Dormant

Hi V,

Great to see you going strong guns.
Touching post...in my mind, we gotta forgive ourselves first to be able to start making amends with others. Not easy, that's for sure but as recovery - it's work in progress!

I am proud of you and i believe you will find all the good things in life, because you're worth it!

Stay safe, keep on winning...one day at a time

Sandra x

Hello Diary,

No gambling to report. Yay!

New niece to report. Double Yay!

Switching addictions to report. f**k!

I'm an ok guy to report. Yay.

Just a lal f****d. Oh well!!

Hi V,

Vroooom to report!

Bouncing tigger to report!

f**k addictions - say no more!

One day at a time says it all ☺

S x

Patience is a virtue! I sometimes wish it was more like hurry the f**k up!

I don't really think addicts have many virtues, I know this one doesn't.

Very restless at the moment, the empty void and the hungry ghost of addiction, salivating at its lips, hence this post.

Have walked over 2 thresholds this week, GA and a therapist with the Dr next on my radar. So I guess, it's a start and progress.

Truthfully, over the past 5 years I've had periods of abstinence ranging from 18 months to six months and a probable 90% abstinence from gambling. But nothing changed, my head was still wired the same and my obsessions turned else where.

I've never gone for the broken triangle being the key to recovery, if I did I would class myself as quite a success. I think it's just another way of suppressing forcibly your unhealthy thoughts.

I think also in the past 5 years, I was trying to think myself into recovery rather than face it head on. It's scary in facing yourself? Scary that you might dislike yourself even more than you do and I guess this is what held me back.

I go along with the saying ' there's no coincidence in life '

Now to throw into this cyber planet and all the faceless cyber peeps, my descent into addictions -

I wasn't born a addict, so what is it im not accepting or facing upto, this question baffled me for the majority of the past 5 years? What was the flaw in my early development? Good folks, reasonably good life a big Bro who had same upbringing and similar traumas with a similar Pandora box. Then my thought pattern started to change, my bro was older and brain had developed more when as 5/9 year old we experienced a sick puppy of a f*****g uncle. The bro headed for his OCD as his crux and I took the path of addiction. Addictions kept my head in the sand, didn't and still don't know how to process that.

Now this brings me to choices - my bro can't help him self with some of his a**l OCD habits and he goes into a brain lock in having to satisfy his OCD, pretty similar to the brain lock I go into when I head into 1 of my unhealthy addictions. No excuse, it's just the only way to describe it....

So that cyber world is where the therapy is heading.

No gambling

Thankyou for allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Its very courageous of you. The circumstances you've touched on are an incredibly common one amongst addicts. I have heard similar tales many times as step 5 shares as a sponsor. How do you begin the process? No easy answers my friend, I found it in the 12 steps. Others will find it with a good psychodynamic therapist. But you don't deserve to carry it around forever. Whenever I hear stories of this nature my question turns from not why do you gamble but to how could you not. Best wishes Dan

​

Thank you for sharing if I'm honest it scares me to try and delve it my past to try and find the route cause but even only been doing this for s few months so maybe in time.

You don't say are you still gamble free and are trying this counselling and GA because of a slip or going to the next level of recovery?

Thanks for sharing that deep personal post, V,

Take care

Suzanne xxx

Paul.

Fella you have never drifted far from my mind, you helped me to question my own mind often, the result was I got to open some new doors. recovery has offered endless opportunity some of it painful to work through but ever so rewarding.

I still find myself yearning for that bench we proposed to sit on, maybe it's the year to share that minutes worth of distant run.

Glad you are still fighting for a better life.

As our shiny friend often said

Never give up on giving up.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Vroooommmmm!!!!!!

Hi my dear friend,

Thank you for touching the base and sozz for the late reply. Sandra insomnia was so tired yesterday she passed out before sun gone down lol (well, a little lie already..around 2100 ☺)

Ya know, us here on the forum has so many things to share...good, bad and the ugly. It's like the wooden figure (can't think of other examples), ya are getting chipped away, which deffo hurts, piece by piece, just so you see the end result of that beautiful soul and creation which was hidden underneath the sharp edges.

Thank you for speaking your mind out, we gotta keep spewing the poison out and you're doing just that!

Well done on attending GA and looking for other ways of support. Every little helps and YOU are priority to get better.

Keep chipping away☺ I'm right beside ya!

Thanks for your lovely message V,

My Dads health and passing was not my reason to start gambling, he died over 20 years ago, I started online gambling 10 years ago.

I honestly don't know why I became a CG, could be through a combination of bad stuff that we face and go through over the years, but other folk have knocks and don't get addicted to stuff, maybe it hits the vulnerable, still trying to work it out lol.

Keep walking the walk lol, and keep safe,

Take care.

Suzanne xxx

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. Epictetus...

Battling through the 1st sentance.....

Jumped out of my comfort zone today. Was only a work related phone call, none the less i did it.

Every little step helps V,

Have a good gamblng free day.

Suzanne xxx

' Every little steps help ' Thanks for reminding me on that....

Too much time on my hands at the moment. A weeks work in the last 8, kinda bringing me down, guess also the shi.te time of the year we find ourselves in has quite a bearing on your mood. I try to take comfort in knowing my market place and things warms up mid to late january, which i know is the rational side of me thinking. So begone s***t thoughts.

I made a promise too myself late last year too give recovery a chance and to work on my cyncism. I was asked during my initial theraist consulation what i was trying to seek, my answer was to feel human again and to actively seek change, dropping self pity enroute. I still find myself, even in the cyber world tryingg to validate myself and not come across as a poor me, poor me, pour me another 'victim'.

I've lost count in the past 40 years, especially the last 3 or so in how many times i've said sorry for my throw out the pram wobbles. Only to realise i wasnt at all sorry for my actions more to self sooth over the shame/ regrets by my particular actions. I dont think i'm a bad chap, yet trying to understand the flares/ eruptions of anger i seem to go through on a monthly basis is a tough thing to face upto. I'm sick of false dawns and as 48 year old chap, need to find away to grow up. A friend asked me a couple of years back in how old i felt inside, i told him 27, in reallity i think its more like 9. A scary thought to admit too, hence my choice in the therapist type.

I do want to reconnect with people and the world and have taken tiny steps this year but my lack of patience is a hard wall to break down. Guessing this is where the small steps come in, i'm in for the long haul so i need to hold tight and see where self reflection/ analysis takes me. Who knows, maybe another dead end but this time i dont think so, somethink feels right as the odd areas of the mind i seem to be delving into. Is this the self awareness i hear about?

I have quite alot of faith in my continued abstinence, despite having a relapse mid december but do have the scary thought, that i never really will get recovery despite my thoughts above. The defeatist in me i guess. I use to think that change really wasn't possible and the rewiring of the mind was just a fallacy of recovery only to realise and pin point the exact day and a time, where i indeed did find change ( not for the best ). going from the glass half full to empty. Reallising that was a lal empowering. Now its a case of putting it into practice and rewinding that particular process.

Unless swayed otherwise (trying to keep an open mind) i do stick with the addiction acorn stemming from early learning experience and flaws in your developement, yet i dont think 1 size fits all and not completely necessary to delve deep. I often thinkt that advesity is akin to taking a LSD trip, a sometimes a very rewarding experience.

Am i ready to come completely step out of the shadows, not yet i would say. A learned comfort blanket......

But i'll get there and on a deeper route, i really have no intention in coming back in the philosophical sense.

Ok, now to start my day and think opposites in a positive kinda way...

Hi Paul

Thanks for dropping by, and by golly I remember you too. We are still here going over the same all ground, the same old fears.

To grow up and put away childish things and to stop throwing the toys out the pram. I feel like that alot of the time although that can be afforded to my situation but addiction can keep us in that state of adolesence.

To feel human again, its not asking for the world. We should only seek that we reconnect with it and the people in it. I think I am realising like you I can't do that on my own, we need outside help. I applaud the fact you are seeking therapy and GA, all positive steps. Your return and past few posts have given me a little more courage to open up and maybe seek and accept the help I also need.

Rob

Bounce bounce bounce ☺

Yo V,

Just now picked your message (few days away from "heaven" was therapeutic the least) & thank you for making me smile 🙂
Anger huh...yes, i have a lot of anger. Always had to tell you the thruth but just recently (maybe last 3 months) i seem to blow the lid :-/ ..maybe cause i stopped people pleasing and giving my piece of mind instead..didn't dig too deep in this one yet. I remember being told some techniques by my counsellor to manage my anger. It was aimed at myself indeed....now i manage it for proffesional reasons (work), social aspects ect...I'm not the one to go and lash out on ppl lol (breathe), but keeping your thoughts to yourself is essential on many cases.
I'm going back to the line "hurt hurts". I seem to developed the understanding of it & no matter how much therapy i can have, the initial pain will never go away :-(...i accept it, but sadly i let it loose on some occasions. Gonna have to work on it harder and find solutions on minimising such emotions.
As of being kind to ourselves...yup my friend, that's the trickiest goal to achieve. To build confidence back up after its been trashed continuesly most of my life is some doing lol...but as dear Shiny says - "catchy catchy little monkey". I am being kind to me by making a constructive logical choice of staying safe for today and not making my life hell...we're all capable of that huh...just constructing it back is a pain in a b*m and long process.

Glad to see you posting! ..work at your recovery at your own pace..reconnecting with others is definitely not easy, I'm far away from it too...but every day is a little progress being made ☺

Enjoy your day, share a smile or two, lifts the soul up indeed.

S.

Bounce bounce bounce 😉