Beginning of the End...

Good luck indeed Brum. Use all the tools in your armoury against this beast of a disease. We all have to start at day one and each day takes 24 hours to come round. There are NO shortcuts, take stock, take care and start living life. All the best!

Quick update. Today is day 3 and so far so good. Today I've been out most of the day so not had room for temptation to creep in. Yesterday I was at a loose end all day and can honestly say I didn't really think about gambling at all. Took my daughter out and bought her something nice today. This made me realise that I will be able to afford to spoil her more often if I can stay away from online gambling. Tomorrow I am working from home which will be the test but I'm confident that I can refrain.

Not sure if anyone is reading this but today has been a struggle. It is day 5 and as I previously mentioned I usually work from home due to being self employed. The last couple of days I have been pretty busy with work and managed to keep myself distracted enough to not consider gambling.

Today however has been tricky. I decided to go online earlier to try and shift some of my credit card debts on to a 0% balance transfer card. However, when I applied my application was refused. I tried another company and that was refused too. My credit rating is pretty good but I can only assume that either the level of credit card debt I already have or the fact that they can see it has been spent on gambling seems to have put them off. That knocked me a little bit so the first thing I did was try to login to a gambling site. I know I can't do it on the computer because I setup K9 so I tried on my phone. Thankfully the self exclusions did their job. In the end I got a grip of myself and logged in here instead.

I know there are going to be times when I am weaker than others and it seems that getting bad news is one of my triggers. Going to try and forget about it for an hour now and go and do something else to take my mind off it.

Any advice would be appreciated.

You came through it, that's the important thing. You have to put every measure in place imaginable, block gambling sites on all devices. Self exclude from every bookie, destroy credit cards. Unfortunately, this alone is not enough so you have to remain disciplined and learn to fight your urges.

Brum... you've started off well. Keep it up. I'll be watching out for your posts.

Thanks both. I'm happy that I didn't manage to give in because I know that I would be in that state of 'Why have I just done this again?' for the rest of the day. I've worked out exactly what I owe now and tried to work out the best way to pay it off which will allow me to avoid as much interest as possible. Being self employed the work is never guaranteed which can be a problem so I have to just hope that everything carries on ticking over for the forseeable future to allow me to clear as much as possible as quickly as possible. I'm sure that once I manage to clear it I will be so relieved that I will never allow myself to get in to this mess again.

So, thankfully I managed to get through day 5 without relapsing, although it was a close call. Today is day 6 and I have something special to do this afternoon which I am sure will keep my focus for the day. Will update again tomorrow.

Day 6 completed. Yesterday afternoon I went to the hospital with my wife for our first scan of our new baby. This made the whole thing seem a lot more real and hopefully will give me another focus to keep me away from gambling. Day 7 today and the week has flown by with just the one little flutter of temptation. Still taking it a day at a time but when I hit 1 month gamble free that will be a nice milestone for me.

Days 7 & 8 flew by with very little temptation. However, this morning something happened which may well mean that a large proportion of my work will have dried up. For me this is a huge concern because if this does turn out to be the case then I am going to be in a very difficult position financially and will struggle to pay the credit card debts that I have accrued. I can only hope that the situation gets resolved but I am more than a little concerned.

Hi Brum26, welcome to recovery...Congratulations on day 9 & the impending delivery 🙂

Keep working @ recovery & cross any bridges that you come to when it becomes clear that they actually need crossing! So many times we work ourselves up about stuff & yet when it arrives, we figure it out! As long as you are not throwing money away by gambling, you will get through this - ODAAT

Hi all,

Haven't posted for a few days but I am now on day 18. Finding it very strange how the urge can suddenly creep up on you. Yesterday morning I was thinking that I had been finding it easier and easier to abstain and hadn't really thought about gambling at all. Yesterday afternoon I had that sudden urge again, that feeling that if I just deposit £50 I could somehow win back everything I have lost. Of course, that is complete rubbish. That £50 would soon become £500 and I would again be on a downward spiral. Thankfully my self exclusions kicked in again and the urge soon passed.

I think the trigger may have been that I am at a bit of a rocky point with regards to my income. I am self employed and my main source of income has hit a snag which means I am likely to be without it for a few weeks. I have a new business which is keeping me very busy but not generating much in the way of profits just yet so I am becoming increasingly concerned that I may struggle to pay my debts at the beginning of July.

I'm trying to work as hard as I can to make sure that doesn't happen but I am a little worried about it. Anyway, I am still taking one day at a time and proud to say that I have not gambled in 2 and a half weeks.

Hi everyone.

Thought it was about time I came back and posted a quick update. Today is day 38 and I am proud to say that I have not gone near any online slots since I started this. The last couple of weeks have been much easier than the first couple but I know I can't be complacent.

My business is keeping me very busy and looks like it may finally be starting to make a profit. Until writing this it hadn't actually crossed my mind to spend any of this money on gambling which would usually have been the first thing I would have thought. I still feel sick at the thought of how much money I wasted but I am glad to finally be able to see the debts coming down bit by bit instead of going up and up through my own stupidity.

Looking forward to reaching day 50 gamble free.

Well done Brum, keep going and stay focused on your recovery,

Suzanne xxx

Thanks both. I've really enjoyed not spending every minute thinking about gambling. I've been getting so much more work done too which will have a positive impact on the business.

Sorry to hear that you gave in Emily. I'm sure that the experience will make you stronger this time around. Good luck.