Abstain and maintain.Stepping forward never back.

Morning Duncs,

I was up pretty late last night texting with my brother. His father in law passed away suddenly and unexpectedly and although he was quite old my brother's wife is crushed as she and him were very close. I picked up the diaries and was so touched to see your mention of Ed. That you think of him in moments of quiet solitude reminds me of how often I find myself looking up at the stars wondering which one he is. Thank you for being you and for being my friend. -joanxx

Morning diary
So my dear friend yesterday was another long day of grafting followed by a huge food shopping trip with Sarah and Lily, stocked up the cupboards with supplies for the next couple of weeks.
A great feeling that bills have been paid and there is money in the bank.
Oh and I got a hundred pound d lock for my bike that comes with it's own insurance which will deliver better peace of mind.
Today sees twelve hours and more at the stoves which fills me with joy.
My plan graft hard like this for two more weeks and then enjoy Sarah's half term doing some stuff for us.
I am going a healthy hundred miles an hour,lessons learnt from my last attempt at squashing life into a week!!!
Right time to get busy living!!!
All because of a choice
To create change
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back

I’m also on the coal face this Saturday morning Duncs but unlike you, I’m not full of joy at being here.

You obviously know yourself better than moi, and no doubt becoming more aware of where your stop button is with regards to work. I found out myself a few years back that my shelf life for work is a round about the 3 month mark, ie that’s when I need a break to become human again other wise I head to the arms of addiction, albeit knowing this I still seem to fall into the same old trap and work silly hours resulting in a unbalanced Paul and very susceptible to addictions.

I do enjoy the banter from my job the majority of time and a small % has been a honour to work on, so I’m quite envious of your love for your cooking .

Have a good one Duncs

Evening diary
Thanks for popping by Paul,yes I do love to cook and it does make getting up for work a joy, but I know my limits much better today and know my cooking is better if I keep my time in a kitchen to around fifty hours a week maximum.
Labouring today which is like a day off for me, one where I earn myself some pocket money and tonight I got to spend an hour or two in the gym and cook supper for my beloved family and of course run my hounds until they couldn't run any more.
Labouring tomorrow then back to the stoves for the rest of the week.
Then another week of much the same and then I will gift myself a few days off to spend with Sarah and my hounds.
I felt a bit wobbly earlier today,like my mind was fogging over,but a good supper has regenerated me and I know my actions have navigated me around the stormy waters I saw ahead.
I by my own admission don't look after myself well enough from a dietary perspective when working the long days and will try to plan better for my own benefit.
Life goes on,I am living it,for the opportunity I am humbled and in equal measure inspired.
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back.

Evening diary
Just home from ten straight hours at the stove,a good days graft and some truly good food cooked,no complaints, just good feedback, so worthy of my efforts.
I made a connection with a long standing member of the forum who called out for help,last week I was annoyed and ashamed by the comment left on their thread last week,totally uncalled for and I believe it led to have a devastating effect.
I am not here to judge anyone,I am not here to try and out trump others to what?? Make myself feel better?? Inflate my ego at another folks expense??
I learnt people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
But I am glad to have spoken with the person involved and hope they have sailed through the storm.
I respect the connections I have made with many folk here and where possible I really truthfully want to help and in doing so make myself a better person.
I know that the forum will have like the 3d world folk who don't see eye to eye but surely if that's the case you simply keep your opinions to yourself.
We all have enough of a fight with our own demons to pick ones with other folk, maybe like many occasions in my gambling life it's just easier to cast opinions on others to deflect our own flaws.
Not a choice I make today.
I hold everything to valuable.
Today I regard my own life my focus.
Today I made the right choice.
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back.

duncanmac wrote: Today is seven days no gambling I have been a mixed up mess of emotions I go from emense regret to feeling the urge to gamble it all back to right! but I have to be honest my wife has been a rock as always. I owe her so much more than the money I have denied her to fuel this terrible compulsion I have had for all our nineteen years we have been together. I can say honestly that I for the first time in my life that I want the help I want to arrest this compulsion and although I know I feel selfish as it feels like it is all about me but trully I want to never walk into a bookies again.I hope then everyone who is there for me will reap what I sow. And to finish I cant wait for my next GA meeting thursday I feel I belong! duncs one day at a time!

Six years (yesterday) since you wrote this Chef and I remember it like it was yesterday. Six long years you have battled and the way in which you have turned your life around is truly inspiring. You have made a wonderful impact on this forum and indeed on my own up and down recovery for which I will always be grateful. Long may you and your family reap the benefits fo what you have sown.

Best wishes,

Mark

Thanks for your post and support Duncan, you are a great guy/person

Wilsy

Morning diary.
Thanks for you ongoing support gentleman I am truly humbled by your kind words.
I started to write a post last night but my nemesis recaptcha decided it wasn't to be!!
Another twelve straight hours at the stove yesterday which filled my soul with joy, today I am back labouring and then two long days cooking, tonight I have created the ability to spend the evening with my soulmate, my beloved Sarah, we have an ever growing relationship today one were everything is shared, good and bad and it is without doubt my biggest inspiration.
So dear diary it as Markman wrote been six years and more that you have been by my side, I came here in a terrible state of affairs and I have written my life since for anyone to see in black and white, warts and all.
I have given back to addiction twice in those years for two very different reasons, I know a great deal more today than I did the day I came.
Today I believe I understand my inner self a great deal better and will never stop wanting to learn more about myself.
When I came here I believed it was all about the days between myself and the last bet and believed alone that would be the answer to all my shortfalls.
Today I know that just stopping the act of gambling is purely an act that creates opportunity for a life without self created destruction, I understand why I gambled better and how progressive gambling addiction is. I believe that no matter how long a person is gamble free it is true that we as addicts are all in the same boat, just one bet away from destruction.
I have had the privilege to have been given some amazing advice here and met some amazing folk as a result, there is an amazing sense of belonging upon these pages and I have been inspired so many times.
There is no magic recipe or pill for us that will allow a gamble free life, but without doubt dear friend you have provided me with a form of self medication that I believe can't be found in a bottle.
You are my constant therapy.
My advice to anyone who is starting their own life without actively feeding addiction commit to change, don't be afraid of yourself and never give up on yourself.
I let myself become so detached from life through my actions that I sought to end my life and truthfully if that train, any train would have been running that day I would have taken my own life, I saw it as the only answer,outcome that would resolve the issues that I created or mentally had lived with for the greater part of my life.
Today I am truly humbled by the opportunity to live, I am inspired and for the first time as an adult can say I truly want to live.
Whatever lays ahead I have the ability to face it, without actively feeding addiction I know my ability to do so is heightened.
Equally I respect the black and white that I am and will be a compulsive gambler for my entire life.
I can decide to act upon it's calling or not.
Just for today I choose NOT.
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back

Morning diary
Hard days lifting and shifting yesterday, a physical challenge for me to not try too hard, I am not a spring chicken any more and will do well to remember that!!
I have the up most respect for anyone who does that sort of thing for a living it reminds me that I have been very fortunate to have spent a working life in greater comfort, although I have met many good folk who have equally struggled in the heat of the kitchen!!
That is where I am heading now, two days at the stove.
Then seven more days graft and a few days off.
I will not gamble today, I have too much to lose at any odds offered.
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back

Morning diary.
Well a busy day at the stove yesterday, we had a full dining room and got through a hundred customers in the first two hours, a day to be wholly focused on the job in hand. Good to be able to do so and I really enjoy a Sunday, get to roast some exceptional meats and do justice to them with the right things to go with them and I see it as a day of free advertising, if Sunday lunch is right we see folk returning during the week, it's off the beaten track so not much chance of passing trade.
So today I am having a day off!! I know my body and brain need some rest so I will give it some then tomorrow I will get back refreshed and be able to give my best for the rest of the week.
Today I understand control and respect my body and mind and treat them accordingly.
Addiction hates this, it sulks away in the doldrums of my inner mind, it wants me to wear myself out,to become weak and careless so it can try again to take over.
I know where it will try to attack and will work hard to not let situations give it the ability to do so.
I believe that this used to be the other way around, I wanted to feed it,I lived to feed it and would be angry if I was unable to.
The tables have turned.
Financially we are finding clearer waters, my efforts to pay off the debt created by my actions lessens and we are able to live in a better fashion, this means there is money in the bank,we are not living hand to mouth, I am not chasing money, I am happy to actually be owed money for work rather than living in a desperate state were I need the money to more likely pay back what I borrowed the week before. Today I am going to re write the debt list and re focus on clearing it, I have the ability to do so by the summer and I know in doing so I will regain more power against addiction.
I have learnt from previous episodes of doing so, addiction saw the act of being debt free as a green light to selling me the line that I earnt the right to gamble again.
I believe it is a circle, one that ever decreases when active.
Today I live within the circle but it's something of my choosing, I find a new comfort in looking addiction straight in it's eyes, I want it to be present,therefore I can see how weak I can make it.
This is the product of not running away any more.
It is inspiring and I am truly inspired by it.
I am off to town with Callum after to get a few needed bits and will collect the ingredients to cook up a roast tonight.
A reward of our efforts.
Just for today I will not gamble.
Because I understand why for me its unacceptable to do so.
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back.

Thanks for your support Duncan, and always like reading your posts, always inspire me to remain strong.

Wilsy

Hello Duncan,

I just thought that I would pre-warn you that I was left with the hard task of reporting that post above to the Gamcare police via the alert button as I stand out in this artic weather salvitating at the lips reading about roast meals, my stomach is rumbling so much that I may go and have my bread and butter

Morning diary.
Wilsy Paul thanks for popping by.
Paul I won't apologise fella and you may want to look away lol
Yesterday I did what I needed to and crowned it by roasting up a beautiful leg of English lamb accompanied by several types of vegetables and a mountain of roast potatoes and it was delicious, we always put our dinner family service down the middle of the table and everyone can help themselves to what they want, yesterday there was nothing left! Not even vegetables for bubble and squeak.
The chocolate t**t for pudding went to boot and I am still full now!
Still I am fueled for the days ahead, I am ready to face the week ahead, off to sort a new dessert menu today, labouring tomorrow and cooking for the rest of the week.
Today we are going to see how many desserts we can make gluten free without compromising the flavour of things, the gluten free flour works for some things but others a big no no.
I have tried and failed countless times to create gluten free Yorkshire pudding and it just doesn't work!!!!
Had fun with our Callum yesterday we wandered around town, I bought the stuff on the list and wasn't inspired to buy anything else, sadly I would rather shop on the internet as I know its cheaper, something I never thought I would say being that I didn't have a clue how to use it not to many years ago.
The world has without doubt changed a great deal, I remember fondly market days and the bustle of them, now it is a ghost town, sadly reflected by the amount of homelessness present.
I dished out my change to the ones I know, one fella has been homeless for 15 years, his mental health has made living any other way for him impossible and sadly there's little support left in Portsmouth for it.
Me I am not here to judge and accept that I cannot change some things in life however cruel they seem.
Today I can look after my own interests
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back.

You always make me feel hungry Duncan, curse you! Haha.

Have a great day mate

Wilsy

Morning diary
Long hard days labouring yesterday and today I have the same during the day and back to the stove tonight for a dinner session,then tomorrow I am again labouring and cooking all weekend, my days are full and give me a sense of fulfilment, I am getting to know myself so much better, I have created a balance of sorts by working two very different jobs and believe that I get the best from both of them. I don't polarize things like I did when I just cooked,I feel like I have a better outlook in general.
Aside from that I will facilitate the debt I created without lowering the standard of living my loved ones deserve.
Addiction truly hates it, that's inspiration enough.
Right hounds to run the highlight of my morning!!!
Abstain and maintain
Duncs stepping forward never back.