It's all or nothing, always

Hi Xenedra

Great to hear that you are still GF and are starting to enjoy life again. Keep it up!!

Muststop123

Hi Xenedra, fantastic to hear how well things are. I guess sometimes thing just click and I'm sure having your new home is a massive incentive. Keep going and enjoy your GF future S:)

Good to see you moving on, and back here, and booted addiction up the rear when it whispered in your ear "Just £10" you done well a big test.

Days and Days

Hi all, I'm back after a fair few days. I would love to say that I'm dropping back briefly, taking a break from my wonderful gamble free life (and for the most part I suppose I am) but there is a small part that is not so wonderful.

A week or so ago, the emails of free bets, free spins started to look appealing from my junk email folder. They had gone from the normal inbox, the text messages had diminished from up to 20 a day to one or two a week, but the ones that were creeping through were being opened and not immediately deleted. I can't tell you (or my therapist) why this is. I suppose I thought i'd beaten it and it might be ok to look again. I logged on, used the free spins...having to register with a few new casinos to do this and for a while all was ok, in control. Until I deposited and played my own money...£20. Not a massive tradgey, a rain drop in the ocean to what it has been, easy to rectify...I have quit smoking...4 weeks now so easy money I would have spent on smoking. I played that, won £101...put all that back in (of course) and walked away.

Then it was all back, the emails in the inbox, texts from other sites, and the entry on my bank statement...that was disgusting to see. But a night or two later I went back...this time £30. Lost this in about one minute. But I walked away...I have since played some bonus money but have not made any more deposits. Considering my last binge 76 days ago cost me £800 I know this isnt a relapse but it is a slide in the wrong direction.

I am not going back to where I was I am sure of it and I am pleased to say that the urge has left me now. But I did want to come back here and talk about it. Be honest with you all and myself.

I have started to watch the birds in my garden and each morning I feed them (a feast...as I can never do anything by halfs) and I have befriended a robin who is just beautiful...the other morning he took a dried worm from my hand and everything felt wonderful. This is living...gambling is not. But why is living so much harder than gambling?

It will be Christmas Day two weeks today and last Christmas I spent it in front of my laptop, gambling all day. I didnt play with my daughter, I didnt even cook a Christmas dinner. I even sat on the stairs because my daughter and her dad wanted to watch a film in the front room and I wanted to keep playing but near a plug socket so I could keep then laptop charged. This Christmas will be different for sure.

Thank you all for reading.

My name is Xenedra and I am trying, I really really am.

Hi Xenedra, i was skimming through some of your earlier posts before. Sounds like you’ve come a long way since last Xmas. You should be proud of yourself! Keep going, and keep making your daily lists of everything that your grateful for in your life, Maybe it’s a trick of the mind but you always get more of what you concentrate on.

Hi Xenedra good to see you back and posting, you are in the right place and I was a bit worried when there were no posts from you for a while.

Sorry to hear about you going back to gambling, however briefly. Yes I think you have to be positive and see that you are getting stronger compared to before, I know you will keep trying because you want to be rid of this evil habit for good like we all do!! You have come back here and been honest and that is a step in the right direction.

Use this experience to get stronger, close the loopholes that allowed you to gamble this time, ask yourself what was happening that week when the emails started to look appealing again and use it to help develop your strategies to avoid or deal with those triggers.

Your question "why is living so much harder than gambling" is really poignant and you have hit the nail on a head here for many of us who have used gambling to escape before... this is something only a gambling mind would think. I suppose we should try and look at it from the other side of addiction, think about something you can't see the appeal of. I look at a heavily addicted heroin addict who has lost everything and while on the one hand I can understand the need for a fix on the other I can see they are throwing their life away and its frustrating & sad. I do try and think of gambling like this, its a short term fix and it robs your life away. In fact there may be more similarities than people think, withdrawal symptoms for a cg can be physical as well as psychological, I definitely experienced this in the first few weeks and have heard many people say this. That's also why willpower alone is the hardest method, would you put a recovering heroin addict in a room full of heroin and expect them to keep resisting?

I am sending you hope and strength, please keep going!! I know you want to beat this, don't let it back into your life because you have so much to lose! Remember the old saying on here 'we cannot win because we cannot stop' - and let go of the recent losses or they will play on your mind.

All the best
4D