Hope

Am taking a break from the site.

Despite all my fine words, its all come to nothing.

I dun my b******s today.

Its not the end of the world, rent paid and a few quid left for food and bus tickets but my actions are all just a bit pathetic. irresponsible to myself in the extreme.

I will get there one of these days.

All for now I will be ok and thanks for listening

ive changed my mind I have a story to tell....

Thursday morning. Am off work. Its 9.00 a.m. Knock on the door. Its my mate. I know its not good. his car is not outside. It means he's sold it. He's just walked 5 miles to get here. Anyway not a penny to his name and he's hungry. he tells his story. he came within a couple of days of his court date for eviction. Somehow he's managed to avert it, problem with his universal credit or something but the original problem was caused by gambling of course. Anyway I have food we eat. Knock knock knock, other mate shows up. Can he use my phone, his electric company are threatening to disconnect him cos they say he hasn't paid them anything for 18 months. he uses phone. he makes little progress. he is also high as a kite cos he's just been paid his universal credit... he's got a "cert" on some horse race, wants to watch the racing on the telly. So anyway, ive got one compulsive gambler at rock bottom, another compulsive gambler in "action" and me another compulsive gambler who's trying to stop... anyway fast forward to Friday.

Rightly or wrongly I decide to bail out my mate at rock bottom... this is of course against all the advice i'd give someone else... and this is where it goes wrong for me. I'd actually got paid more than I thought i'd get, so in theory the bailout shouldn't have impacted upon me to any great extent. But of course my addiction says otherwise. Win it back... so of course I tried and quickly lost almost everything. I am still very sick. I only stopped when the cash point said no. What a numpty... am feeling very low and frustrated with myself. To top it all off when I did eventually switch my phone back on (I switch it off if am gambling) I have a text from my sister to say that my dad has cancerous growths in his lungs... and then I immediately feel like the lowest of the low. 

On it goes, on it goes.... To top it all off a blumin advert came up on my screen and it said "live to play slots".... how ironic... that's how my life has been. Was that the plan all along?? Any spiritual guidance??

I bailed my mate out cos otherwise he would have gone shop lifting to get food... though I appreciate that I might just have delayed the inevitable.... Note to self... concentrate on my life.. can't save other people

Hi SA,

I hear your struggles and my heart aches seeing you suffering. Youre one of the kindest souls i ever came accross in this life and you truly deserve the best in life.

Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? We are not on this earth to suffer. We are here to for a reason, to share love, contentment and good vibes. ..yet, we seem to stand on the sidelines willing others on for the same, being cheerful for their happiness and freedom....yet...what about us?

What about us dear SA.

End the suffering..you deserve so much more. Life is very short however its never too late to start claiming it back.

Hugs

(((((((SA)))))))

S&B xx

Aw mate, I've always had mixed feelings about getting too close to other addicts. When you talked about the people you come into contact with, it all sounds so grim. Their circumstances so dire. It would make me feel desolate and in need of escape. Then again, for some people, it's good medicine being around other addicts and seeing the chaos it causes them. 

Sorry to hear about your Dad. 

f x

Thank you both, pleased to say, no gambling since last post.

I feel like ive been on the edge of living a  normal life for quite sometime now and yet I haven't quite been able to convert this into reality.

I can talk recovery until the cows come home.

I want to walk the walk and not just talk the talk.

A few years ago I use to walk the walk.

I can do it again.

Please to say that no gambling since my last post. Am still very sick in the head though, cos the thoughts are there.... 50 P spins i says to myself... its been triggered by an unexpected electric bill... they can't seem to make up there mind whether to charge me monthly or quarterly..anyway its landed today. Ive also got my first payslip from my new employer... I think they have messed up, cos what I got in my bank account is not what it says on my payslip and yes i got more than expected and yes that money no longer exists, cos I gambled it in my last binge. I will keep quiet of course but am sure in time there mistake will come to light and I will have to pay it back. Also I owe money elsewhere. Also am being encouraged to go out for a curry on friday with colleagues. I won't go of course.. got no money. As always I never thought of any of these consequences when i was in action

But my sick head still says... win it back, win the money... glory or bust. But my sick head can go f**k off. I will distract myself and take no money out with me. Am not gonna do it. Am gonna be good to myself by not gambling and just deal with lifes curved b alls as best i can.

Thanks for listening

you know these chasing thoughts reduce every day that passes, it's just riding them out

f x

Hey you!

Hope all is well and those thoughts has subsided. We both know that thoughts wont hurt us - actions will. No matter how annoying they may get, they're only thoughts - illusion. 

Keep the pennies to yourself...believe me or not, they do add up..takes time but what doesnt in this life ?

Much love and keep staying safe SA.

S&B xx

Hey!

Random alert...was just thinking about the jobs and what they bring to us or...shall i say - what we bring to them...or best way to put it - how can we get the best out of two worlds.

Surely you have some funny moments to share..there must be something out of the book of  " I couldn't make this stuff up".

I have one! - imagine somebody practicing ballet on a dual carriageway...in tutu...in the middle of the night!..now, i guess i know what you thinking but as always there is a logical explanation to everything in this life...when you eventually find it ? (or make one up ?).

Go on, your turn. ..

Ps. Hope that smile on your face has also lifted your spirits for the day.

Keep up good work & as you say - i think you're doing mighty well SA ?

Nighty - nite!

Closure of random alert ?

S&B xx

Thanks both... random alerts always welcome. I have many funny moments, but will save them for another day 🙂 x

Well its exactly 3 months till Christmas... and if I stay stopped I should by then be entering the world of normal living. I do look forward to the day when i can just pop into a coffee shop and spend £3 on a coffee and not have to think about whether I can afford it or not.

Not much else to say, just checking in like i do.

Hi...

I was lying in bed last night, just back from the late shift. I was tired and had gone straight to bed. But could I sleep... nope absolutely not! My body was still but my mind was buzzing my mind was going absolutely crazy. When I closed my eyes I could almost see the neurones in my brain firing off, chattering away, tens of millions of them. I could see countless points of light on the insides of my eyelids, so numerous and chaotic and intense and beautiful in there own way.

It wasn't the sort of sensations and visions and feelings that you might have after getting into bed and trying to sleep when drunk. My head wasn't spinning quite in that way. I wasn't feeling physically ill but I was buzzing and in that sense it was slightly unpleasant. Eventually I dropped off to sleep and I remember having intense vivid dreams which frustratingly the details of which I can no longer remember but I think i was constantly waking up and then going straight back into another intense dream and then waking again.

I guess what I experienced was my brain trying to process what had been going on for me that day. It had been a fairly stressful shift. The trigger point for the stress had been when i had tried to give a resident her controlled drugs but I couldn't find the controlled drug book. Me and my colleague had thought that the resident had hidden it (she has early stage dementia) but as it turned out it was in the office just lying on a table. I found it frustrating that the senior staff that had taken it from the apartment (to do with whatever) and then not returned it or told anybody that it needed returning. This sort of thing happens all the time at my work, things get taken to the office from apartments and then not returned and then the next shift doesn't have what they need when they need it. 

Its these sort of events, its these sort of day to day frustrations with others that really gets me wound up. Sometimes its the little things that some how morph into big things on an emotional level but then 48 hours later you end up wondering what all the fuss was about and it passes into history. My nervous system sometimes reacts so strongly that i really don't know what to make of it. But what I do know is that it can be a trully exhausting experience.

The mind and the body fascinates me. The older I get the more I think about the nature of being human. What is being alive? What is consciousness? Why are we here? What is my purpose? What can I do that free's myself from the constraints I place upon myself?

I come to belief that we have an imprint of all our memories in our sub-concious. I come to belief that there is a mechanism to free us or set aside painful memories so that we can focus upon positive memories and experiences but that the painful ones are still there but hidden from view in the here and now.

I think this is why addictions continue for years in my opinion. I feel the pain of a gambling binge and all its consequences very strongly (don't we all) but then the pain soon gets forgotten (next pay day perhaps) and all that we conciously remember is the good bits of our addictive behaviour, the wins and the euphoria that went with it. It makes me think of GA meetings in that some of the reasons that long term abstainers still attend meetings is that they need to see and feel the pain of other addicts in order to get in touch with there own pain from there own gambling, long since left in the past.

I need to keep in touch with own pain in order not to repeat it. Am still a work in progress.. arent we all?

Thanks for listening

Well am officially doing a 4 day week going forward and today i have another day off. I am still being asked to do more but am being strong and saying no... which for me is not an easy thing to do, being a people pleaser and all that. Its even harder because I am sooo financially poor and living on borrowed money. But do you know what I don't care. If it helps my stress levels come down and gives me opportunities to do other stuff just for myself then that's a good thing.

Soon I will be going to weekly pay which am sure will help with my addiction. Having 4 figures going into my bank account once a month has been a nightmare. Every month for the last 3 plus years, ive been back living on borrowed money within a week or at most 10 days from getting paid... sad, but true.

No urges to gamble today... I feel like ive been on the verge of staying gamble free for sometime now. Am now  starting to make it a reality.

Thanks for listening

I feel you on the little things, front. When you are stressed and busy, a stupid little thing that makes things 10x harder just makes you want to take a tantrum - well, for me, it does. I'm amazed I didn't tell anyone to eff off yesterday. One of the managers asked me if I could return some handsets into their docks, yesterday, just as myself and a colleague were dealing with 6 red lights on the tills at once. Through clenched teeth, I said of course, once we've dealt with these red lights, we are experiencing a bit of a rush at the moment. Several things ran through my mind - is he completely oblivious to the fact we are both clearly rushed off our feet? Perhaps he's a weird wind-up merchant who can say these things with a straight face, just to get people annoyed? Maybe he needs a good punch in the face? hahaha! You have to laugh, eh?

Much respect to you for saying no. Just keep breaking old self-destructive, self-unkind cycles and everything else will sort itself out. I truly believe that. I hope you see the progress that I do 🙂

f x