Angel From Montgomery

Thanks Sandra!

Diary: Another Saturday. I'm still here. That's a good thing. I managed to get thru half of the weekend so far without a slot machine. I know for some the very words can be a trigger. Accept my apology. I have been there myself. For me this recovery has been unfolding in stages. I can now say the words without flinching or fanaticizing. I no longer associate them with pleasure. I cannot remember the last time I logged onto an online site. I get teasing emails all day on my android. I get pleasure from deleting them. I even had some j**k call me on my land phone this week asking me why I haven't logged on? What's not to love about the gaming industry?? I don't seem to have nearly as many urges during the week. It all tends to bottle neck on Thursday nights. This week I caught myself stuffing feelings of anger, resentment, and frustration over some of the people I was training. Over people I share the road to and from work with. I tried to figure out: why I was reacting so strongly? Why I can't just let it roll off of my back? I don't have any answers but, one thing I did not do was gamble about it. It would never occur to me after a terrible day at work to take a baseball bat and bash it into my own face. Gambling for me is like that. I am making that important connection and when the urges come it is getting easier to ride them out. I imagine myself as the Lt. Dan character out of the movie Forest Gump; when he tied himself to the mast of the boat in the middle of a lightening storm. I tell myself what doesn't kill me will make me stronger. This whole terrible mess with gambling has not killed me yet, and I don't plan on letting it. Not today. The only day that matters. -joanxxxxxx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZH9ebAZouk

Joan

I relate to that film in many ways, a great moral on how the world sees the same folk through many len'ses.

Glad to read your dumping the trash still, a working progress.

I doff my cap to you my friend long may it continue.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Thanks for the post Duncs. Always good to hear from you!

Diary: Sunday. Made it through another weekend without the casino. This time it was a smidgen easier. I'm not sure why. I was no busier. I still had a few urges. I have funds. Making the connection that gambling = self abuse is one thing. Maybe for me, the main thing. When I have a hard time with work or life in general I just assume on some level that I am a loser or a failure. I don't come across that way. I display anger and even righteous indignation at times. Rationalization is my favorite defense and I am good at it. But, deep down inside somewhere I feel inadequate maybe even a little like a fraud. Self doubt and self hatred has chewed a hole of indescribable depth in my heart. I think I try to stuff it with food and anything that might stop the pain. For me, at times the pain is unbearable. I don't come across that way. On the surface I appear over weight but crisply functional. The smile is basically painted on. I wrap my opened heart with many layers. So that no one can see the real me. I am starting to make some important connections. I have discovered that I am not a loser. I am not a fraud. I am not inadequate. I don't have to have all of the answers. I don't have to be perfect. These are the things I have been working on for a long time it seems. Anyway, that was a real ramble considering that all I really wanted to say was that; I'm proud of myself today. 😀 -joanxxxxx

And, I am both grateful and proud to be on this long journey with so many other wonderful souls.

Hey Joan, Thanks for your post to me and you're right... need to park the guilt and shame. I'm slowly getting better at that because I have noticed that when I allow myself to wallow in it, I stay stuck for a longer period of time and usually reach for some other bad thing. Still, I think it's good to try to remember the bad feelings that accompany the aftermath of gambling. You reach for food while I reach for beer, pot, and cigs... really, no difference in behaviour in that we're not self soothing in healthy ways. BUT.. you aren't gambling and that alone is a major accomplishment so kudos to you! Keep at it, girl. We're all in this together.

Hey Joan,

Just bumping ur diary where it belongs:-)

Well done for getting dreaded weekend out of the way:-)

I love reading your posts..you got big heart my friend...and gifting us all by sharing a piece of it on this forum. Thank you.

((( Joan )))

S x

Hey Joan,

Page 3....NO NO NO lol

Give us a ROAR girl!!!:-)

Hope all is good and you keeping well my dear fighter

Sandra x

Sandra, thank you for the boost!! ((((S))))

Diary: Payday Thursday and Friday came and went. The casino was open for business as usual but, the difference was I/we were not there! It has been a few weekends now that I have managed to completely abstain from slot machine mania and, I am not ashamed to say that I feel good about it. The last couple of days were NOT stellar days for me at all. I could go into some detail; in fact, I started several posts over the last couple of days but, always logged out before sending. I don't know why. Today, it doesn't seem to matter. The point is; I did not reach out to gambling as a means to solving my problems nor did I use it as a means for "numbing out". When I am in the grip of addiction I sometimes read posts like the one I am writing now, and would think to myself, "Well, La, De f***k ing Dah". I never said I was a saint. It is a challenge to be an individual anywhere in this world and this forum is no different. What I have learned is that the old saying I learned in AA so many years ago is true; "If you spot it, you got it". I cannot even count how many times I have gotten set off by things I have read on here. Again, for me it was about learning how to see the person behind the words instead of seeing myself in everything that was said. If you are reading and posting on here you BELONG here. We as the song says, "are all here for the very same reason"... So, with the help of so many others like minded or not, I am once again on a solid path forward. No, I will never say never. The weight of that promise almost killed me once. What I know so far, can be summed up in one or two lines: I cannot "play" gamble on slot machines because I cannot stop. It is possible to stop. I have a choice to gamble or not. Today, I choose not to gamble. Hugs to every last one of us. -joanxxxxx

Good evening/morning Joan,

Really hope you are smashing through everything in your way and moving forward...Really miss you updates..please stay strong:-)

Remember?...if you stay strong, i will do too:-)

Sandra x

Thanks for stopping in Sandra!! Yes, still fighting! (((S)))

Diary: Another Friday. I believe I am rounding the third consecutive weekend without going to the casino. Last year at this time I found it hard saying the words gamble, casino, and slot machine. The words alone would trigger fantasies about winning. Those fantasies would grow into urges that I would eventually give into. Today, I know along with so many others on this site that gambling addicts cannot win because we cannot stop. This time last year my goal was to never set foot inside a casino again. A noble goal for sure but, for me a bar set way too high. Today, I tell myself never say never. Just say for today. Today, I won't go. Today, I won't gamble on slot machines. I know that I am an addict. That I am compulsive by nature. I also have a better sense of how I might have gotten this way. For me, the low grade depression that I have lived with for the better part of my life goes hand and hand with addictions. Dark feelings of guilt and shame just feed into deeper seeded feeling of worthlessness. I never ever felt "good enough". Today, I feel a little bit better about myself. I am a survivor. I am not perfect but, I don't need to be. I used to live for the approval of others. Today, I am learning how to live without it. Today I care a little lesser about whether or not another soul can feel or appreciate my pain. I know what I have survived up to this point and it was real. At this time last year I challenged myself to write a post every day on my diary. Another noble goal but, another bar set too high. Depending on the space I am in I might find writing too distracting. One thing that I have managed to hold onto is my fight or conviction to remain honest or true to myself. That might mean that I look like a crooked line or a contradiction from time to time to others. I am not here to please or prove anything to anyone else. I am here because I have the desire to stop wasting my money on slot machines. Just for today. No to slots. My vow to myself is to fight this addiction until the end of my days. -joanxxxxx

Hi there

know what you mean about the goals, I am making mine short and sweet or becomes just too overwhelming.

Wind picking up again here so off to baton down the hatches.

Enjoy your weekend

xxx

Hey Joan

Can also identify with a lot you say there ...especially the depression part as I am a functional depressive.

The self esteem side is also interesting ...wondering of you have ever read or listened to the John Bradshaw stuff about healing the inner child etc..

Hes calmed down a bit now after being quite evangelical in the early days of Homecoming but he is an ex alcoholic i really related to a lot of what he does and also the codep stuff.

Recovery as always bespoke and the primary being abstinence for many and as you are doing Joan..sticking to the things that matter and keeping focussed . Doing that too on my own path. Can't avoid people for the rest of my life as much as I love to isolate but trying just for today to bring my programme back to life again and tap into the stuff that worked for me.

just for today .,not a cow bag. Xx lol

Hey Joan,

" ...I'm survivor.i'm not perfect but i don't need to be..." - the best words i could read girl. Thank you for your continued support and be proud.

Day at a time is more than enough 🙂

Take care and enjoy your day

((( J )))

S x

Thanks Dragonfly, Rach, and Sandra!!

Diary: Sunday. If there was ever a day when I needed this forum it is today. I am having powerful urges to gamble. Intellectually I know that it would be the stupidest thing to do. I don't really have the money to burn and I won't stop until my account is depleted. I read Tomso's diary pretty regularly and I see some parallels. I have a line in the sand and I have not yet crossed it but, I also know that addictions are progressive. Just because I won't spend the mortgage today does not mean I won't in the future. There is no justification for gambling on a slot machine and yet my mind goes there. So, I am here. Stressors are the culprits. I am worried sick. Worried about P's health. She saw her doc last week. Her blood pressure is like a runaway train. Her wbcs are out of whack for some reason. Of course in my mind I have her dying of some incurable disease.. She is going away on business this coming Wednesday. One of my dogs has a raging UTI. The vet said if we had not gotten her seen when we did she could have gotten really sick. The poor animal has a fever and looks all sad and glassy eyed. We turned our 78 year old boiler that we named Bertha on today. I always worry that in the middle of winter on the coldest day that she will finally shi t the bed and I wonder how in the hell we will pay for a new boiler. Selfishly, I just want to run away. Far far away. To the casino. Sit in front of a slot machine. It's f***k ing insane but, it is the way I am thinking at the moment. I need to breathe for now and come up with a plan for what to do with myself for the rest of the day today. Life is good. The fall colors are indescribably beautiful. There is no reason in the world to self destruct. Just for today. I won't bother, bother, until bother, bother's me. That's what P's Grammie used to say. lol. I won't gamble. I just won't go. -joanxxxx

Hi there, living that day today as well so hanging on to your feet to stop you diving in head first.

My Nan used to say that too about bother wonder where it originated>

Hope P and woofit are fine really soon.

Trying to get my boiler in before it snows as took it out over a year ago but old one in my other house went on for ever, they just don't make them like they used to.

Rockin around the clock today in the boat as gale force winds again but wouldn't move from here for the world.

Hang on in there, with you all the way.

xxx