Diary 1st entry, Repeatedly letting down everyone who has supported me.....one day ill lose everything

Day 12

No gambling

No urges today, i had loads on, all of which was great fun.

Lie in with the gf, up to play golf, then home to chill out, made dinner with the gf, watched some tv and now its nearly bedtime

Pretty good day, full booked so not even a thought of gambling.

Days like to today were few and far between a while back because i literally couldnt be arsed to gamble today if was offered to me!

Good luck everyone

🙂

Day 13

No Gambling today

Really busy today. Did call down to the golf club for a few bits and pieces, had another battle with myself when i was near the fruit machines, they were just sitting there asking me to play them

Fought hard against myself but i won. I play a lot of golf and i spend a lot of time in the club so i need to get used to walking past them...its the right thing to do

Fruit machines 0 Me 2

(Actually fruit machines 3,230,000000 me 2)

lol

🙂

Day 14 - (2 weeks!!)

Congrats mate, stay strong.

Lee

Cheers lee 🙂

Day 14

I was weak and gave into my urges today

I want to apologise to all the people that have been so supportive on here because i feel like ive let myself down, all of you, my gf and everyone to be honest

All day i stuggled with my urges, i just couldnt control them. I went to the golf club and i put £7 in the 20p a spin £250 deal or no deal machine

The £7 went, as did several more £20's

Before i knew it i had put £167 into the machine

Thats not the worst bit. I was down to my last £1 and in span 4 7s giving me £150

I had made it all back..........

Over the next 2 hours i preceeded to play on thinking just a tenner more sure im back up im back up.........and ive lost EVERYTHING

I have just lost £87 of customer money and £80 of my own money, i nearly passed out on the way out of the club, i felt realy shaky

I got home and spent half an hour crying my eyes out at what had just happened

Now im absolutely f*****. I had just got myself back on my feet and everything was manageable

Now im £167 down and in massive trouble

I ALMOST told my gf there but shes going out tonight and she was telling me how brilliant i have been doing and how much she has saved for our house that we want by 2013 (i havent saved anything as im paying of debts first)

I just cant face telling her, shes given me money to help me because i have none and ive just gone and thrown it all back in her face

On top of that i have £87 of customer money i need to pay back by the end of the week

Its all gone wrong, i wish i could have fought off the urges, i fought them so hard for 14 days

Im sorry to all of you, be stronger than me please

Don't say sorry, you have not let us down.

Dust yourself down start again, just take it one day at a time, there are plenty of people who have relapsed at the week or 2 week stage. When the pain has started to subside, and our addiction plays on that trying to convince us we are in controll when in reality it is the addiction that is in control.

How do we beat it, I do not know, is it about will power, maybe, are some people more strongly addicted than others, I personally believe so.

So I did not answer the question , how do we beat it, I think we fight it in small bits, one day at a time, one minute at a time if need be.

We use a relaps to help to remember that even though at 2 weeks I thought I was in controll it all went wrong, do not give the addiction more power by saying ok I relaped so what's the point.

NEVER GIVE UP GIVING UPZ, you want it badly enough in the end you will succeed

Stay strong take care

Kaza

Don't get too depressed. You will learn from this mistake. I beat myself up massively after my last gamble but I'm not sure that's necessarily the best thing to do. Just accept your mistake, learn from it and try harder in future. Can you avoid taking cash with you when you go to the golf club?

Kaza Thank you, i really appreciated your post there. You made some really good points and i really needed to read something like that right now so thank you

Im actually glad i admitted what i have done on here, in the past its been easy to lie or run away from a situation

Pelle my man, you have made a really good point there. I can put money on my golf club card that will stop me taking money down there, that might help in the short term

Thanks for that!

Im feeling a nbit better right now after trying to work out my finances and how im going to get the money to sort certain things.

A friend has offered to help me out at the end of the month with some money, ill know better tomorrow if i can secure the money i need to pay the imeediate debts off. If i can i should be able to get this all under control again

As both of you know when youve gambled and lost your first thought is how am i going to get the money to pay off what i need to asap

So working that out or trying to will give me piece of mind and i need to do it before i can start day 1 again.

Thank you again

Hi mate,

Just read your diary and am gutted for you, hope I didn't put any pressure on you, I was just enjoying both of us doing well together and checking in on your progress each day.

I think you definatley need to get yourself banned from this machine as it keeps drawing you back in, can you not ask to be banned from playing it ? you don't need to tell them everything, could you just tell them that your now saving for a house and don't wish to gamble with money you could be saving ?

Hope that didn't sound like preaching mate, it just seems so obvious when it's someone else. I know how hard it will be though, I still haven't self excluded from any bookies yet (still scared, if that's the right word, to admit my secret), but I don't have to go into them, whereas you are going to bump into this machine every time you play golf.

Have a good night's sleep and hopefuly you will wake up with a fresh determination to beat this, one day at a time, that's how we started, and the non gambling days will soon build up again.

Keep your chin up.

Lee

Come on mate time to check back in !!.

I hope you're still reading these diaries, even if your not feeling like writing at the moment,as they are a good source of motivation.

Lots of people have little blips, don't worry. Dust yourself off and start again, 'one day at a time' is the way to go.

Best wishes.

Lee

Yo lee!

Thanks for posting mate!

I needed to take yesterday off the site to spend the time sourcing finance to get by to the end of the month

A friend has kindly lent me £200 till the 30th and then another mate is lending me the £200 to pay him back which ill give him back next payday on the 10th of December

When you break the cycle of no gambling the first few days become money hunting, im not hunting it again by trying to win it back and as much as i hate asking friends for money needs must in order to get by

Its Day 2 again now, still crappy feeling but thats what i get for gambling.

I think the worst part about gambling is how long it takes to get over a big loss

Ill be thinking about this and having to juggle money for nearly 3 weeks now to get it all sorted, thats so cr**

Anyway your going great mate so dont craic and ill play catch up here!!

Ryan

NIboy,

I'm gutted for you, mate. It's history now though, all you can do is pick yourself up, dust down and start over. It's worth remembering that for 13 out of 14 days you chose not to gamble. Try not to dwell too much on the other day.

I wish I had more to add but I'm hardly what you'd call a success story myself. Offering advice on this subject is a perculiar feeling for me right now. I feel massively under qualified if nothing else.

I do wish you the very best though, Ryan.

J72

HI RYAN ,

I dont post much on your diary but i do read it i was sorry to hear of your slip i did the same around the same time of being gamble free.

I think that when we first stop and i think it was smiler who said not to get carried away we think we can change the world then WALLOP we f*** up.

Ive slowed things down abit if that makes sense and trying not to get to far forward in my recovery baby steps if you like.Like any addict there will be slips very few people stop on day one .

Forgive your self and move on head held high.

GOODLUCK AND STAY STRONG.X

James/Eliazabeth

Thank you for your kind words, they are much appreciated

Ive completed day 2 gamble free.

I won't call that much of a positive, im still really P***** at myself for breaking the hard work i had done.

Going 14 days gamble free was massive for me because it was the first ever time i had done it without having to do it through threats or promising people i wouldnt

I will post everyday with my uupdates as per usual but i probably wont write as much as i was, which is annoying cause i was really enjoying writing all my thoughts while i wasnt gambling

But for the time being i need to concentrate on just getting my run of days going and not thinking so much about why i gamble etc

This site is brilliant and everyone is so helpful, hopefully by next payday (10th) ill have been gamble free, that woul dbe 25 days....its longer than i went before but its my goal

🙂

Hi Ryan,

Try and keep writing mate, you know it was working so you know it can work again.

What have you learnt from this lapse ? Have you managed to put a block in place for this bloody machine at the golf club ? Hope you don't mind me asking, just trying to help.

Hope you've had a better day than me mate.

Lee