Festina Lente

Laz,

Tremendous post on my diary, which I appreciated today. Your post was a kindly reminder to me that I am going through some life changes and this can sometimes bring urges to return to what we used to do when under stress. I realise through experience that my body is learning to cope with five hours sleep per night and the stresses of a new baby in the house. Nothing has to be acted on just respected that the threat is there and I need to be aware of that. I am.

As you say I am under a week until I join the three digit club. I look forward to it. I have been there once before. I found previously that the days add up extremely quickly after breaking through that barrier. I am so very grateful that I have found it within myself to break free from the demise that I was in. People like yourself provide people like me something to aim for. It can be done you are evidence of that.

Thanks again.

Tomso.

again thanks for your comments

Cheers Tryer. For as long as I can remember today has always felt like a second birthday, a day to wake up with excitement and anticipation, the day of the Grand National. As kids we would all sit around the telly with slips in our hand hitting our backsides with pretend crops. By the time I was a teenager it was just me and my dad, the numbers may have diminished but if anything the excitement rose. We'd sit briefly on that couch for the five to ten minutes or so before sloping off not to be around one another till next year, we never really got on.

The city, as always has been buzzing again this year with the arrival of The National, it's everywhere and as you're all probably aware of, there are endless 'harmless' sweepstakes to indulge in, ones to which if you refuse gains a look as if you've just thrown a tied up puppy into the local canal. I refused them all yet again this year with relish. Consequently, People now watch me when I'm carrying kicking canvas sacks alongside the local trollified canals. This to me was the race, if you was going to win, to win because the length and obstacles involved meant the ultimate prolonged adrenalin rush. Once it was over I'd blink my way back into daylight with my head spinning and a face like a Cheshire Cat or Droopy the cartoon dog. It was an intense occasion.

Yet, thankfully all has changed and I must admit again with relish, for the better. It doesn't feel like a second birthday for me today. I woke up as I normally do, with a groan and a f**t but happy nonetheless. Hopefully, I'll end the day in much the same way, money not wasted, feeling content, without the courting of disappointment, mood stable. Balanced.

Tomorrow I will celebrate two years of total abstinence. Two years in which I've grown as a person, mostly in a positive way except for the gut and barrel a**e, but to be fair they look good on me. Two years of freedom of fear, of feeling in control of not waking up dreading that someone inside me will wreck everything from the inside out. Two years free of boom and bust of not lying on your bed wishing that everything that did just happen didn't just happen. How glad I am that I haven't felt like that in a while and I truly pity those who have experienced it lately.

There is a way out, it's not easy though only the truly committed will make it and there'll probably be tears and doubts along the way. Just take it one day at a time and make sure your blocks are watertight and in place. Commitment and emotional memory fade, blocks don't.

Tomorrow I shall celebrate by not having a bet today. I don't know what I'll be doing this afternoon when the National is being run but I can guarrantee I'll be happy, just as happy as I'll be this oncoming evening. I've decided not to court disaster, I've chosen contentment.

Have a lovely weekend

Birthday Boy

Know just what you mean as used to work in Epsom and live nearby. Loved the carnival of Derby day, counting the Rolls (as in vehicles not bread) driving in and how many millions of pounds were parked on the Downs that day little thinking how many millions would equally be lost that day and how many lives destroyed (before my gambling days began) little knowing what the future held for me. We also had a shop opposite a bookies and I used to witness the anger and sadness of the punters each day often coming in to ask to pay their bills in our shop on tic. Never equated it with the casino and my foolish future.

I still struggle ineffectively at times but so good to hear winning stories such as yours, SA's and Duncs, they are such good motivators when it all seems such an uphill struggle on the bad days.

Stay happy.

xxx

Hi Laz...Good to mark the mile stones as they come and go... and 2 years is certainly a great mile stone to reach. As with you it feels satisfying not to be lying in bed staring blankly at the ceiling wishing that what had just happened (ie a gambling binge!) had not just happened.

Strangely I did watch the national, though didn't have a bet on it of course. I was at my mates flat and it was on so I watched. My mate says who do you think is gonna win?... so I looked at the runners and riders and see's a horse with the word port at the end of its name. I thinks to myself.. "I like port.." I will choose that one. It fell at the second. My mate choose a horse which fell mid-race (he had no money to actually put a bet on, cos of previous gambling) and my other mate put a relatively large bet on another horse which also fell. I really not sure where this is going, but for me I felt no excitement at all. I actually think that whipping horses to make them go faster is cruel.

Anyway your achievment is to be commended. It must feel good to sense that personal growth from within. Long may that continue. Happy days... S.A

Thanks for your thought on my diary, I didn't grow up in the countryside as grew up abroad and then had trouble fitting back in as a bit of a wild child but did live for past twenty years in a village and some of the stories from there could make your movember curl, maybe even contributed to my downfall addiction wise but who knows may have happened wherever.

Feel I have found my niche here on the river, a strangely shaped individual now living in a strangely shaped hole nipping in and out of 'the norm' when I choose. Bliss on a good day.

Just need to *** the code to this addiction and I will have found my unholy grail.

As SA says Happy Days.

xxx

I've been gamble free for over two years now and everything is better than what I could have ever imagined when I decided to tackle this addiction. I stopped having urges a long time ago but I still remember those nagging, uncontrollable impulses. I pity those who still gets them. A good friend of mine is sadly a Kleptomaniac and whenever he gets 'the urges' he has to take 'something' for them.

b*m b*m

It's the way I tell 'em.

Steve

fella great to read you passed through the two years gamble free milestone.

More so is the fact that by doing so your life has changed for the good.

I hope it inspires many others to do the same my friend,proof again that if the right choice is made what can be achieved.

Keep making that choice.

Thanks for sharing your good humour and humility in equal measure too.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

thanks steve for your comment, your right about what you say when the buzz of gambling just dulls everyday life , and it is a drug which we need to keep not taking , all the best and well done for going so long without gambling keep it up.

In the grip of insomnia so thought I would add some mumblings of an even older fool (almost 64) so apologies if I drift of mid sentence as sleep and senility beckon.

Loving the idea of happiness currency, I would have been a zillionaire in the sixties.

Also very cynical especially after carrying the little red book around at art school and as you say thinking by sitting in and marching around London we could make a political statement. Even joined John Lennon on his f**k in or sleep in or whatever it was called.

Was also into ban the bomb which proved interesting in my household as part of my father's job was as a nuclear physicist searching for uranium as he said all those years ago that we would run out of natural energy resources, so many a heated debate although he did respect and listen to other's views.

At the time one of my 'things' was the Vietnam war and I spent time in the states and met lots of vet's before it ended. A friend who is a journalist published a book about it as well.

Since those days have never thought, as you say, that significant change can be made but have been involved in discrimination battles to do with HIV and *** right and worked for Terence Higgins Trust for a while. Work with dysfunctional teenagers (who often remind me of how I was in an earlier life) as going to art school saved my life so also act as advocate for them when people try to 'fix' them and make them 'normal'.

Went to stay for a few weeks with the lost tribe commune in Wales some years back, communal meals, circle dancing, I'm thinking you must be developing hippyish traits, mind you my best friend who originates from posh Hampstead once lived on a Kibbutz and later ran off with her children to join a circus when her husband had an affair so my life is a bit tame in comparison.

Well I have well and truly mumbled and not mentioned gambling once, so to remedy that I heartily agree that were we happy contented people, not pummelled and shaped into rats fit only for the eternal race, there would be no need for this site.

On that happy note, a huge congratulations as two years sounds like forever to me who struggles to get through two months at a time these days.

xxx

Happy birthday Stefano ,

Your diary and the honesty and humour you injected into it and the forum always inspired me and made me belly laugh although just FYI mine isn't as big as yours l) .

Well done steg your a top bloke (thats Manc for alright which is the highest compliment you can get init ....

Take care

Blanco x

Have been wanting to reply to your lovely long letter in my diary but verbally constipated at the moment, which some would say is a good thing.

Also wouldn't manage communal living these days as hiding on my boat as life drifts by today.

Have to emerge soon as my son's wedding reception in a couple of weeks - these young people are so conformist these days.

Enjoy the sunshine and do divulge any secrets to success you have as two years is some major achievement.

xxx

Hi there

you are so right about the ghosts but a bit scary at the time with the 'what ifs' and in my dotage I sometimes miss the one person that can reminisce with me about the old days as he was there to make the memories. We had the best times and the worst times and see now it ended at the right time.

Amazing people on this site, whatever time of day or night someone pops up with just the right words so its onwards and upwards as Duncs would say, as I climb through the manure of life to firmly plant my flag on the topmost part of the dung heap.

Many thanks for being around at this ungodly but beautiful hour and your kind words.

xxx

Page 13 w*f ?

How do steg , I often wonder how your doing and if your a secret reader ? I have visions of you sat in the cupboard under the stairs with a packet of biscuits reading diaries lol....

Hope life is treating you well stefano and the wolves are still at bay.

Take care

Blanco x

Coming up to three years in a couple of weeks and whilst missing your amusing tales its great that you no longer have a need to visit. Hope you life is happy and full of fun.

xxx