Jer's recovery diary, 2nd attempt

Thanks for reply Gettingthere. I do have lot of things to fight the boredom but still there are times when the boredom is so bad nothing really seem to interest me. Good thing is that I don't get those kind of times as often anymore and I try to "force" myself to do something at least when I get them. And I definitely won't use them as excuse to gamble, not a slightest intention for that.

Anyways won't be problem today since I'm going to pub with some friends soon! Only couple of days to 4 week mark too!

And 30 days totally gamble-free!!

Not even any urges this week even though have some stressful stuff to deal with. Lot of work with studies and lot of work with my new apartment so gonna be busy for a while but like I said before, without gambling all that stuff is so much easier to deal with! And hopefully can relax a bit during weekend.. but off to sleep now.

Quick update, 5 weeks gamble-free!! Still busy with new apartment and stuff but doing good.

Almost 7 weeks done and still doing good!!

I'ts been couple of weeks since I moved to my new apartment and have settled in good. Have to get some more stuff still when I get to it but mostly done. And one of the best things is that I have never gambled in this apartment and no plans to ever do that! Urges are pretty much gone for now, just very faint thoughts of gambling come and go sometimes but I'm used to that. I see simply no way I would go back to the gambling anymore, so much stuff to deal with in the real world and lot of stress even without gambling. But even when I have stressful day, at some level I enjoy it, not the stress itself but the fact it's normal stress and not because of the sh**** gambling. And the fact I can deal with that stress by working hard toward my goals with studies etc.

One thing I still have to work with is the same old boredom... Most of the weeks I have lot of stuff to do every evening and finally when I have free one it feels pretty empty. It's not so bad it used to be and I guess there's no other way than slowly trying to fill it with some nice stuff. The main problem is probably that many of my friends have moved in with their girlfriends etc and I don't see them so much nowadays. Luckily I still have many good friends I can see in weekly basis so have to hold on them!

Anyways, overall everything is looking pretty good!! Over and out for now.

8 weeks already and still going strong. I don't even remember when was last time I had real urge to gamble. Still those faint thoughts that come and go but no problem with that.

Had some interesting time in the pub last weekend too when I was sitting near the slots and saw people playing. One guy even won some minor jackpot and was celebrating with his wife or girlfriend. What I felt was not envy or anything near that, I just felt sad for them. Both were overweight and wearing old dirty clothes and even though I can't tell how regular gamblers they were I can tell for sure they had lost and/or will lose more than that crappy jackpot to those machines... and they certainly looked liked they could use their money for better things like new clothes.

Had something else on my mind too but I guess it wasn't important since I forgot already... anyways have to study a bit now. Back later!

Hi Jer,

I've been following and enjoying your diary, but haven't had anything to say til now. How was that book (Philip Mawer)?

All the best

mm

Hi milkman, thanks for posting! Good thing if you have enjoyed my diary!

Yea the Mawer book, guess I forgot to talk about it here on my diary (posted thoughts about it on some other topic when I had finished it). All I can say it's just great. I love the positive approach and the way Philip puts things out there simply and plainly. For me that book was the last 'click' towards quitting. I had been couple of weeks clean before I read it and after I finished it I thought I can really do this. There are couple of things in the book I can't agree 100% but overall it's probably the best anti-gambling piece of work I have read. I would recommend it very highly!

Read a bit of your diary too and I try to read it better when I have more time but good work getting trough the first 2 weeks! For me that was the hardest part and after that the non-gambling weeks have felt to fly by much more easily, hope it's the same for you!

d**n must have jinxed myself when I said I don't even remember when I had urges last time... Because I been having some today. lol not serious about that jinx thing, I know what the real reason is. I was helping my relatives with repairing stuff and got paid some for it which is (I think) first time I got extra money after I quit gambling. And by extra I mean money I didn't expect to get. I have some savings and compared to them the amount I got now isn't big. But the fact it's something extra instantly triggered old thought patterns like "hey let's gamble it's just free bonus money and it doesn't count!" But hell yea it does count and I'm not going to gamble any of it.

Good thing is that these urges haven't been strong and not even close I actually acted on them. But it's kinda unsettling and annoying to get them now just when they had been gone for long. Then again I guess it's good reminder to keep my guards up and be even more alert about things that can trigger the urges and remember to visit here more often...

Beer and movie now before going to bed, have a nice gamble-free Sunday everyone!

Those gambling urges really do know when to strike.

But the more we repel those urges when we get unexpected extra money, the more barriers we put up in place in this recovery journey.

And that can only be a good thing!

GT

Yea those d**n urges sure know when to strike, still been having some this past week but still not strong ones which is good thing. And really good thing is that I haven't gambled at all for 10 weeks or 70 days now!!! Kind of numbers I really can be happy with and even though I'm not so much in to that rewarding myself thing, maybe I could try to come up with something nice for next weekend... Anyway very busy week till Thursday but 3 day weekend after that which is nice reward in itself!

But off to study now and back later!

Day 86. Haven't posted for a while but that's mainly because nothing new really. Still totally gamble-free and still lot of stress and studying ... Really looking forward to holidays ahead! Still getting those minor urges sometimes when I'm bored, like out of nowhere thought "how about little football bet?" But I can dismiss them easily just by thinking how far I have come without even one small bet and asking myself would I trade so many weeks gamble-free for some crappy bet? Answer is always easy and clear. And watching football without betting is just getting better and better! I don't remember when was the last time I was so excited about football game than last weekends Chelsea - Pool! Nice goal in the last minutes Johnson 😉

But well, guess it's off to sleep, have a nice weekend everyone!!

Again some break from posting but still gamble-free and day number 103 now!! Haven't been able to give much thought to that 100 day milestone though since last week was the most stressful one this year.. had couple of important exams (which went well fortunately) and 2 more to come in 1,5 weeks. So have to get trough those before holidays. Also some health issues again... nothing too serious but annoying old thing that never seems to recover properly and because of that + study stress been feeling a bit down. Then again good thing is that I'm not feeling as down as I might and I'm certain that's because there's no gambling in my life anymore. I mean I would surely try to drown all this stress to poker table somewhere if I were still gambling and we all know how much more stress and s**t feeling that would cause.

So I try to stay as positive as I can even though I'm far from being all sunshine lately. But with gambling it could and would be so much worse and that's what I'm telling myself all the time. Just kinda hard to be easy on myself these days but have to try...

Now I'm gonna get couple of cold beers and try to relax a bit! 🙂 Have a nice Saturday night and Sunday everyone!

Bad news, had relapse yesterday.... good news is I got away from the fire with even money. Or I don't know if it's good news because obviously I don't deserve it but at least my Christmas isn't ruined financially. And I feel like s**t about it even though I didn't lose. Then again I know I can and have to take this as part of the journey and learning experience since it certainly brought back EVERY reason I haven't gambled in 4 months.

First the reasons for the relapse. Now when I look back the long term reasons are certainly to be seen in last 2 weeks. I can't say I really put too much effort on my recovery lately and gambling thoughts came to my mind a lot, not bad ones but those small urges like "how about little bet" and I certainly should have kicked those much harder like in the early weeks of recovery. Another reason is certainly the fact that I still haven't been able to kick those boredom periods for good and they are ideal growing ground for gambling thoughts.

And the short term reasons? Clear as day. Yesterday I had my final exam this year and started my 2,5 week holidays. I got home from uni and felt happy of course but same time my mind couldn't really handle it yet that I was finally free from all the exhausting studying since September. I mean this fall has been easily the hardest one in my life study/workwise and there was so much pressure built in my head yesterday. Then add to that 4 hours of sleep on the night before, couple of beers and little argument with my friend and there you have a breaking point. After the argument (which we settled today and everything is fine now) my friend left my place and I felt so angry about everything that I took my mouse and threw it to the floor (computer mouse not living one 🙂 ). Needless to say it didn't work after that and that was the moment gambling demon hit my mind. All I thought at that point was "I'm gonna win the money to buy new one" when I was looking for my cr** replacement mouse. Of course I had blocked/self excluded all the sites I used to gamble but I remembered one popular site that I didn't have account in and I created one as fast as possible so I didn't leave myself time to think properly. Of course I realized I was doing something awful but at that state of mind nothing seemed to matter. And after too short while I was already hitting the blackjack tables trying to win 30 or so. Of course when I started playing all the rational thinking that was left went down the drain and I was up, down, down, up,down,even,up, down,even and it took 2 hours to get some sanity back and stop when I had in play about the same I started with. All the time I was playing I knew I should stop immediately but I couldn't and I certainly had forgotten how scary that is. To be trapped inside your head screaming STOP STOP STOP and your hand is just clicking bet bet bet. To be honest I have no idea how I even stopped when I did. I mean if one or two critical hands would have gone other way around I would have ended up losing hundreds and that's another thing what is very scary...

Well, for now everything is fine since every negative thing gambling is and does is clearly in my mind and that alone prevents me from gambling in the near future. But now the fear about long term is there again... if this happened now what prevents it from happening again when this experience is not fresh in my mind anymore? Getting better physical blocks in place is one thing I have to do now but I know there are always ways around them so that's definitely not the "magical answer". Then again living in the fear is not one either and I simply can't keep being too hard on myself and I have to enjoy this holiday and relax. I still have only gambled once in 4 months and I have got trough so much studies that I definitely deserve some peace for now. If I don't forgive myself about yesterday and if I ruin my holiday in self-loath I won't have the strength to study next year which will be very hard and critical year in my studies. Forgiving myself of course doesn't mean forgetting and I have to stick reading and writing here more often again.

So you can count on me sticking around here and for now HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!! 🙂

Maybe I should start new diary once again since it's been almost a year but I guess this will do...so day 1 for me again but oh well.

Rewind from last post before last Christmas, after that relapse I didn't gamble at all for 1-2 months but after that slowly slipped back to those harmless (yeah right...) small bets. Then after some small losses I was 2 months without gambling and then again did some small bets but this time I eventually ended up back to my worst gambling nemesis, blackjack. I got away with only losing couple hundred which wasn't so bad and after that managed to stay almost whole summer without gambling. Just couple of lottery tickets and such.

But... big surprise... once again I slowly ended up betting on sports and for the last 2 months it's been more and more out of control. I didn't lose too big amounts and I thought as long as I at least stay out of casino games it's fine. Even though deep inside I knew exactly which way things would go. And...another big surprise... last Friday I decided to play some blackjack. I don't even remember how many times I have swore I never even consider playing that s*** again but there I was again. first I put in 50 and lost, then 50 and lost, then 100 and lost and again 100 and this time I hit crazy streak and was up like 3000 and I told myself I should take it out but my hand just kept clicking bet and...once again big big surprise... I ended up losing it all. But to be honest I didn't even feel mad about that 3000 because it was doomed money. Compulsive gambler with that kind of win, 0% chance it ends any other way than it did. About that 300 from my own bank account I was mad about and barely slept next night just cursing how stupid I was and swore I stop for good.

Next day I was very busy with other things and was able to put that loss pretty much out of my mind but then I had whole day of free time on Sunday. And somehow the greatest of idea came to my mind that I should try win my 300 back from blackjack. Once again started with depositing 50 at time and tried to chase my money. Again couple of times I even had 600-700 on table which would have covered Fridays losses and more but inevitable happened again. Lost it all of course. Tried to chase some more and again got to 600 but I didn't stop and I couldn't stop and lost it again. So in total I lost 600 from Friday to Sunday which is shitload of money for me.

Good thing is I still have money left and instead of more chasing I decided it's all over now, self-excluded from my current game sites and came back here. Back to zero tolerance because it SIMPLY IS THE ONLY WAY. No small bets, no matter how small those are, no lottery tickets, no slots in the pub. I'm compulsive gambler and I simply cannot gamble at all ever again to make this work. I have to REALLY admit this to myself this time and always REMEMBER it too. At least my determination is sky high at the moment and I want to do this. I think it's a good sign that I'm not even mad about that lost 600 anymore really because now when I look at it, it was bound to happen sooner or later to remind me it just has to be totally zero tolerance.

Pretty long post so that's it for now. I think now I'm gonna post some great quotes I have collected from this site to 'Overcoming problem gambling' section.

well guess ya know ya can put in some good gamble free time cause ya done it. guess its just a matter of stay on track for ya which im sure you'll do. welcome back