Hope

Thanks Boro... but I still don't think you owe me an apology... but anyway...onwards...

No gambling since last post but am still stuck in my addictive cycle... am plotting in my thoughts on what I will do come payday. Am working alot this month and will be in a position to pay off my council tax and water etc... before the end of the financial year... and I know I will do this BUT as always there will be some excess, some leftovers.... otherwise known as "play money"... Am protected from online with gamstop, which has proved very effective... am also protected from local bookies, cos ive been around them individually and reminded them that am excluded. It doesn't stop me travelling out of my area though... and that will be the challenge....

But of couurse the bigger challenge is finding myself something else to look forward to... finding myself other reasons NOT to try my luck with gambling... cos the desparate feelings after ive gambled my money away are soon forgotten as if they didn't happen. Ive also been bad with my meds (due to gambling) and then not wanting to pay the prescription for new meds cos food comes first and consequently ive not taken them and my anxiety levels and mania have gone up. I can start to write this mistake tomorrow by getting back on my meds which were making a difference. I can also stop walking the 5 miles to work and back as by spending very little I now have sufficient to get a bus pass and eat... (well aren't I going up in the world lol).

Anyway... thoughts welcome.... especially any wisdom on how to change my thinking...

Thanks for listening

Morning diary... not gambled since last entry, some thoughts today but I have dismissed them. Self-exclusions working effectively today.... my gambling head knows i can't use local bookies and i can't be bothered to sit on some bus for a an hour. and in any case I only have a small amount and unless i was very lucky it would be gone in minutes.

I intend to do constructive things today and enjoy my day off

Thanks for listening

S.A.

I’ve spent a good while catching up on your diary. Your diary is usually the first one I go to. I tend to take a lot from reading your diary - bare honest thoughts always.

Anyway, I think we share some similarities in how we both think and act. Both been tackling our gambling problems for a while, both had periods of abstinence and both have fairly brutal relapses but on we go in hope of doing better and not making the same mistakes.

If I was being brutally honest, I’m not even aware if I’ve ever been able to not gamble when I’ve had a serious urge to do so. My whole mentality is to try not to have the urge. To try to engage in running, football, boxing any fitness that I can enjoy that takes me into a new way of filling time and making myself feel good about me again. Usually, if I can do this for two or three weeks I get myself back on the right path again.

I hope we both find our way. We can’t be doing this nonsense for the rest of our lives.

Not going to go on too much tonight. I hope you are well. I wish good things for you and hope you are not working too hard and can still find time for running in the great outdoors with our fabulous British weather and all that our four seasons can throw at us.

Tomso

Hope you enjoyed your day off last week and that things are well with you.

Keep the strength.

NT

Well thank you for looking in folks... I hear and think about what you say.

Ive had something of a lie in today. Am very tired and fatigued from, yes you guessed it, from working too much. I still very much continue with my patterns of behaviour that ultmately lead to gambling, beit after a few days weeks or months, though I haven't gambled since my last post.

Iv'e just had another one of those texts from work. Desparate for staff as always. Someone from the late shift and also from the night shift have both phoned in sick... and the hint being... can I start at 4pm and then do through the night. I thought about it, I always need the money of course and the person texting I consider a friend a friend whose on the edge of breaking down (not fo r the first time) and is beside herself with stress at trying to keep the place running and covering shifts. Both seniors are on long term sick, the new manager has lasted 2 months and is now leaving...alledgedly for family reasons... 3 other care staff are on long term sick. I don't think ive ever worked somewhere with such high sick rates. The motto seems to be.... "the going gets tough, everyone rings in sick".

It makes it very hard for the likes of me... something of a people pleaser... putting everyone elses needs before my own. I sit here now feeling a little bad for saying no.. as I have no plans and I could do it.. but like you may all say... its the physical and psychological consequences of working yourself into the ground. I know I did the right thing.. but ity doesn't stop me feeling bad. I don't like seeing other people so stressed out... cos I know that this may well be the tipping point for my work friend and she will join the long list of long term sickness...

I know that none of this is my responsibility but sometimes i think what is happening to the work place and peoples work ethic. Am gonna be really judgemental here... but sometimes I get real fed up working with folk and are obese and constantly going off sick for "bad backs" and the consequences of not managing there weight and not managing there diabeties and getting all sorts of health problems from being fat and unfit... there we go ive said it.... BUT of course... I am a gambling addict who has never really got to grips with his problem... so I guess I am the equivelant of super morbidly obese in the gambling addiction world... so i apologise to any over weight people reading this.... I undertsand how hard it is to change. I really do...

Moan over. All the best to everyone reading this

Am having a bad day. Supposedly am enjoying a day off but in reality I can't stop thinking about work and the bad practices that go on in the world of social care. I need to vent...

I work in one of these places for older people who are more or less independant that just need a little support with personal care or meals or shopping or medications etc etc. People have care calls, some have 3 or 4 a day, some just one... more of just a welfare check. Now it works quite well for some, that is until there health deteriorates or they don't adhere to the rules. there is this chap, mobility problems, alcoholic, pressed his pendant outside of his call times (for non-urgent things)... not a good idea am afraid... annoyed carers who complained to management. Now one day he has a fall, ambulance called.. off to hospital.. and at this point management says that he's not coming back... its decided that we can't manage his needs. Now said person recovers and becomes a bed blocker, hospital wants him out and he and the hospital wants him to come back, management says no, the hospital forces the issue and a higher authority says that its his human right to come back to what has been his home for the last few months. management says ok but we will not provide the care... outside carers need to be appopinted. he comes back, supposedly now nothing to do with us the inhouse care team. However we have to provide him with a pendant in case of a real emergency... and this happens. So anyway he's back he's in poor health he's drinking but just about coping BUT as before he's pressing his penadant on a regular basis wanting help with this and that and we are instructed to say that he must contact his "care providers" as we are now nothing to do with his care... emergency only. But the pedant pressing continues... the outside carers often don't come at the set times and he pendants us wanting to know where they are... to which we have to say that he needs to contact them himself because we are nothing to do with his care. I get told off one day for helping him on to his mobility scooter because "we are nothing to do with his care"... anyway this situation goes on for a few weeks until inevitably another fall another and trip into hospital. anyway he recovered and then once more becomes a bed blocker and the hospital are phoning up to ask who his care provider is and nobody knows and presumably he doesn't either and he's not wanted anyway. from what i can see a game is then played wherby the hospital rings up wanting to know who his care provider is and knowbody knows or cares seemingly. Anyway I had a text from a collegue who said an ambulance brought him back today.... apparently he had very low blood pressure, severely dehydrated and couldn't weight bare. he was taken to his flat with no care package in place. The hospital had obviously had enuff and just discharged him.... apparently almost imediately someone phoned 999 and he went back into hospital....

This is the reality of social care folks, people passed from pillar to post. If your not liked your doomed. If your not able or unwilling to play the game of the care setting you are in you are highly likely to die before your time.... thats the reality.

In another case am aware of. One of our residents with deteriorating needs, required new equipment for his manual handling... however someone told me on the quiet that the manual handling team had closed his file becuase he had supposedly died... when he wasn't dead atall. People obviously thought that he's go into hospital and die soon anyway so why bother. This is the reality of social care folks... people die before there time...

These sort of things... make me angry and sad... and the fact that even in hospital you can come pout worse than when you went in... there is no excuse for someone to be dehydrated coming out of hospital, but i spose we all know what happens don't we.... drinks place in front of people but no support to actually drink it!

Moan over

Am escaping into food today I can't stop eating. I did go for a jog earlier so thats something positive i guess

S.A.

Just caught up with yesterday’s posts. You truly are a kind soul. I can see how frustrated you are with work issues/conditions however, it is surely part of a greater plan that finds you working in this field. Without really knowing you I cannot but think that someone as caring, giving and selfless as you was hand picked by God to work in this profession. I am sure the people you care for are very lucky to have you looking after them.

Take care.

Tomso.

No gambling since last post

Thank you folks... and well its certainly true that I have supported alot of people over the years... those that are severly disabled both physically and mentally and I guess in my own way my inter-personal skills suit this kind of work exactly. I have the ability to adapt to whomever I am working with and tune in to there needs. I find it strange that some people simply don't have this ability, some people do not posses empathy for others. whether this is a product of nature, nurture or design only god knows but I do believe that god or some sort of higher power does exist and each and everyone of us is here for a reason and we have a purpose.

My stress levels have now come down because somebody at long last has taken control of the situation I was describing in my last couple of posts. After an almost laughable series of events where this vulnerable adult was in and out of hospital like a yo yo.. a very angry doctor has now sorted things and this individual has gone into a nursing care environment. Hopefully his last few weeks or months will be settled.

The thing I have learnt about myself is that I must work less, cos it kills me working too much. I find when am tired and run down I find it very hard to switch off from the stress of work... I can't stop thinking about work and it does my head in. I think well whats the point in having a day off if am still thinking about work, I might as well be at work. This is why people have break downs, work becomes everything whether you like it or not. Of course as a compulsive gambler many of us work all the hours under the sun cos we feel that we need to to pay off debts and bills or/and get ammunition for the next session. Its a vicious cycle to get away from. Am finding it very very hard. But in my defense am not quite doing the crazy shifts I was doing this time last year... what crazy fool does 7 a.m to 10 P.m... but I bet (pardon the pun) lots of you are putting your hands up. I haven't dome one of those shifts for quite a while now.

I feel calmer today and I like that feeling. re-connect with the world, not escape from it.

Thanks for listening.

P.s... Ive just been reading the personality profiles of people with addictions that someone has put up. I am a caretaker people pleaser with a dash of workaholism

I want to stay stopped

S.A.

Hey buddy I hope you are ok this morning. Take care of yourself today and hopefully you’ll find time for yourself and time to relax and recharge the batteries.

You mentioned that you want to stay stopped. Of course you do. We both know that gambling doesn’t do anything good for our long term recovery. It only allows us to escape temporarily but the consequences of the next few days are usually brutal.

Take care. Be kind to yourself today.

Tomso

S.A

How are doing buddy. I’m worried about you.

I hope all is OK and hopefully hear from you soon. Take care.

Tomso

Hi SA,

Thinking about you buddy. I hope you are ok and look forward to hearing from you.

Take care. Speak soon.

Tomso

Hi all... thanks for your thoughts and concerns. Am ok. I'd done nearly a month and then the usual happened at pay day. I travelled out my area to places where am not excluded. Although this time I stopped I actually managed to stop before I did everything. Of course I still had all the usual let down emotions but because its all so familiar I shrugged it off quickly and just got on with day to day life. I have enuff money to live normally and not have to survive on the porridge only diet. I will do some more self-exclusions and keep doing positive things.

Thanks again... 5 days clean

Hi S.A.

Glad to hear that you are o.k.

Sorry to hear about your payday incident. Don't really know what to say other than I've been thinking about you a great deal over the past few days and I really hope that you get back on your path and find happiness and normality in life. You deserve that. You give so much of yourself to people who need help and support and I just wish that there was something that I could do to help and support you.

Take care.

Tomso.