Abstain and maintain.Stepping forward never back.

Dear diary

just got in to bed,my beloved sarah is sleeping,the whippets are curled up around her,a serine sight indeed.

I have four hrs to sleep and will get back up and go back to work,another long day in the offing

But coming home to receipts being delivered through the post rather than red bills is motivation enough.

I did not waste a single penny today or a minute formulating the outcome of the next punt.

It gifts my resolve to make the right choice

Abstain and maintain

Duncs stepping forward never back

Hi Duncs,

Thanx for your caring and sorry i was a bit quiet. Do keep with your diary and as all of us willing you on and getting inspiration from you.

It can be done - you are doing it and reaping the benefits of abstinence. Nearly a year from your slip, way to go and i am just over 300 days behind you but i am holding on tight and not gonna let you to dissapear from my view in this journey 🙂

Keep it up

All the best t you and ur amazing family

Sandra x

'Courage, strength and happiness'. All for one and one for all.

xxx

Hi Duncan,

Glad to see you're still doing well, bouncing back from what happened at the end of October last year, you have continued to be an inspiration, and the support you've offered me, and others on the forum is remarkable.

Hope the weekend isn't proving to be too much of a work orientated one, I know you seem to work strange hours, much like me when I'm there.

One note - I'm disappointed the "Celt" that Joe was going for didn't have any Welsh influences there at all. Couldn't they have thrown in some cheese on toast or a bit of leek for the full Celt?!

All the best mate, look forward to congratulating you in a few weeks time!

Ryan

Evening diary

Ryan fella you made me and Joe howl with laughter

my dear friend

We go to a little independent Irish bar that does a mean Breakfast,actually the best in Portsmouth

The legendary Celt is a dustbin lid sized plate with

Bacon,sausage,lorne sausage,black pudding,white pudding,haggis,fried tomato,fried potato,tattie scone,beans,two fried eggs and four slices of toast and bottomless tea to wash it down with!! oh and Mushrooms!!!

It is amazing and completely ridiculous in the same breathe

Oh and 100% delicious!!!

Funny thing is I demolished one yesterday and Joe left his plate unfinished lol and I ate his toast!!!

I have not eaten since and have just got in from a 15 hour day.

Tonight I am going to enjoy supper and a snuggle!!!

Tomorrow I don't start till mid afternoon so after a wee lay in I will be gifting myself a couple of hours here on this wonderful forum

Sandra your post made my day a great deal Brighter!!!

One and all keep making the right choice

Abstain and maintain

Duncs stepping forward never back

No bet today

Duncan

Thanks for the congratulations kid.Good to hear from you.I visit the forum still from time to time,and can see that you are still helping the newbies out as much as you can well done m8.All the best Jeff.

Morning Diary

Through the early hours of yesterday,after little sleep and being alone with my thoughts I re visited the events of the day in January 2012 when I set off to take my own life,in my deluded eyes a 'gift' to my family.

I was so lost,I had driven my life to a point where in truth it was pointless.

I had stopped working,f**k it was just interupting my gambling,interfering with all the winning gambling was going to bring,I basically lied to everyone,worst of all myself.I stopped caring for my image,I stopped washing,I started stealing food,I would do anything to run off and stand in front of an fobt,I faced all the questions from Sarah with aggression,verbally I became like a ticking bomb,I would explode at the most trivial things,the kids became distant,addiction had driven a wedge between me and the reason I professed to 'gamble'

Sarah confronted me,asked what was going on,I did not face up to my shortcomings, I did what I had done best for all my adult life,I ran

Ran for the solitude of ending my life,why??

Not to gift my family,but because I could not see another way to live.

If you had met me that day and told me there was a life to live after gambling to financial and emotional ruin, I most probably would have tried to sell it to you for some gambling tokens.

Nothing had any value to it,I simply cashed it in for money to gamble with.

I told so many lies that they all unfolded,the postman my nemesis beat me to the door,Sarah my enemy had uncovered the carnage for all the world to see.

I had a house of cards,built on sand and it all came crashing down.

I could not gamble any more,my luck had ran out

Addiction was nowhere to be found,he ran as soon as the last penny went into the slot.

That day I broke

I was a broken man,addiction had taken me willingly to a place which in my mind had only one way out

To walk off that cliff I had skirted for many many years.

In my desperation to run,I rode those 50 odd miles to put distance between myself and all those I was running from,but the truth is my inner will,that little voice was buying itself time,time to get me to realise that I had to ask for help.

I rode those 50 miles back home to ask for it from the one person who could give it,I rode home that day without answers to fix the hole I had buried my family in,the truth is I wanted forgiveness.

I truly wanted to say I was sorry.

I am still truly sorry for those actions,the selfish act of gambling led my view of life to become detached from life,so detached that I very nearly wrote it all off.

Today I am humbled by the kind words I receive here,I am in the same breathe driven by them,because I refuse to leave stones unturned in life that may lead others,just one other person to make the decision to throw their own life away.

Sarah is my inspiration,my rock,my reason for my commitment to life and living it,not because I owe her a debt of gratitude but simply because I love her more than anything else in the world,that love is unconditional,it is met with the same in return,for that I am fully aware that I am a truly lucky man.

So in my thinking yesterday I again asked the question to myself,that often comes to my mind,it is the one addiction used to gain my devotion for twenty years.

'why stop gambling? you are a gambler by nature,you got away with out loss,the loss you most feared,so why stop gambling??

Well the truth is I see today what damage gambling wages upon my life,I did 'get away' with gambling twenty years of my life away,I am the luckiest man alive to still have a family by my side,but the reason I believe this is so,is because love is unconditional,you accept a persons faults and see through them.

I don't want to risk losing a single penny today,let alone a family because through living 'in recovery' I simply understand how futile the act of gambling is in my life.

I cannot win because I cannot stop, the mantra,the religion I followed,blindly for twenty years.

So do you have to hit rock bottom to step aside and plead to get off the ride???

Some might say I did not hit rock bottom,others may say I did

Whichever is true I do know this

I was broken by gambling and the pursuit of the very act of it,gambling won,it won the first day I gambled

Why??

Because I won money that day,today I believe for the compulsive gambler that first day,that first win I gifted my soul to addiction,for me the irony is that win was 3.60 in tokens.

Makes sobering reading.

Today that is for me the gift of therapy

I WIN BECAUSE I DID STOP

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

Stepping forward never back

Emotional post Duncan showing you where this disease can and eventually will take us.

Its nice hearing it from someone who has come through the other side, so to speak, we all know that people have died from it. Destroying lifes , Addiction is powerful and unforgiving.

Going back to that first win and gamble , it happened to me as well and am sure many others. The worst thing that could possibly of happened was to win, I mean I believe there were forces at work, when I rolled in that first JP, and a subsequent ongoing battle followed. I was hooked from the start, but with the progressiveness of the disease it got worse finiancially emotionally as we all know.

Im 36 and have gambled for 21 years or so.

I believe things happen for a reason, and after what you've been through and to come back and help out so many different people is inspirational.

With people coming onto to this forum with fear and worry that they'll never over come this addiction, you have proven it can be done.

I'll be a month gamble free tomorrow.

Keep posting and thanks,

Gavin.

Hi Duncs,

Strong emotional and sobering post.

Thank you for sharing your experiences, it really does say what this addiction can do to us,

Your posts inspire me more and more, Thank you.

Looking forward to congratulating you on one year, you certainly deserve it.

Take care

Suzanne xx

Hi there,

Hey just wanted to drop by and thank you on here. The support and understanding is priceless. Gambling addiction is something i wouldn't wish to my worst enemy...but sometimes i think better me than any other innocent soul.

Well done for keeping on Duncs, you and your family deserves only best things in life.

Keep making the right choice - keep choosing life.

S x

Hi Duncs,

What an awesome idea! I am totally up for that. Thank you! How do we go about exchanging addresses?-joan

Evening Diary

So coming from my post yesterday I will look at the here and now,I am 989 days into recovery,one day in the midst of it gifted my continued abstinence back to addiction,a very painful experience which I know addiction tried to get my brain back into the 'oh well f**k it,nothing to lose mode' because I am fully aware how quickly my old gambling brain was back in action,how it tore up my continued abstinence in front of my eyes and went into the mode it had for all those years,it really was like putting an old pair of slippers on,all too easy to be honest.

The result though I know today was not the one addiction looked for.

The truth is I am lucky that I did not win,I really did just flush all the wedge I had and then a further withdraw from the bank straight through a set of fobt's ,no wins nothing to cling on for,no blind hope,in fact I vividly recall that I was actually willing the spins to lose so I could just get on with the walk of shame and face the consequences of my actions.

f**k it would have made a great warning film to anyone who thought you can go at it in any normal fashion if you are a compulsive gambler,this fella,turning his back on the machine with each spin,marching up and down,talking to himself,loading note after note into a machine as if it was his life support machine.

Until the flatline,the death of the episode,the walk of shame.

I said goodbye,I gifted gambling it's wish,I showed my own weakness,I showed I was capable given the right circumstances and a motive that I would foolishly go back at it,forget all the carnage caused and think things might be different

Well they won't,the truth is on the 31/10/2013 I learnt the lesson first hand.

I CANNOT WIN BECAUSE I CANNOT STOP.

That day I learned for real that gambling in any fashion is an event that is totally unacceptable in my life,because the outcome will be the same

I will self gift my mind a terrible beating,it will get hammered and won't know where to turn,it will just run again and the one thing recovery has taught me first and foremost is running is fine,as long as it is controlled and in the right direction!!!

So in the aftermarth of my last punt rather than run I was just straight up honest,I knew what was at stake and forged on honestly ready to for the first time in my life face the consequences of my actions,of letting addiction back into my life.

In the next three weeks I will I know begin to exorcise the demons of that day,I will let it go,condemn it to the place it belongs

In the past,another great lesson in life taken.

It is unacceptable to place that next punt,but in equal measure I fully understand why many compulsive gamblers do place it,addiction is for a great deal of addicts something that shaped our lives,it played a huge roll in who we are,so I understand the hold it has

more so the effort it will take break the hold.

Life today is about making the best choice possible

An educated choice,one recovery gifts,one which builds esteem,builds friendships,builds courage and costs not a single penny.

I embrace it fully,I really am all in,this is me

Through recovery I see I have nothing to lose and a great deal to gain.

That I wish to share with each and every one of you.

Abstain and maintain

Duncs stepping forward never back

No bet today,Why would I????

Evening Diary

Well had a good day at work today,the boss slid a couple of pink notes in my hand today and said he would like me to add it to my tattoo fund by way of a birthday gift from him,a very nice gesture indeed,one I took at face value,no hidden agenda and to be honest it will go to a very good cause,my memorial tattoo I am having inked at the end of the month,a permanent reminder of what addiction did to my life and where I have come,a way for me to have closure,to also give me a reminder of why for me gambling will never play a further part in my life outside of recovery.

The best thing is I am having my first session on the 31st my years continued abstinence anniversary,so I am feeling really good about it.

So in an hour or so I turn the big 40,a quiet day in the offing,work first,just a half day,but in honesty I find it difficult to turn down the money on offer,then a catch up with my Mum who is visiting for a few days,then supper and an evening in the company of all the folk I hold dear.

a pretty perfect day.

They do say life begins!!! lol

And to boot my request to gamcare to exchange addresses was fore filled so a pretty great end to the day

Joan I have sharpened my pen and look forward to posting your first letter later in the week!!!

Today all this was made possible because I made a choice

That choice to not waste a single penny in any form on a punt

It gifted me my continued winning streak.

Duncs stepping forwad never back

Happy birthday enjoy hitthefanx

Hi Duncs,

Happy 40th birthday, have a lovely day.

Suzanne xx