of motd to look forward to.
All made possible because the world of gambling stood infront of me again today as it does and will every day, and I made a choice.
No bet today
MY name is duncs I am a compulsive gambler
Stepping forward never back.
Abstain and maintain
Morning DM,
I read your post with glee and am excited to tell you that this year while playing in my respective darts league, i current;y hold the highest check out of 160 ! that covers Premier/Div1/Div2/div3
I can say that darts has been a huge challenge for me, i have always been able to turn my hand to most sports and play to a good level ! well when i took up darts 4 years ago, i quickly realised that the term military darts (left right, left right) was firmly and appropriately a good description of me ! now however, after constantly working on my technique and spending one hour at a time just throwing trying not to move on the ockey !
It's a great game when your playing well, especially with same level players after a few beers ! you have to admire those pros, incredible some of it.
Anyhow enough rambling, have a great day and rest of the weekend ! i'm still free of the disease.
Dark Place
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