Hope

Dear Diary... ive not gambled.

I am stressed though most if not all of the time and very tired. Its all down to my gambling antics of course. I have no savings, no fall back position...nobody to sort the rent if I cant... life on the edge... day to day survival has become my norm. I am at the whims of other peoples mistakes or errors. At work I have to enter my shifts online and then my manager signs them off and I get paid... easy in theory.... in practice I have to keep my eye on the ball. Every month has a cut off date in order to be paid for the next month. When my my shifts are signed off I get a confirmation email but in the days before the cut off date I notice no emails. me being the paranoid person that I am I assume its my manager who's forgotten or got it in for me or something.... but in the end it turns out that somebody in IT had incorrectly assigned something to my account which meant that my shifts were not being registered on the system. I would not have been paid if I had not chased it up and even now am still not totally convinced and I have no idea how much I will get in my monthly pay.

Its ever so stressful. Somebody elses mistake can lead to potential rent arrears for me and f**k all to live on. For normal people its annoying but not the end of the world, eventually these things get sorted, normal people have some savings for rainy day scenarios... not me... its horrible. I need to remember this next time am tempted to gamble.

Thanks for listening

Well its another day. Haven't gambled. Just off the phone to a credit card company... 3 pounds a month. As soon as you say gambling addiction they just seem pleased that you even maintain contact. To anyone out there with lots of bank debt, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Not a lot happens besides a default notice and not being able to get anymore mainstream credit... but then that's a good thing for a gambling addict isn't it?

I find out tomorrow how much money I will have on pay day. Will it be enuff for survival purposes?? In my head its rent and council tax... if I can cover that... and have a few quid for food and travel.. then I will get by. Other wise am f****d. 

Thanks for listening

My motivation is increasing to stay stopped. Ive gambled twice since last post but they were very sick episodes, mindlessly pressing the button until all available funds gone. Ive just felt completely numb afterwards, going home and lying in bed barely able to move. But me being me I force myself to my next shift of work and I click the button in my head and once there you'd never know how depressed i'd been just a few hours earlier.

Ive now self-excluded myself from yet more bookmakers which is positive. I now have to travel quite far to gamble in places that am not excluded from. It wont stop me if I really want to gamble but like I say my motivation is increasing to stay stopped. Whatever plan I have put together in my head to win money off these machines has failed and failed again because all I really want is the escapism and the instant hit of something over and over again. I have an addicts brain. The wring in my brain is all wrong. I cant gamble normally. The off switch was removed many years ago.

I am now back running again. The only thing that really works to get me out of my depressive haze. Am running a half-marathon once more with my mate in a couple of months. Something to focus on. If I remain gamble free then I know for sure that I will be in a much better place psychologically.

Thanks for listening

Good to hear from you, SA.

You sound very rooted in your reality and honest in your posts. I think this is a good thing.

f x

Keep trying mate. We will get there one day without playing these machines 

Brick by brick SA. Just for today.

Much love - S

Thank you all... much love back 🙂

No gambling since last post. Its not difficult at the moment cos I have very little money. Just enuff to feed myself and a few bus tickets... but at times in the past that wouldn't have stopped me and i'd of gone to zero. Anyway just for today.....

todays thoughts... Have you ever noticed at work how its always the same people that say... "can you do me a favour?".... and its usually about swapping shifts or doing work calls that they don't want to do. Recently ive been practicing the art of saying "no", just out of principle. People ask me cos they think am a soft touch and I will say yes... but when I do say yes when I mean no it gets me feeling rubbish about myself.. so am saying no and I say no I mean no. Its like I very rarely ask anyone to swap shifts or do calls that I don't want to do... its just how I am.. I do what the rota says. Some people are very self-centered, constantly manipulating situations to there advantage. I try to keep these people at arms length.

Thanks for listening

That is working recovery, right there!

I understand from personal experience how hard it can feel to start to say "no". Well one! This is excellent!

I honestly believe it's this stuff that feeds the feeling of powerlessness and the need to escape into gambling. The self-loathing, too. The inner critic ipes up to tell us how weak and pathetic we are. Well, we are not! We are strong and we can say "no".

A common phrase I hear about this is "when you say yes to things you don't want to do, you say "no" to yourself". 

It's a massive bonus to learn how to spot the manipulators and steer clear. They  are toxic.

Hope this week is treating you well and you're looking after yourself in all aspects of life!

Keep on winning for real and keep posting dear SA. 

Hugs!

S&B xx

Well I feel as if there are signs that I am finally getting there.... even after all these years of trying and failing to stay stopped. I find now that am spontaneously doing things to help myself when thoughts of gambling come along. More self-exclusions, not taking money with me when am over tired and stressed or other wise feeling vulnerable and really trying to get in touch with how profoundly gambling has damaged my state of well being over many many years. There is hope for all of us even pathological, degenerate gamblers like myself.

Whilst recognizing that I need to focus on myself, I am feeling sad today because a fellow addicted gambler showed up on my doorstep the other day. He is facing eviction from his flat and his last hope (in his mind) is traveling up to see his brother (whom is wealthy) and asking for a bailout. Of course my mate didn't have the money to get there. I gave it him, knowing that i'd probably done the wrong thing... but it is what it is.

Final thought... ive just been rung to see if I can do a night shift tonight... I said NO... it was hard cos I couldn't come up with a reason in the moment for why I couldn't do it, other than  "I don't want to" and I wasn't able to say that. At the back of my mind I feel the need to say yes cos I worry that in the future there might not be work when I really need it ie I wont be asked.....  but then again of course, if am not gambling finances wont be really tight...

life goes on.... I CAN get to a better place.

Am having a good day today. Surprisingly, am not suffering the after effects of a 2 hour and 10 min slow jog yesterday. I remembered to stretch after and today I feel just fine.

Ive had a nice chat with my neighbor and ive got a mate coming over shortly ie am not spending the day in isolation. Am doing jacket potatoes with beans and cheese and wait for it..... salad on the side!! I cant remember the last time I ate salad.

Am living a normal life today not hunched over some machine praying for the feature to drop as the panic rises within.

back to work tomorrow. A necessary thing. But no more working stupid hours and getting overly tired exhausted and dehydrated.

Lifes all about balance isn't it? Time for me to live a balanced life moving forward.

Thanks for listening

I am hopeful even though I have had a gambling episode since my last post. I got back off the floor and self-excluded straight away. Am almost on first name terms with the national self-exclusion team. My gambling episode coincided with a real dip in my mental health and extreme tiredness and as always I convinced myself that this time would somehow be different. It wasn't!

The gaps between my gambling episodes are getting longer and each time I gamble I then make it more difficult for me to gamble. I can have a better quality of life. I don't have to be controlled by gambling. There is always hope.

Thanks for listening

Ive just quietly burst into tears in my flat after another battle over pay due. We have a cut off date for shifts to be entered on to the company portal. They then have to be authorized. usually its not an issue, but my manager left suddenly... so whos going to sign the shifts off?? It falls to area manager. Area manager says she has done it but when I look on the portal she obviously hasn't... cos the system says shifts not authorized. The deadline is today... after a very frustrating time of emails and phone calls it gets sorted or am reassured that it will be sorted but my point is this.....

If it wasn't sorted then I might not have got whats due until mid august and thus me being a compulsive gambler i'd of been f****d… rent arrears etc etc.... so I had to keep politely pressing and pressing and probably annoying people who were busy doing other work tasks to get it sorted. It was very stressful and is  what has led to my tears. I very rarely cry (maybe I should do it more).

If I was normal and I had savings it wouldn't be the end of the world, but Im don't I have debts and stress. All because of my addiction. 

This is very much another reason to stay stopped. Am going for a walk to settle myself

Thanks for listening

can't sleep..... the events of yesterday have completely unsettled me. Ive lost trust in other people to do what they say they are going to do. Don't tell me you've signed off my shifts when you haven't. I hate being lied to... don't we all!

Its all sorted now but its been a mentally exhausting experience and I find myself just churning things over in my mind. It doesn't help that its so warm tonight.

I think I have big trust issues. I'd rather do everything myself.

Thanks for listening

Dear S.A.,

Just wanted to reply quickly to your post as it sounds like you've been going through a stressful time not knowing whether you were going to be paid on time and what impact this would have on your earnings for the next few weeks. I'm glad it sounds like it is sorted out now but understand this has not been easy when you've been working so hard to get things back on track.

You are very welcome to contact our helpline if you'd like to talk to someone or if there is any further advice or support we can offer you to.

Wishing you all the best,

Forum Admin