Facing reality AT LAST

HI FF

You will get there I promise you if you put the effort in and remain strong you will see the rewards.

Its painfull and its scarey and its s**t getting it all out but you have to go through the dark bit to come out the other side.

The longer you hold in what is driving your addiction and it is in there somewhere you just have to try and find it, the longer you hold it in the more power your addiction has.

Be brave FF, you can do this, just small steps, in your own time at your own pace.

Those feelings of agony and self hate and confusion will go you just have to start letting them out.

Remember in councelling there is no right or wrong answer its how you feel and why you feel the way you do, its an individual process.

I shall be watching for your diary FF.. Keep going and be proud of You !

take care

Blondie x

Thank you, again.

I have had an interesting couple of days. I've been craving like hell (physical cravings to lose myself in "my game") and spent about an hour yesterday trying to hack my extra barrier that I put up after Monday's disastrous lapse. Turns out it's holding up pretty well!

Quite pleased with myself (although ashamed that I even tried to get round my blocks) as I wrote down my K9 password "encoded" when I set it up, and now enough time has passed that I cannot remember what the "code" was I used, so basically I can't get the password at all and I've also closed the email account that K9 is associated with so can't get them to send me the password. Hurray.

The other machine I have easy access to has TXNoGam on it; I would use that on this one too except I don't like the fact that it won't let you look at Task Manager (that fact doesn't matter on my spare machine).

If anyone else is interested in blocking software: I did use Gamblock in the past but didn't like the mess that happened when the licence ran out (apparently I was a rare case, usually it works perfectly) and the fact that they're a bit gung ho about blocking innocent sites. It is a fantastic product though. Totally hackproof.

Just got to be careful now about "other machines" coming into my life. It's complicated to explain but I regularly get access to unblocked machines so I need to be on my guard. I am still self-excluded from 99% of online casinos but I always seem to find something new to sign up to. But keeping on top of self-exclusions also works really well for me.

Saying all this, I hate to admit it but I'm really disappointed that I can't indulge my addiction now. I am trying desperately to leave gambling behind me and yet if I'm honest I really wanted to do it yesterday and I really want to do it today. I will be so glad when I get to the end of today without it, but right now it feels horrible. Like I'm starving and can't be fed. I feel bad admitting that when it totally contradicts my commitment to cutting gambling out of my life, but that's the crazy way my brain seems to work.

I guess this is just withdrawal symptoms like any addiction. I must have been through it before. Other days I don't feel it at all. Let's hope tomorrow is one of those days.

FF

I'm going away for a week on what should be a lovely chilled out few days.

Just to let you know in case you think I've disappeared to a bad place!

Urges are less now; it's been a tough ride the last few days but I'm so glad I couldn't gamble. It's the road to nowhere (road to hell actually) and I really need to get on with life instead. Forward!

Have a good week everyone.

FF

Hi all

Have been thinking of everyone. I haven't come here for a long while as I was finding it was triggering urges if not actual gambling sprees. October and November were once again a huge battle with many lapses. But since the end of Nov when I gave in and finally got Gamblock again on my main computer, things have been going well.

I've also changed my circumstances in various ways so I don't keep getting access to unblocked computers. That has made a big difference.

So I'm at 2 months no gambling, and the urges are less, though they do come. Because I simply have NO access to online gambling, the urges go away more quickly. I am trying to learn to just observe them rather than feel I have to act on them.

I've also had 3 months of intensive counselling which has helped me understand a few things. She was so unbelievably accepting - even just being accepted addiction-and-all took a lot of the heat out of the whole thing for me. I would hugely recommend counselling of any kind.

I understand a lot better that my attitude to money has been very irrational and I feel stronger about the idea of really accepting that gambling will never help (I'm not quite there yet, but hope this idea will keep settling in).

Strangely enough, as soon as I stopped gambling and mentally committed to EARNING back the small debt I now have and then move into making some savings, I've had LOADS of work (I am self-employed) come out of nowhere. I haven't done anything new on the promotional front, it has just suddenly picked up. 🙂

Good wishes to everyone.

FF

Another long gap between then and now.

I got to about four and a half months continuous without gambling. There were some really difficult days but absolutely no way for me to gamble so I just had to tough them out. Then in mid-April my circs changed again and I got access to an ipad (well not a real ipad but a tablet) and was able to "see if I could play any games on it" so guess what? I was definitely feeling I needed relief from gambling urges, but also the usual problem of forgetting how bad it had been. And I had a bit of money... feeling flush so I though what harm can it do?

Familiar words, right? So six weeks later I've lost all the money I earned and am over £2k in debt again. (I am soon to be paid a chunk of money for some work I'm doing at the moment so the debt isn't a problem as such, except for the shame of it and that it's money that I now won't have when I get paid, which I otherwise could have spent on something useful.)

During that last 6 weeks I've had a few days here and there, in fact up to 10 days, "off gambling" but have kept going back, so it's felt like a real bad relapse.

Now day 4 of not gambling again and it's a serious One Day At A Time situation. I don't know why it has felt so much worse this time (maybe I've just forgotten how bad it felt in the past) but yesterday I was literally counting the minutes and felt like I was scraping my fingernails down a blackboard all afternoon.

I got through it though. And it did indeed feel like a massive achievement by the end of the day, genuinely, there was pleasure in it!

But like so many other people I am wondering what's going to be different this time? I'm as blocked as I can be and yet always find a way.

So I have committed to telling my best mate about my problem, start to finish, no censorship. There's no point doing it by halves. I'm going to give her access to my bank account so that someone is "supervising" my money. Not that she could stop me spending it but I feel it would be an extra barrier thinking "someone will see". It's the secrecy and privacy of online gambling that makes it so easy.

I've told her I have something I want to talk to her about and not to let me wriggle out of it when I see her in a couple of weeks! It's all one step closer to coming totally clean with my family which doesn't feel possible yet but is at least seeming like a future possibility (that's something else that's new).

What else... well getting through yesterday is a major boost because I actually had incredibly bad urges and probably could have gambled but I DID NOT. I've proved to myself that I can survive a day like that and that it's rewarding to do it - ie there is a reward to be had at the other side of the hell. I already know that not-gambling long term feels really good, it's just clawing my way out of this stage that I have trouble with.

Oh and getting strategies in place for when I'm a few weeks or months down the line and have money in the bank and feel all nice and relaxed and just fancy "rewarding myself" with a nice hour - just an hour, I will stop after that... yeah right - playing my poison game. Because I know that day will come.

I wrote in my diary "when your mind tells you that you can just "play a little bit" and it won't do any harm IT IS A TRICK. You will not stop at a little bit, it is guaranteed". That has helped. I tell myself when my brain says to me that I should just have a little go, that I can afford to make a small deposit and I've got a spare hour... "IT IS A TRICK."

I look back at my sent emails which are full of "I wish to self-exclude as I am a compulsive gambler" and I mean at least one email at the end of every day I have gambled. When I'm having an urge my brain looks at those emails and doesn't understand them, it just thinks "Oh bother, why did I self-exclude, now it's just annoying and I have to spend ages finding somewhere else to play, when at least I would have been "safe" playing at X". And then a few hours later I am sending the same email to the new casino!! So I tell myself when my brain says I never really needed to self-exclude... IT IS A TRICK.

Well this is a bit of a stream of consciousness but it's keeping me occupied and maybe someone will recognise something of themselves in here too.

Keep strong and if you are having an urge remember - IT'S A TRICK!

FF

Here I am again, three days later, and 7 days since I last gambled.

And I can already feel my understanding of WHY I mustn't gamble, slipping away!

I know "it's a trick" but I can't deeply recall why.

I know I have no money but I can't help but think "so what?" even though I feel also very worried about that fact! It's just madness.

I do not intend to gamble today because I really want to get to 7 days completed, but I just can't think beyond that. My mind's saying "at least you have had a break for a week".

I have an initial appointment with Gamcare counselling on Monday, maybe that'll help give me a jolt.

I know the important thing is that I'm not gambling. The funny thing is I feel sort of "But I feel just as bad as if I was gambling, so what's the point of not doing it?"

I am just the same as any addict. Hopefully my mind will clear soon. I am pretty sure that if I did gamble I would only be postponing that day when my mind clears...

Three hours later and I have just taken a break from work to do Philip Mawer's "Ladder of Life" exercise from his Overcoming Gambling book.

SO helpful!

It made me lay down in black and white the reasons why it is so important not to start again. Something I was struggling to remember earlier. I think because you write down your own words on the ladder, rather than just reading someone else's warnings or promises about how bad or good you will feel, it really brings it home = and also brings home to me that this is TOTALLY MY DECISION.

Yes there are difficult days ahead, but this day is turning out better. 🙂

Hi - I have also read the Philip Mawer book and found it really good, also another book the Chimp Paradox. Trouble is even after reading the books and soaking up all the advice from on here, its still so hard to put into practice for real.

Have same feeling as you in that I feel bad not gambling, not as bad as I would after a huge loss but at the moment it feels worse not gambling than it would being involved.

Trying to stick to the one day at a time thing but cant really get it.

Glad your day is getting better and hope you can stick with it.

Thanks Capt.

Thought I would pop in and update as I have been reading but not posting.

Life not gambling is great. (But I knew that already.)

Am doing okay, some days with very strong urges and I came very close just a couple of days ago. But I stopped myself just before depositing - which is quite new. Previously my "near misses" have been when I am stopped by something external e.g. the bank blocking the card. But this time it was me going "ugghh, actually it's not worth it".

I've had much longer periods gamble-free in the past, but always slipped, so I just need to make sure that I keep on and don't forget why it's absolutely critical that I don't gamble at all. Easy to forget even when I have written it all down.

I am having GamCare counselling and it is really great. Makes such a difference to talk to someone specifically about gambling and my reasons behind it, and just be accepted and know that the counsellor has heard this stuff from other people too.

I met someone in the waiting room too, and we had a brief chat, and he will never know what a difference he made to me, just acknowledging between us that this can happen to people and that I am one of those people, and seeing him as another human being who it has also happened to... it's hard to explain but it meant a lot to be there in a room with someone who understood.

Another big step is that I told my best mate about everything and gave her access to my bank account. Which DID make me think twice when I was tempted the other day. Another useful barrier. The best thing though was just how completely in her stride she took my "confession". I was so afraid she would look at me differently and bombard me with questions but no. She was just accepting, sympathetic and amazing.

Oh and I have been doing some hypnosis downloads which "feel useful" - if nothing else it makes me relax for half an hour a day which is half the battle, getting rid of tension. I will write a separate post about these if I continue to find them useful. They do seem to be helping me get a greater mental distance between me and the gambling habit.

Thinking of everyone here. Keep on using that strength you have inside you and live your life, there is SO much more out there than this habit! It's just that it has grown so big for us that it seems much more than it is.

FF

Yo,

Well done my friend .

Looks like you are throwing absolutely everything bar the kitchen sick at this addiction. Whereby shrinking the power it has over you .

Committed to change , you've got that in spades !

Shiny xxxxx( aka dusty )

Thanks Shiny, I appreciate that! 🙂

You're right, it's about "shrinking the power" it has (had) over me, which is different from expecting to be able to cut off all desires and "become normal" in one go. Something I am learning.

Another lovely day here today with the birds singing. I have some tough days ahead but some good tools and strategies to get through them.

Have a good day everyone.

FF

Just something that I wanted to share, about my weird attitude to MONEY:

I was reading one of those books of trivia the other day and one of the facts and figures was the total amount of cash in circulation in the UK. Something prompted me to look at the figure and imagine it in my bank account and think "NOW do you feel secure?"

I had previously tried to imagine "what would it take in your account to be able to relax and feel as if you have enough?" And had never quite been able to answer that. So this was an interesting exercise.

And you know what? Even imagining having ALL the money that exists in the UK in my own bank account did not make me feel as if I would be relaxed and secure or that I "had enough money"!

Quite a wake up call and it showed me that my massive insecurity about not having "enough" money is completely inside my head and actually nothing to do with the figures in my account.

I know that much of my compulsive gambling ie carrying on even when I have won a large amount, has been to do with just being able to carry on gambling for longer, BUT a lot of it is also that feeling of "still not enough".

So interesting to realise that I might as well stop desperately trying to "get" actual money and work on relaxing about it instead. What I'm saying is it looks like the key to feeling better and more secure is in my own head and nothing to do really with my bank account.

I hope this stays with me next week as I am due to be paid a large amount (for me) which will clear my debts and give me a bit of positive balance for a change. And that's often when I am in most danger of gambling.

It's been a few weeks since I wrote here. Over 5 weeks since I last gambled and feeling really good about that fact.

Though I notice that the shine is wearing off the "thrill of abstinence".

At first it's a challenge and it's all bright and interesting. Now on a day like today - just back from holidays, in a sort of bored/in-betweeny/Sundayish mood, I'm feeling restless and not so determined, as if the attractive colours of abstinence have dulled and the thoughts of gambling are brightening again.

I'm all right, I am not going to gamble today. Once I finish writing and reading here I'm off to do some other stuff and keep busy - and the amount of barriers I have up, I don't think I could anyway. It's not a massive urge or crisis. I'm just taken a bit by surprise (yet again) by this temptation raising its head again, as life shifts, as time goes by, and my mood alters.

Funny how it surprises me every time - how every time I have a period of abstinence, I think I'm "safe", and then eventually I still have this irrational urge come over me.

Just musing.

I gambled a few days after writing that last entry. I was very anxious due to upcoming surgery and made the error of ending up in a situation with a lot of empty time plus the opportunity to do it, plus money in the bank. Since then, although I have mostly had non-gambling days, I have slipped off the wagon a couple of other times (recovering from surgery has been a tricky time).

I am putting yet more barriers in place as well as carrying on tackling some of the underlying causes of why I keep going back. It's certainly a long, hard and bumpy road, this recovery.

Anyway at the moment the shine of abstinence is strong so I am in a sane phase. What I need to work harder on is that time in a few weeks when I forget how bad it is and I return to "insanity". I have a diary full of entries telling myself how bad it is but when I read them "in that mood" they mean nothing to me.

I realise I need more fulfilling things in my life and frustration and boredom are very strong factors in my wagon-falling. Doing some work on improving that. Hard to motivate to start new things when I'm feeling down and anxious - but then hey, people do much more difficult things every day.

I just seem to be in that cycle of "what harm can it do?" every few weeks or months, and although I'm hardly gambling any more in terms of number of hours per month spent doing it (compared to years ago when I would be at it almost constantly), it's so expensive when I do that it's still disastrous.

I'm sure I came on here to write something more constructive but I can't remember what it was now!

Anyway, back to ODAAT and today I'll not gamble and I'll be okay.

Thought it was time for an update.

This is a difficult time in my life but I am currently not gambling. What I mean is, today I will not gamble, and I haven't gambled for 3 weeks, and at the moment I'm still (luckily) in the "thought of it makes me feel sick" stage so it's easier to get through each day.

So I am trying to give myself credit for going through a difficult time and NOT gambling to try and cope... see, I can do it, there is nothing about gambling that I "need", nothing about it that will make me feel better. And everything about it that will make me feel worse.

I still feel I am trying to rebuild self-esteem after all these years of betraying my own trust in myself and deceiving others, so it's hard to feel good about "doing the right thing" now. Do you know what I mean?

Nevertheless I am still in that "sane phase" and I hope I will stay here. Maybe I'm expecting too much to think I will feel good about myself after beating myself up for so many years.

Gambling was a coping/escape mechanism that turned out to be poisonous; I suppose I couldn't have known at the beginning how bad it would get for me, so I guess I should remember that I never set out to "do bad".

Not really feeling it though. Oh well.

Have to remember that everyone feels rubbish sometimes and there are lots of good things in life to feel appreciative about, so I'll go and try and engage with some of them now.