Abstain and maintain.Stepping forward never back.

I am so sorry.

Cathyx

Hi Dunc

You are one of the people who gave me hope this addiction could be fought when Mr L had near nuked everything around him.

I'm sorry to see things are so tough for you at the moment. Hoping they start to look brighter very, very soon for someone who truly deserves it.

Hi I don't know you but sincerely hope you get the care and support you need. Wishing you all the very best S:)

I'm gutted for you. You have helped a lot of people on here Duncan I have been on here a long time so I know how you have helped peopleand like you have said to other posters suicide is a permanent solution to a tempory problem. I really hope you sort things out at least everything's out in open now and hopefully you can move on. Best wishes graeme

Plus think about your kids Duncan. I can pretty much guarantee they need you in they life's and love you to bits. How would they feel if you managed to end your life? I can tell you devastated things might be bad but things can be sorted

Hey Dunc's . I can only mirror the comment's already left for you on your diary . You know how many times I've passed those 9 word's onto others in the last couple of years since I've been here , word's that I alway's found very comforting and that summed up perfectly what we needed to hear in our darkest time . Many people are now returning the compliment by gifting them back to you in your time of need , whatever happen's Dunc remember it's never a permanent state , just temporary .

Best wishes to you and your's from one Portmuthian Compulsive Gambler to another ,.

Stay safe my friend :))

Evening diary, today has been a very long very emotional,at times stressful and frustrating day but one I will learn more about myself from.

I had my assessment with three members of the crisis team which involved recalling events back to my childhood through to today, I found this a difficult process, one in which the old stiff upper lip came into play a good few times, the deep rooted compulsive gambler in me not wanting to show all my hand, always weighing up internally the options for escape, I rode through the emotions and let honesty rule the session.on this assessment I was not deemed clinically depressed but to have a form of traumatic stress. I look at this as progress because as I explained on Sunday I had detached myself from the world, I wanted to be dead, I was internally crashed, yesterday the waters in my mind thrashed about and often overwhelming, today was like many days in my life, I felt very calm, like I had spent a time in the eye of the storm but the storm had passed leaving destruction but an eary peace with it.

I have to return to the gp Thursday for a medication review as they we're going to discuss it once I'd left today, and I was encouraged to embrace GA again, something I will be doing. I have numbers to ring if I need help and I will be re self exclude from the bookies tomorrow.

I managed another conversation with Sarah to ensure that things are being looked after in Portsmouth, also I exchanged a few emails with the kids, I hope to see them at some point next week.

I thank you all for the amazing words of kindness, I am overwhelmed, I will get through this, I will be a better person because I refuse to pay any more, I have given enough, now I have to look for a new road's ahead.

Regards Duncan.

A fly by Good morning to you Duncs, boots are going on and only just realised that it's Wednesday and not Thursday after all with which I'm a little gutted with as I think I've put 5 days work into the last two, something which I think your doing that at the moment, the only difference is that your putting the work into yourself. Respect

A little random here and you've known me long enough in cyber that it's something I tend to do. But humbly think it's not a new road, I think if you cycled from Lands End to John O'groats that you'd no doubt be hitting the push bike in frustration as you hit yet another road works, tree in the road or a selfish driver but you would still finally reach John O'groats, so my humble is that you've hit all three at once, yet still your on the right path

Morning diary.

Paul fella your right, I am not on a new road but I have come off the roundabout that I have been frantically riding around and around for the entire time I have been here. I am coming to terms with the fact that I took my mental state to the point where I truthfully wanted to completely self destruct to the point of no return.

I have been riding over a question asked by the crisis team.

"Did you want to be dead? Or did you want to die??"

I think that the difference between the two are the fine line between life and death. I spoke openly about the choice to walk in front of a train being fail safe and that other forms were not cast iron in there outcome, this on reflection tells me that I still applied some rational thinking,so I would be right in saying that I wanted to die rather than wanted to be dead.

I have had to ride this around my mind because I went ahead and plainly told Sarah and the kids of my intention before I set off on Sunday on that walk, because I am doubtless in my mind that I would have ended that journey in front of a train had there been one. I know that the act of suicide is a selfish permanent one, but I today believe I truly understand why folk commit to it. I equally know in my mind that addiction in the form of gambling doesn't give a fookeckity f**k about the ultimate outcome of it's desire to be fed, gambling addiction just wants feeding.

Gambling has never bred greed in me, gambling has never actually bred the desire for me to win or more importantly feel like a winner, gambling has just emerged me in the act of the gamble.

I have said before and will remind myself again I could whilst in action stand in front of a machine with a£25 jackpot and feed a weeks wages into it, I could take six or seven hours to do so and if a jackpot is won on the first or last spin what is the outcome?

Simply more action.

My 3d life has been often lived in a warped survival mode as the outcome of such action and I readily learnt to lie my way through.

One white lie becomes a multitude of them, for me always financially based, but often the outcome emotional carnage for the ones that you profess to love.

I let addiction tell me over and again that I gambled for "them"

Utter bol#@*cks I gambled to escape them.

I have never felt I was worthy of much, never have been, I have always felt that any high or feeling of accomplishment or contentment would be followed by a crashing down to the bottom where I belong. If life tells you often enough your sh#t you start to smell it and you know that you can't polish it, an ever decreasing circle the result, the feeling that the world is going to cave in, the feeling that nothing is worth the effort, the desire to fly or run.

I did have a misconception that fight was an option as a young man, except I took the internal fight into 3d, with that I received a criminal record and nothing else.well a heightened sense of unworthiness.

Life is brutal and yet I have to see the beautiful amazing things it has brought. My life with Sarah,one I wholly accept has changed now forever,one I hope something forms of goodness out from it's deep roots,we have had better conversation in the past couple of days than in a long time.our three children are the outcome of those roots and they will need tending and caring for and I will try to form better relationships with them as a result.

I guess it's true that you really don't know what you have until you don't have it any longer.

I have made myself a promise as a result of my actions, I will no longer punish myself.

I will improve and make amends for my failings where possible.

I have my next doctors appointment in an hour or so hopefully another piece of my puzzle will be handed back.

One day, one step at a time.

Duncs.

Dear Duncan,

I hope your doctor's appointment went well and that you are bearing up as well as can be under these troubled times.

My words are probably just another drop in the tidal wave of support you receive from this forum but I really do wish there was something I could say that would mean something to you and make you even a little more happy or at least hopeful. Just a small token for all the times you have propped me up in my own dark, considerably less, but still dark hours.

Stay strong and do focus on the good things. There are still so many good things.

Mark

Hi Duncan, I am still trying to get my head around the difference between wanting to die, and wanting to be dead. Wanting to be dead is utter finality, a move from being to non being. Wanting to die, seems to me to be more of a process, wanting to escape our pain, emptiness...it's what we do when we are compulsive gamblers. Duncs I have seen so many posts from people who respect you, who tell you that you are a good man....it's good to hear, but I know the difficult part is knowing it for yourself. Hope today has been a good one.

Wishing you strength and good choices.

Take care.

CW

Evening diary.

Rhoda,my take is although I am sure that if my plan of action had been possible I would have committed fully to it, but without the completion I was brought crashing back to the reality of what I was doing, meaning wanting to die had options, where I think if I would have wanted to be dead I would have done so by any means. The mind f**k about this for me is there's lower places to reach mentally,a frightening prospect because I was so far gone mentally on Sunday morning I didn't think it possible to downward spiral any further.

Today I have been prescribed antidepressants a pretty strong dose,a weeks dose and a return appointment, I will take them and follow the course, I spoke in depth about group counseling something I will equally pursue.

I have signed up with a recruitment agency this afternoon, tomorrow I am going to fill in all the required documents. I will look to find work in the interim, don't care what it is, just keep money moving through the bank. After all it keeps the world going around.

I got massively agitated with our youngest son earlier and didn't deal with it too well, I know that he has the right to founder his own opinions,he is eighteen and to add to the fact that he has a massive built up anger over the recent revaluations I felt like enemy number one. Something I accept and will try to give more reserve toward.

Cynical w, I guess that post was difficult to write, I am humbled by your words.

Truthfully I know that compulsive gamblers relate and don't judge others, but those families affected by this decease should be given equally as much therapy and support. We are all hugely affected by this addiction. it's a united front needed to arrest the damage brought.

So today I picked up some more pieces.

I am committed to living.

Regards Duncan.

Evening diary.

I feel so full of genuine grief tonight, the very realisation that I have lost my soulmate, that I have lost the person I have shared the past 26 years of my life with, the person whom I have shared my darkest and brightest hours with with an equally phenomenal desire for being together. I have been nursed when ill and nursed her through some dark waters of her own. But it's gone,a line has been drawn firmly in the sand.

Conversation more duty bound than through desire and without any of the passion.

And I brought this, I was told what would happen if I had a punt. And I am living it.

The worst of it is the money gambled last friday was significant an amount on the day but the cost of my marriage!!

Wow that's a hard pill to swallow.

I guess that the best I can do is function.

I have no wind for the sails, I have fallen off the path, I am truly lost.

I know I have to accept my fate, but it has carved the middle out of me.

Sarah I am sorry, my unconditional love forever, nobody will ever measure what you have brought.

Duncs.

Is it not self preservation? Addiction with us as the conduit causes immeasurable psychological pain & just as addiction is progressive, relapse seems to be too & I'm not talking finances 🙁

I'm not for one minute suggesting this is going to be easy but you will find a new path, both of you!