Heropanda conquers the world... well one step at a time

Hi! Having seen your comment on my thread, I thought it rude not to read yours. My word you've stirred up some dust here! Do I think you're bonkers in your method? I can't possibly say, because you and you, with a unique set of circumstances and personality, and I am me. I know your method would not work for me, but that's me, not you. Ergo, anyone suggesting you are "wrong" (whatever that means) are imposing their thoughts on your situation, they are not looking at it through your eyes, and neither can they. I am very glad the forum admins haven't taken a knee-j**k reaction and deleted this thread, because this is YOUR recovery diary and just like the GA programme it's selfish. You're posting with complete honesty and looking out for No. 1, we have enough nanny state in this world. Yes, the GA programme suggests that only a gamble-free way of life is the way forward, but equally there are many other therapies, such as CBT and NLP which are used to help limit gambling excess. You seem to have found something which is working for you, and that should be the only criterion that matters.

Thanks dude, i appreciate what you're saying and i guess this has to be a bit selfish as you've said but ultimately its just one persons journey. I'm glad its not been banned to and i will try to keep in mind other people when i'm posting further updates ie not going into too much detail and certainly not glorifying any gambling activity.

So my latest update is that i did gamble on saturday night, i guess you'd describe it as planned and 24 hours on i would say that it went well although its fascinating evaluating myself and what i did. So without focusing in too much detail on the gambling i basically withdrew £50 as planned, minimum bet blackjack amongst a table of 4 friends and my first £20 managed to last the entire 4 hours we were there getting more and more drunk before a party we were going to.

Positives - stuck to my budget although was not tested by running out of money, never played without at least one friend on the table and never bet anything more than the minimum. I also wasn't the one who suggested we went there (and stayed there for so long) and i was mostly keen to leave when the time came (only hestitation because we would lose one of our friends who wasn't welcome at the next party).

A friend in the know asked me before this if i was worried about the creating and reinforcing a link between entertainment and gambling and so in effect would i then use that as a means to entertain myself or use it as a way to impact upon my mood. 24 hours on i feel more like the entertainment was the banter with my friends and the gambling was the cost of admission for that activity. I felt no desire to bet anything over the minimum and the money and winning wasn't important to me at all as long as i had enough to stay in the game.

Its hard to express my feelings on this because i'm also absolutely shattered/hungover today still but i felt above it a lot, there was certainly no glamour in this local independent casino and you just got to see a lot of misfits and random people, if i wasn't there with my friends i would not choose to be there for sure. I can't say that this has always been the case!

One of the more interesting things was that around the turn of the year i gave up smoking, i had been very good with this and not had a cigarette at all, hardly ever even had a pang for one but on this night i had two cigarettes. They were also quite hollow but it was kind of like the barriers i put up and the resolutions to stop gambling and smoking were linked so this is something i need to watch also.

So at this stage, aside from the contribution to the hangover i can't feel any negatives from what happened although i am being hyper vigilent for any signs, feelings and i'm talking regularly to those who know me and my situation.

I have noticed and come to a conclusion that a friend of mine also has a gambling problem, i've thought he has had it for a while and over the past 6 months i've quizzed him about it several times sober and drunk but he's not admitted anything. His girlfriend has told me that large amounts of money have gone missing from his savings and they are on the verge of splitting up as a result of it and the lack of savings. I should do more to help him but i don't really know how to if he won't admit what i now suspect very strongly.

I will post more during the week when feelings settle down

A few more days on and i'm pleased to report no more gambling activity. Have talked to my confidants about the weekend and i'm buoyed by their interest, praise and support ahead of the crunch test.

Got an email through from an unclosed spread betting account with an online firm telling me there was some money placed in my account that would expire by midnight. I remember reading it and thinking that with my new frame of mind should i feel safe going for it and trying to convert it into free money or should i steer clear as its similar to the type of online betting that got me into trouble in the past.

I think i ended up having the best possible response though as i just forgot about it till after the deadline so i didn't even need to make a decision. I view this as being good because its showing how low down the priority list it is for me at the moment, even though we were just talking £20 i would previously have been all over this in minutes.

In the cold light of day though it was this type of betting that used to have a massive control over me so I'll go and self exclude from there too and just move on with stuff. Although i've permitted myself to gamble twice now i don't want it becoming a regular occurrence and for me online is definitely off limits.

Well done, those online bonuses are just a con to lure us back in,

The only way we win is by abstaining and maintaining,

Suzannexxx

hi and totally agree with you that we must each do what works for us personally. I am the opposite in that if I start to gamble on the basis that I will have limits, something clicks in my brain and I will just continue until broke. But I have a friend who gambles in high street arcades and to be fair when she is losing she will walk away and the same if she has won. She has never got into debt as a result of her gambling as looks on it as a leisure activity like a hobby. I will never be the same as her though as know I have no limits and no stop button!

So my way of dealing with things is to block "G" out of my brain and thoughts and so far its working fine. Occasionally have brief thoughts but come on here and see the destruction it has caused for me and so many others, and I am fast approaching "hating" gambling. And although I never did start my Art hobby up again, my time is filled now and yet when I first gave up I was at a loss how to fill that "Gambling" time but somehow its not an issue any more.

But as I said at the beginning we all operate on different brain patterns and if you can keep control then all good but do keep reminding yourself at how much debt you had and how easy it is to slip into that and stay firm within your limits as you are doing and keep posting on here. You take care Mary

Breakdowntime wrote:

hi and totally agree with you that we must each do what works for us personally. I am the opposite in that if I start to gamble on the basis that I will have limits, something clicks in my brain and I will just continue until broke. But I have a friend who gambles in high street arcades and to be fair when she is losing she will walk away and the same if she has won. She has never got into debt as a result of her gambling as looks on it as a leisure activity like a hobby. I will never be the same as her though as know I have no limits and no stop button!

So my way of dealing with things is to block "G" out of my brain and thoughts and so far its working fine. Occasionally have brief thoughts but come on here and see the destruction it has caused for me and so many others, and I am fast approaching "hating" gambling. And although I never did start my Art hobby up again, my time is filled now and yet when I first gave up I was at a loss how to fill that "Gambling" time but somehow its not an issue any more.

But as I said at the beginning we all operate on different brain patterns and if you can keep control then all good but do keep reminding yourself at how much debt you had and how easy it is to slip into that and stay firm within your limits as you are doing and keep posting on here. You take care Mary

Thank you Mary, very kind of you to say this and i appreciate you taking the time to empathise with my position.

I've just written a long post which just disappeared so my motivation to write more has vastly diminished. Essentially i was saying that i'm having a very difficult time at the moment with my personal life and everything seems to be getting on top of me and its almost that gambling of the least of my worries in comparison to alcohol and increased cravings for cigarettes.

I'm on top of these urges though i think and i'm really using the upcoming holiday as a break, an escape and reset button for my life where i start to make the second round of changes around diet, lifestyle and exercise.

I have set budgets for Las Vegas as well as some rules, i won't post them on here as i don't want to upset anyone or go against the spirit of the board but i'll communicate them to my friends in the know and i'll report back ultimately with my ability to manage within these limits.

I can't tell you how nice it is to spend money on other people. It shows thought, generosity and kind feelings to the people that you care about. For many years my approach to gambling took so many of these options off the table and although i knew that i cared about these people i could never show them that with the nice touches that require money.

I'm not saying that i'm throwing the cash about all over the place with lavish things, but just today i could buy a photobook and some large prints online for my mum on a recent trip to new york (c£45), presents and champagne for my friends 60th (c£50) and then i could treat my friends from the tennis club to dinner at a nice restaurant (c£115). Ok i probably am throwing it around a bit recklessly but it feels good to use money in a way which brings nice long lasting memories to you and those you love.

I write this not to boast and not to make anyone else feel bad, i write it so that i can remember if times turn bad in the future just how good it feels to be in control of your finances and to be generous. In this one single day i've spent probably as much as i used to have to live on in a month when gambling urges ruled my life, there is absolutely no getting away from this fact. Everyone's circumstances may be different but im sure in relative terms this same sentiment applies to everyone who reads this forum.

I have spent a bit too much, especially before my holidays next week but i knew which pot of money this would reduce (The gambling one) and i was happy to reduce it to preserve the entertaining and shopping ones!

Just a quick happy update anyways...

Hi Heropanda,

It's great to hear that your 'unconventional' approach is working for YOU. I'm a strong believer that stupidity is repeating the same action over and over, and expecting a different outcome. So if total abstinence hasn't worked before, what's different this time? It's fantastic that you forgot about the lure of the online 'free' deposit until it had expired - that does sound like your reaction to gambling is moving back towards a take-it-or-leave-it form of entertainment, which is what you wanted.

It's interesting that you said higher up that gambling was a reaction to emotional stresses that got out of hand, but as a result of a night out followed by some emotional stress, you've moved back towards smoking again. There will always be escape mechanisms to get away from pressures. There will always be pressures. It's finding a non-destructive method of dealing with those pressures that will be key for your recovery, and your future happiness so you don't beat yourself up for the coping mechanism you pick. If you're feeling down anyway, emotional self-harm just makes everything worse.

Good luck and many best wishes with your journey. I'm watching with care and concern. x

Oh, as an aside, I have a friend who takes endless pictures, and at the end of the month, arranges a collage so they can remember all the awesome moments they had with friends and family. That approach might work out cheaper - just sayin'!

Thank you milkinghorse for taking the time to share that and give me the good idea about the pictures collage. I am very lucky with the things i get to see and experience each month so i should be sure to be better at logging it and cherishing it.

I returned yesterday from the trip i mentioned to Las Vegas using the hosts offer so i wanted to update with my feelings after that.

I had a total of $3250 available to me of which i was going to spend $700 on entertaining and food, $500 on shopping, $250 on incidentals and security deposits and the rest (c$1800) was the gambling budget over 6 full days. My friend would join late on day 2 and the plan was to ramp down the gambling after he arrived.

Deliberately i had taken a prepaid travel card with all the money and it had a daily withdrawal limit of $470 so any day where i didn't need to withdraw money should ensure returning with some budget. In the final tally i have come back with c$840 so numbers wise it was a success.

I found it very difficult to budget or to accurately record which bits went into which pots but i know that i spent $550 on shopping, $160 on incidentals, $354 went unpsent, $487 is held under deposits which leaves entertaining and gambling as being $1699 although i did one cash advance on my credit card for $460 so $2159 in total.

I am sure i spent more than $700 on food, drink and entertaining as i picked up a few big meals and taxi's and drinks weren't cheap, the line was also blurred when you play the bartop machines to get free drinks but i digress, in pure number terms i was able to live within that set budget using the self imposed constraints so i'm pleased.

I would also say there were two days where i gambled recklessly and potentially left myself short of money, both of these days were after successful winning days and resulting in losing the profits and a little bit more. The controls i had in place took care of this though and i didn't leave myself broke on either day so i could go about the regular days activities until i could complete the daily withdrawal from the ATM.

There were certain facets of the trip which became very stressful but they were around the host not doing what had been promised and agreed and my response to that was to hold out from gambling there until things were fixed.

I'm still fairly tired i guess from the trip, i don't have too much more to say apart from i have no increased desire to gamble today or tomorrow, i have not got another gambling event in the diary so i think i'm going to instigate a 14 day rule from now on. As i seem more able to control the gambling (providing i am able to put controls and limits in place) any further proactive gambling must be at least planned in advance so that i don't end up on the spur of the moment somewhere risky without any control measures.

So to summarise, a qualified success with better learning about myself, didn't throw away all my money and enahnced restrictions on my ability to proactively gamble.

Feeling pretty blue today, played a lot of sports the last week since being back and as a result a bit of physical pain mixed in with some sadness around the lack of intimacy with that special person.

Have tried to cut out alcohol from my life for a while, almost 9 days free of booze so i'm doing well with that but yeah feeling quite low. Stupid moment at the tennis club tonight where we were messing around and i was trying to give someone a playful big wet hug after playing in the rain and someone pulled my shorts down from behind and everyone laughed at me, i know its especially schoolyard and immature but it feels really c**P with everyone laughing at you even if it wasn't done in a mean spirited way, someone else then did it again a little bit later and its just left me quite deflated.

Didn't show much annoyance but just left them to it and picked up some cigarettes on the way home, the idea of gambling didn't seriously play on my mind but it was there a bit, ended up just watching some videos on youtube of a poker tour event and now getting ready for bed. Work is also playing on my mind and i'm just unable at the moment to really focus on it when i need to pull my finger out and get lots done, all in all its an increasingly stressful time.

Sometimes it feels like all my succeses to date are more of an illusion and i actually don't have anything tangible to show for it in love and life. I even know that this isn't true, certainly in terms of financial position but even still it weighs on my mind and drags me down.

Apologies for the depressing nature of this update... i guess its good that its just unfounded sadness rather than the result of doing something stupid, i'm just hoping that writing and recording it will both help me and help others to realise that life is never going to be a bed of roses and even if you do lots of things right, you'll still have ups and downs and that its perfectly natural.

Hope today is a better day!

Another week on from these shenanigans and its been a good one all things told, stressful work events are out of the way, i've been able to play a bit of sports and ive been in full on spend and plan mode to the extent that i think i've got all my holiday plans sorted for 2016 never mind 2015.

Still having success on the no drinking front, it feels like a gargantuan achievement yet its only been 17 days, makes me think back to the naivety of youth when you didn't know what was been missed and you went months without drinking... Not sure what my plans are with, just enjoying the break and giving the body some time to recover, should probably tie it in with some kind of diet and get in better shape.

It seems to me that i'm benefitting from a reset in both drinking and gambling, kinda like i just went down such a path that it became a daily occurrence and craving that got out of hand. Now that i've broken that spell I feel like more of a normal human being, i'm not tied to or craving the gambling or booze and i'm able to enjoy and and not even think about either for large periods of time which is great.

Definitely more of a happy feeling a week on!

Happy update, haven't gambled since my last diary entry although i will be in September.

When my gambling was at its worst the last few years i was borrowing money regularly from a friend, i realise how annoying that is and i would include extra money when paying him back so it was more like a financial transaction rather than a favour. Well at this friends birthday this past weekend some of his friends who i met for the first time already knew about me as the guy who had gambling debts and used the bank of his mate...

I didn't and don't know how to feel about that because while i don't deny its true i'm really hurt that this is my calling card or reason to be notable even amongst new friend groups. It's ironic that at least one person in that group also appears to have problems with gambling and then he suggested and rounded up a group of their mates to go to the casino later that night.

I politely refused, didn't think another thing of it, wasn't tempted by another casino next to my hotel and judged it as a good move. I did want to go a little bit but i'm not too flush with money at the second after some extravagant and enjoyable spending on myself and it would have gone against my two week planning rule and also there was no guarantee i could have made a small amount last at minimum bet while enjoying myself.

This weekend also signalled the start of drinking again after a month off, have to say i haven't missed the hangovers and its shown me that i'm going to really cut down in future, i don't need to drink as much as i was and it just takes so many other things away from you without realising.

Had a bit of a sad exchange over the weekend with that special someone who immediately presumed that i had been at a casino or gambling after i sent her a message she didn't quite fathom, i guess if you encourage and open people's eyes up to the worst in you then you can't blame them for jumping to that conclusion.

Hmm this seems to have taken a sad turn, right now i'm in control of gambling and alcohol and almost seven days removed from smoking... these things are sent to challenge us haha

Well a sooner than expected update after a weekend of heavy drinking and an unexpected, unplanned trip to the casino.

I guess its been a very tumultuous week for me with some pretty significant financial changes. After probably a decade of being on the credit no fly list and resorting to subprime lenders and payday loans i applied on a whim for a loan for £7.5k. The plan which i am open to being criticised for was to move the majority of this into a house savings fund as i'm looking to buy a house in April/May next year, i have trouble proactively saving so i wanted to give myself a bit of a headstart and immediately shifted £5k into premium bonds and i intend to contribute £750-£1000 into this each month to hopefully have a really good deposit for this long overdue purchase. I used £1250 to pay down another card and i still had the remaining £1250 in my account.

At the same time as this i have a OCD level of interest in Hotel and Airline frequent traveller schemes and i applied for a card that would get me a whole load of points, a free night and a big bump towards the higher status level, to my real surprise i was accepted there and then and given a £6k limit, i've done a balance transfer of another card to almost completely close it off but in the space of a week i've added £1k of debt (counting the total loan interest) and extended my potential borrowing by about £10k.. so its a very precarious time which i really haven't planned for or thought much about... kinda bad on my part

Having said this though i still feel in a much better place, i now have savings for the first time in my life and i just don't feel too worried about anything financial.

So thats just the background of whats happened in the last week which left me more access to cash. The transgression with the casino happened on friday night and followed a lot of drinking, i remember large amounts of the evening but i had to go back to my online statements to see how much cash i had withdrawn (only one transaction). I guess this is probably a hangover from the last week, from the approach i'm taking in terms of allowing planned gambling and its something i'm going to need to deal with. At the end of the day i don't want to have nights like this, i don't want to be drinking like that and so perhaps i'm going to have to take a hard look at my friends and the situations i leave myself with.

I guess the difficult thing is that i don't feel strong remorse about being in there and i remember not having a care in the world about the money i had with me, i don't feel i let my special someone down. I don't know whether i've gotten to a situation where i'm so far removed from the pain at the time that i'm getting nonchalent about the dangers or if i've gotten to a place where i'm freer from the compulsion to gamble and just see it as part of my normality.

I did end up on another drunken night out the next night and if i'm honest i would have gone back again if that friend had of suggested it. I had the opportunity to go on my own but decided against it but i haven't had the urge to gamble since then (Albeit only the last 20 hours). I don't know if this was prompted by winning a little money on the friday night and if my thoughts would have been different if i'd lost money but... i dunno... its just so complicated.

I do remember that because of the alcohol i was betting erratically and way above my normal levels, i would normally bet £2-£5 minimum on the blackjack and i remember instances where i bet £25 and on one hand with the turn of the cards i had £100 in total out there which shocks me in the cold light of a sober day.

I already have plans to gamble on 9th September in London, 13th-18th September in Las Vegas and there is the potential that i might be roped into another similar drunken night out on 28th August. Each of these instances has a reason to offset the risk of gambling ie i'm doing it because i expect a positive return based on probabilities (ie freeplay) or because i expect to receive hospitality or experiences of a similar value to the potential money risked. I think i've evolved my thinking that unless there is something special in it for me to accept the probability of losing, i'm not interested in it and i don't know whether thats a good or a bad way to think.

I guess this is very much a cautionary update and in the style of my special someone in adding a positive comment to everything, we're two weeks into the football and american football season and i haven't been remotely tempted to place a wager on any matches.

Writing this has helped me get my thoughts down on paper and out of my head, i've told my special someone what i got up to so i guess this is a key week for me where i need to be on my guard. No drinking for me until friday at least!

Almost a week on and no more gambling activity since last week. Had another big night out with my tennis team after we won the league which presented opportunities to go back gambling which i didn't act upon. I have felt more of a curious urge to go to the casino this week but it hasn't been everpresent and it hasn't been overpowering.

I guess i'm surprised about this feeling because i would have expected it after returning from Las Vegas in early July but it seems much more linked to the night out last week. I guess im looking back on that as an entertaining evening all round with no negative outcomes, i'm going out with that same friend this coming friday so whether i plan to or don't plan to go i should probably take some precautions with access to money like going out with cash only and no cards... worthwhile just to be safe

I guess that i've found it harder than ever this year to not be addicted to gambling or have it as a large part of my life, i think upon reflection my success this year has been about managing it and establishing non-damaging ways for that to manifest itself. As an example, instead of gambling i've read about it, reports from people who've gone to vegas etc and lived through their ups and downs rather than my own.

I still don't know if i'm doing right or wrong but i'm still going, i'm happier and in control of my finances and emotions so its a step in the right direction.