Facing reality AT LAST

-- the money didn't become real until I actually stopped --

Thanks for sharing a very interesting and accurate insight.

I think these insights help all of us. The more clearly you recognize and describe distorted thinking, the more you can prevent it harming you.

Day 66 gamble-free. I'm in a relatively safe place at the moment and feel I can "replay" some of my gambling thoughts - as you say dogfan, distorted thinking.

So I know for a fact that if I gamble and win, I will just keep gambling until I lose - that much I have settled in my mind. A problem has been that even since I have realised that, I've often rationalised starting to gamble by saying "it doesn't matter, I'm happy to lose this money".

(Say £200. No, I can't afford to lose £200 but that was often my number I felt was "okay to lose" but big enough to give me some decent action (though yes I could certainly lose it in just a few minutes on a "bad" day).)

So I would pretend that I was calm and happy and just making a choice to have a "fun" "play" with that £200 which I claimed I was happy to lose.

But guess what? After losing the £200 I would deposit more money because I hadn't had enough "play" out of it, or, if I really didn't have access to any more money, I would just despair and realise that I really DID mind losing the £200. Like I was saying before, it became real.

Pre-gambling while I was talking myself into it, it would seem like nothing, but post-gambling it would actually matter. It's the excitement of pre-gambling thoughts that somehow wash away the reality of what I am doing.

Hypnosis downloads have been really useful in allowing me to replay those pre-gambling thoughts and associate them immediately with the horrible feeling of loss and regret, so that your mind begins to short-circuit the "thrill". Don't get me wrong, it's not automatic in any way, and I have listened to the hypnosis session many many times to get to the point where I feel it has definitely helped. But it has.

Also writing thoughts down, slowing them down and trying to get "under" the excited pre-gambling feelings and analysing them, that's been really useful.

The more I understand, the more I am willing to choose a good calm life over a chaotic gambling life. So as a result I am seeing through urges for what they are - and seeing through the lying siren call of gambling for what it is - and I trust more and more in the fact that urges pass and I will be glad I didn't act on them.

I will be (finally!) being paid a decent lump of money in a week or two. I expect that will give me a wobble but I think I have the strength to get through it this time. If I reach the summer and haven't gambled a penny of that money then I know I have made progress.

Watch this space.

Hiya feetforward thanks for the post on the thread. It has helped. Honesty is the best way as you say and that gambling world gives us nothing so don't give anything to it. Stay strong feet forward, keep posting and you mentioned a barrier coming down - well get that back up, use all the tools you can to beat this thing.

I have took your name down aswell as my own from the thread but I feel we should both be so proud of getting this far. Sometimes we forget that this is no easy path that we are walking and there will be bumps on the road but just keep your head up and know if you can give up for one day, ignore one urge than you can ignore all the urges and have all the days back to the way you want them. We will both get there. I'm looking forward to taking the journey with you. Take care.

Dave - So sorry I didn't see this post until now! Thanks very much for your words of encouragement. You sound like such a kind, sound bloke. 🙂

I just popped on today to update this diary because for some reason I felt as if my going quiet would look as if I had gone off on a gambling binge. Well, pleased to say I haven't at all - that slip was just a couple of hours' slip and has stayed that way. Not to say I didn't want to carry on - I sure did, and I have been hounded by urges since, but I did get that barrier back up and in place, and hopefully the technical problem won't recur.

Funny how each slip seems to cause big ripples in my peace of mind, like throwing a stone in a pond, so I then suffer with urges for weeks afterwards even when I'd got to a place of good peace and calm beforehand. Don't know if this makes sense. Anyway if I slip I often feel as if I've "spoilt my equilibrium" or as if the gambling demon has been awoken and takes some time to settle down. I wish this could be literally measured - the time it takes for brain chemicals to get flushed through and go back to normal. I bet it would correlate to my strong-urge period after each time I stop.

After 12 days or so now though, things are calming down and I've done yet more reading into the addictive mind and been examining what else I can do to finally believe (in a consistent way) all the things I know to be true about my addiction. My slips are getting further and further apart and shorter and shorter in duration but of course I'd love to feel, more of the time, that I didn't WANT to play my addictive game at all. I'd love to feel safe without all my barriers.

When I had that technical problem recently, I was fine for quite a while, knowing full well I could gamble at any time, but not wanting to, and not doing it. This was wonderful, and I felt so free, but then of course a little switch went and I did it.

It's silly because I'm often in situations where I *could* gamble - on other games, socially, whatever (I even live just a few miles from a casino at the moment) but I have no interest at all. It's not even the gambling, in some ways, it just has to be THAT game, in THOSE circumstances, with a certain amount of time and bankroll and various comforts around me... I mean it's really specific, otherwise I'm not interested. If I could just feel the same way about that narrow thing as I do about all other forms of gambling, I'd be "free". But I'm sure some would say once it's got its claws in, that's the end.

I guess for now I just have to be patient.

Thinking of you all - especially you Dave as well 🙂

FF

I had to laugh today... in an email to Gamblock I managed to sign off "All the bets"...

Just dropping in. All's going well - well, not everything because life's like that - but I mean I'm learning how to take the rough with the smooth and not run off into gambling or other things that are bad for me.

Feel like a baby learning to walk. It's okay though.

One tiny slip in the last 3 months and really very little gambling overall in the last 6. I'm getting there. The days do tick by and I'm on much more of an even keel without gambling in my daily life. It's like the difference between a horrendous hurricane sky and a calm blue day.

Hope to keep slip-free each day that comes. I still read here every day and am grateful for every post someone shares.

Gah - having a real wobble today. Nothing to do with gambling, well I say that, but it's all related, to do with my compulsions, my addictions, stuff I try to avoid or hold under.

I used to have a real problem staying faithful in relationships, mainly flirting was my problem but it would lead to action occasionally, followed by remorse, lies, sometimes breaking up the relationship, all the awful stuff. I never really considered flirting a problem when I was younger, but I gradually realised that it took away the quality from my "real" relationship, and it basically screwed with my mind, meaning I didn't focus properly on my significant other - instead I just gulped down all the attention from the other person/people, feeding my ego on it... trying to fill the bottomless hole... addict behaviour, just like when I gamble.

Anyway so I realised a few years ago that I needed to become a better person in this regard, and have really done well, and noticed myself stopping if I was about to go down that road. But most of all I've been staying away from situations where I might meet new men I could go down that road with, so that's been helpful too, staying away from temptation.

However just today, a man, who I'd put somewhere between acquaintance and friend (but who lives a long way away from me fortunately) sent me a really confessional and flirtatious message, and it's awoken all those old feelings that I thought I'd got over. We've only met in person once and I did find him very attractive, physically and mentally - completely a chemical thing, which goes right to the heart of my weakness - but I was "good" and nothing happened, and I didn't even really think about it afterwards except for a random dream he appeared in (not my fault!!).

Now he's popped up into my mind and it's like a worm I can't get out, like the gambling worm, and I HAVE done the right thing, by telling him I can't get into this with him, just like I keep doing the right thing by not gambling.

I'm just kind of beaten-down feeling, because I thought that particular problem (s*x/flirting) was something I'd left behind - "at least I've grown out of that" - but apparently not, all the old desires and urges are still there, and if I had the opportunity I feel I would act on it, just like yesterday, I was asking myself if I had the opportunity right now to gamble, would I? And the answer was yes. And it all makes me hate myself.

So disappointing. So frustrating.

I know I'm not alone in all this by any means and everyone has their cross to bear etc etc. But with an addictive tendency it can feel as if you're ALWAYS having to say no, choose the righteous/boring path. "You can't have this, you can't have that." I know, I'm moaning, I'm rambling. Just wanted to get it out.

The crisis I was having a couple of weeks ago feels long past. I did the right thing and everything settled down. Yay!

I'm going to sound like Evangelical Annie now, but since I last wrote in this diary I read Allen Carr's Stop Gambling book. I've read quite a few books to do with this addiction and many have helped, but this felt like a real huge change.

It was only published last autumn in the UK (sadly still not out in the States, but for those of you over the Atlantic, I think it's coming soon!) - I'd looked to see whether there was one in his series before as I'd heard good things about his method from ex-smokers.

I really just want to thank them for writing it because it has been brilliant for me.

I haven't even been gambling recently, so I read it after many weeks of abstinence, but I do feel that it's helped to propel me forward into a better sort of abstinence - if you see what I mean.

It's given me a whole new mindset - true peace of mind - that I haven't felt before. You know that feeling of "right, that's it, I'm never going to gamble again" when you're in the depths of remorse? Well it's completely NOT like that! It's more of a calm joyful acceptance of freedom. (You'll see what I mean if you read it.)

I'm hesitating to write "I've never felt like this before" because I know these can be hollow words for us, used to hearing ourselves make promises we then go back on, but... I've never felt like this before.

Anyway that's all I'll say. I'd just highly, highly recommend it.

In the meantime the rest of life continues as usual and I must say I've really noticed the extra money I've got since stopping gambling regularly back in October. (I had a couple of small slips in November and January but October was the end of a "phase".) Saving hard, and looking forward to small trips and holidays planned for this year. Life's great.

FF

Just wanted to check in as it's been a few weeks.

Nothing much to add to the above except to say things are still good.

I have moments where I feel "itchy" and I ask myself if I were in a situation right now where everything was lined up and I could go back to my old ways, would I? And honestly I probably would in those moments for no other reason than it's kind of "easy".

But things AREN'T lined up, ie I have no opportunity right now to do it, so I have time to think about how much I hated it, so much that I have felt in deep despair. I've gone to great lengths to stop harming myself with it, and I think about what I would say to a friend (not even a friend - anyone!!) who was busy harming themselves with this stuff on a regular basis, and I would say: don't, you don't need to keep doing this, it does nothing but hurt you, don't believe its lies.

I suppose it's coming up to 5 months - six months? Not sure - since I was regularly harming myself with gambling. It's been the best 5/6 months for a long time. I know it's true that a lot of the "problems" I thought I was running away from by losing myself in repetitive game playing were actually CAUSED by that game playing.

Thinking of everyone here. Have faith, you can live and deserve to live a better life.

Thanks Rainman.

Wow, 1st April already. Thought I'd better check in. Things going well, great actually, though short of money ... I think because I know I'm not losing money through gambling I feel I can spend more freely on other stuff, which is great because then I get the "stuff" or the experiences, but not so great because I'm still slightly overspending! And money anxieties used to make me turn to gambling (totally wrong-headed obviously).

But the main thing is I'm living a real life and not stuck in a gambling-pit dead end.

The sun shone all day today and the leaves are coming on the trees... everyone seemed to be in a good mood... life's good.

This may be a massively long post or a very short one. Basically I feel the need to confess a lapse, a long one lasting for the last couple of weeks on and off, and costing me all the little money I did have plus some nice new debt I now have to deal with.

I'm not particularly asking for any replies, I think everything that can be said has been said, since this must be my lapse number 1,000 or so. I don't think either sympathy or a**e-kicking will do me much good since I am trying to do both for myself and neither seems to have much of an impact.

I am still stuck with the usual problem of "I feel that I never want to do this again, therefore everything is fine now" but I know that complacency will strike again in X months' time. It wouldn't matter so much except that it's so bloody expensive every time it does!

The trouble is I don't recognise it as complacency when it strikes. It feels like "everything's okay". Then I play my poison game for a little bit and it feels like I'm in control. Everything goes fine. I withdraw a small profit or I stop after losing a small amount. Like a normal person, yay!

But the addiction's crept back in.

So a couple of days later I play again, maybe it's still okay and I act "normal" with it. No problem, right?! So a couple of days later I play again, a bit too long this time, and lose a bit more than I wanted, in fact I realise on some level I was *expecting* to get back what I lost the other day - but I don't. The game "owes" me now so I have to put more and more in, surely I can't possibly lose this much in one day? and then boom, it's a week later and I've lost a huge amount of money and TIME I will never get back. Again.

I've got all the blocks I can in place, going to ask another friend to monitor my money for me as far as possible, to help the next few rocky weeks. But there's never anything to stop me, say, getting a new credit card (the only thing I can think of to block that would be to trash my credit rating somehow), and I know from experience I'm capable of all the lies and deceit that entails. So for all the blocks and barriers the key for me is still just one thing:

Don't Start To Play That Game.

To help with this:

- Don't play for free to try to get the "thrill".

- Don't investigate new online casinos which might become one of the 1% I'm not banned from.

- Don't do calculations when I'm feeling comfortable money-wise and decide "I'm happy losing X".

- Don't fret when I'm feeling low on money and try to tell myself "I might win something, give myself a cushion".

- Don't turn to this easy activity because everything else I can think of doing right now feels more difficult.

- Don't imagine it will give me some kind of escape. It feels hellish.

- Don't be fooled into thinking it's safe now. I am mistaken, however long I've been abstinent.

- Don't be so hard on myself on other things - I should give myself more leeway generally so that I don't fall into the "but I've been so obedient, I deserve to indulge one vice" trap.

I know I am capable of saying no to urges, with the mature awareness of bad future consequences. I just need to do it consistently with gambling.

On some level I am still in denial that playing this game is gambling. I tell myself it is "playing a game". Perhaps it doesn't matter anyway, just semantics, the main thing is not to do it any more.

I'm getting there. No gambling today.

It's been ages!

Again I was finding that coming here was a trigger for urges (or part of an urge, not sure). I'm a bit ambivalent about it still.

Just wanted to note some things I've been finding helpful.

1) Though there's no magic bullet, the thinking in "Easyway" is extremely useful and definitely the way to the open door of freedom.

2) Relaxing my mind around thoughts of gambling seems to really help me. If I get all het up and think "evil, bad, mustn't go there" it's like it gets a sort of "charge" around it and it becomes forbidden fruit. Remembering how boring it is and how predictably tedious the losing of money is (and how it's quite simply mathematically designed to lose you money - almost amorally so), helps me much more. So I end up thinking "well of course I could gamble, but why would I want to?".

3) Doing other stuff I like. Remembering how calm and nice the world is generally, and how much easier it is to deal with any cr@P that does come up, when I'm not fretting about gambling.

4) Doing stuff away from a computer. Online casinos (specifically video poker) are my weakness and unfortunately I spend a lot of time in front of a screen for my work, too. They'd started to become associated. Doing stuff for escape/relaxation away from a computer, leaving computer for work, seems really useful for me.

That's about it for today. Enjoy the sun if you've got it. I'm off to water my plants 🙂

Sending good wishes to all.

FF

Hi FF,

You sound in a good place at the moment. Well done for managing your CGing so well.

Just popping on to say hello really, and despite the lack of communications on your diary some of us ARE still reading it!

ps shame Chuckyegg never posted again. Such a desperate story

Haha - thanks, M1lkman! Great to hear from you.

Yes, shame about Chuckyegg. Maybe they're just getting on with their life. Hope so.