@Stephen @chartom3 Thanks loads for your kind comments. I know its a great achievement, I failed many times trying to reach a year. I will try and be positive the next few days.
Another day
I am not going to count the days anymore. Getting to a certain number of days is nice. However, nothing really changes unless you focus on recovering. I am not sure how I will start recovering when I am thinking of gambling after a year.
A bad day yesterday. I did not book a holiday as friends and family are completely unreliable. Thursday it was 100% on for Friday, next day, oh maybe book later. I was very annoyed and while at a friends for drinks, I got sucked in to playing some free online poker. Just a silly points game, not free money for signing up. I do not enjoy poker but a few gambling feelings returned. When I lost a decent hand, I was gutted, mind in a small haze, I want to win the next immediately and the game plan went out of the window. Earlier in the day, I walked past several bookmakers and it was different to walking past them before I got to one year. I felt a jolt of something and was tempted but I had my holiday and needed to keep my money for that, ha! I am going to need to be strong the next few weeks.
Well done mate
​
Dear Degenerate,
Huge congratulations on the year gamble-free.
It sounds like you have hit your target and now you are at a bit of a loss where to get your focus and motivation from to carry on with your recovery. This is normal, especially when you reach a mile-stone. It sounds to me that it would be perhaps helpful for you to find a different measuarable target from here on in, other then number of days/weeks/months. This could be amounts of money saved, this could be a bucket list of things you want to do or experience because you have the time and the funds.
I appreciate that it is a bit of a blow when you are looking forward to doing something with other people and it is difficult to get them to commit. So why not consider going on holiday by yourself? You could do some kind of activity holiday and this would also be an opportunity to not only see new places and experience new things but also to meet new people.
I really hope you will be able to keep on the recovery path, it perhaps would help to try a different angle.
Wishing you all the very best,
Eva
Forum Admin
@Adam Cheers man.
@Eva Thanks for your advice. I have considered going on a holiday myself. Thought about booking something work-related last year but I didnt find something I was interested in at a nice price. I still might go on the planned holiday but I am waiting to find out if going with friends is completely dead in the water. I wouldnt say it is very likely though I will go alone.
@Ineffable Thanks for your comment. Yeah I know I should be joyous at going a whole year gamble free. I never thought it was possible and it has been really difficult getting here. I must have gone in a bookies or watched racing 50 times. Like you, I really want to buy something memorable that I can feel chuffed about having. I cannot think of anything though.
A Saturday after payday
Small urges this morning. I planned ahead though and made sure I was very busy. Doing lots of small unimportant errands I had not got round to doing.
Oh ffs, signing up to play free poker is a regret. The number of offer emails I have had 2 days after playing is crazy. Unsubscribed from each of them.
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Congratulations degenerate, one year gamble free is something you should be shouting from the rooftops. Yes it's maybe not how you wanted it to be/feel, yes you're still getting massive urges but to say you have gone a whole year and not lost a penny to gambling is a massive achievement.
I also think small goals are maybe the answer. Treats are always good. To be able to see something or do something for your money might help you to realise that gamble free is definitely the right road to take. You say that you find it very difficult, if you read my latest post you'd also know that I do too. I've looked at my bank balance so many times since getting paid in the last few days. For one reason and another I have a bit of money left after paying bills. I'm not used to this so to see it sat in my bank and to lay and think about it in bed at night helps me to feel good about myself. This helps because most of the time I feel like I'm going to press the self-destruct button!
Anyway, enough of my waffling. Please don't give in now, the path you've had to walk has been a treacherous one. You have to believe you can continue to do it and that the path with get easier. The reason for that is because you deserve it and you're worth it!! All good wishes x
I appreciate the honesty I read here. Navigating through life is difficult enough with a pathological addiction.
Thanks
Aaaaaaargghhh fk. I have been gambling since Monday. A whole 5 days. I am a useless, stupid waste of space. No controlled or carefully calculated bets. I get in a fkn mess after one loss and cannot control myself. Time to get some passport photos. I will write a much longer post fairly soon. I do not have the energy at the moment.
Hi degen,
Really sorry to hear that you have had a lapse. Unfortunately this can be part of the process. What's good is that you are here, you are posting and that you are planning to carry on with your recovery.
Perhaps it would be a good idea to call the HelpLine 0808 8020 133 or the NetLine just to have a one-to-one chat to discuss why and how this lapse happened, and what else you could do to avoid this in the future.
Keep posting
All the best,
Forum Admin
​Hi Degen...it seems like choosing to gamble again after getting to the year, was a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. You have to decide if you really want to be gamble free. Going in the bookies and talking about what horse would have won you what money, doesn't help that. Best of luck, but just think about it, do you really want to give up?Julie
​
@ForumAdmin I will give Netline a try in the morning.
@Julie_36 No more watching any racing. I need to give it up.
The plan
Surely, I have learned from past mistakes. If I gambled again, I will studiously go through form calculating the mostly likely winner based on recent results, the jockey, the ground and distance. I will not have bets on every race I see in bookmakers, I will only place small bets while watching TV racing as that is the only bit I miss these days.
Day 1
I overheard someone talking about a good thing. A top tipster had indicated he knew the owners of some horse. Something along those lines anyway, I barely remember but it was enough for me to think about a bet all day. I have been in a bad mood for a while due to original planned holiday cancellation and impending redundancy (probably) at work. I withdrew £300 and planned to place all the money on the one horse. An ordinary low class Monday race. Not what I had planned. I placed a £200 bet and took 7/2. I remember thinking I would use the leftover £100 to win my money back WHEN it lost. I was planning to chase before it lost. The horse won, quite easily. I felt a little guilt about gambling and not putting £300 on but I was still pleased. I thought I will definitely put £700 in the bank and have some more fun with the £300 I had. So I keep betting and I had a couple of losers but I had more winners. I was betting on horses, dogs and virtual cartoons. Again not meeting the plan requirements. I left the shop after about 9 races with £1500 bulging out my pockets. When I got home I did feel numb about gambling again. I did not have a lot of sleep.
Day 2
£1500 straight in the bank first thing in the morning. I thought about gambling before going to the bank. I didn’t. I thought about it again at lunch. I didn’t gamble. I was fairly certain I wouldn’t gamble again till maybe Saturday when some decent races were on. Something crappy happened at work, a minor problem that was something out of nothing. After work I went straight to the bookies thinking it would cheer me up. I gambled £300 from cash machine. Lost it all quickly. I went to the bank and withdrew £500 and lost it quickly. I was thinking I had not really lost as I will still up for the week. I withdrew another £500 and I was down to £200 when I lumped on a horse cos it was the right odds for me to win all my money back. NOT because I liked the form of the horse. I was relieved when it won and I had the previous days winnings back. I put money back in the bank. One of the cashiers quite rightly giving me strange looks since I was in 4 times.
Day 3 and Day 4
Similar story to Day 2 but with more losses. I kept losing and winning my money but I stopped put my money back in the bank. Eventually, I lost all the winnings I had won. Technically, I was still up because I bought a couple of things I couldn’t justify purchasing while I was a non-gambler who looked after his finances.
Day 5
Even though I had bought a few hundred pounds worth of stuff from gambling winnings. I worked out I was still £10 down in cash. So I had to win that back so I could be cleansed from this small gambling mishap. Today, when I went into the bookies my first bet was £60 on a 5/1 shot. I was not trying to just win back £10. I was fooling myself. My gambling all week had been stupid, uncontrolled and shameful. In one day I have lost £2000 supposedly chasing £10. I just kept going bigger and bigger while chasing. I think £2000 is my new record.
A few points
The day before I started gambling
As discussed earlier in this thread, I had been thinking of going on holiday on my own and I decided I would sometime last week. I got an email alert notification saying one of my target holidays had been reduced to a nice price. I bought the holiday (with my CC cos I believe its better insured that way) and felt good as this was a nice reward for going a whole year gamble free. While gambling, I bought a few things for the holiday with gambling money. Now the holiday feels tainted. Credit cards were both at zero. I used them for cash withdrawals. CCs not at zero anymore, will it be the same relaxing holiday knowing I have undone so much good work. Now, I will not be able to pay off the CC in full at end of the month.
“I can NEVER gamble again.”
“After one bet I lose control and gamble stupidly”
Do you know who wrote the above in my notes? Me. Who else? Why do I not learn?
Sorry for the incoherent ramble.
Cheers,
Degenerate
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I appreciate the long well written post @PositiveAction. I will respond when I have some time. I left my laptop charger at work over the weekend and was unable to reply to this thread or chat with Netline. No gambling though.
Hope your feeling ok. What's done is done. Regrettable but not the end of the world.
It seems you now have to choose whether to continue on your gamble free journey, a little bruised maybe but still standing tall.
The other option doesn't even bear thinking about as we all know where gambling takes us. We spiral out of control and become wretched shadows of our former self. Sad, lonely and pathetic.
Take care my friend. Whatever choice you make I wish you well...stephen
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