Living with my biggest mistake

Checking in day 95 GF very early as can't sleep.

Good weekend if a bit quiet.

Got an email today from site i obviously missed when i self excluded and stopped emails from the sites i had been using. Bit of a guilty/sick moment despite having done nothing wrong. Went on site myself and self excluded for the max i could, 5 years. It said i could contact them if i wanted to close account but i was feeling so uncomfortable being on site i could not deal with contacting them in any way. It said i would need to contact them in 5 years if i wanted to reinstate as they don't auto reinstate which i guess is good. Then cancelled the original email and the one confirming the self exclusion and then cleared my browser history so no one could see i had been on site.

Now i feeling like s**t because i should have just told my wife when the original email arrived. How many times have we told new members that gambling feeds on secrecy? I just did not want to bring gambling back into my life in any way but now i feel bad about the secrecy and if i tell her now with no proof of what i did it will look even more suspicious.

What i will say is being on the site definitely did not bring back any desire to play again. Felt horrible being on there with all the stupid offers and slot games with plainly ridiculous names.

Got to be up in 6 hours, time to try and get some sleep.

I know because the emails and messages are very sneaky, and usually contain the word FREE somewhere. And by just clicking on a site you could be triggering a reaction or chemical which intern starts your thoughts to gambling, maybe I could just play the free 5 or 10 pounds, what harm could it do. And we all know where those thoughts lead.

Smashed wrote:

I know because the emails and messages are very sneaky, and usually contain the word FREE somewhere. And by just clicking on a site you could be triggering a reaction or chemical which intern starts your thoughts to gambling, maybe I could just play the free 5 or 10 pounds, what harm could it do. And we all know where those thoughts lead.

Hi Smashed

Yes those "Free" spins and credits can prove to be quite expensive. The last free money I used cost me £1000 and was the final time I gambled as I realised just out of control I had become.

Feeling a lot better than I did last night. Still wished I had told my wife immediately but my feelings of revulsion whilst on the site keeps me positive that I really do not want to gamble rather than fighting urges.

Unless I go and live in a cave I am going to have to put up with being exposed to gambling whether it is TV adverts, walking past high street bookies or online. I just need to learn to ignore it and not let it annoy/upset me.

So that is my start of year self pity/cold/ wobbles out of the way. Time to start 2018 properly. Goal one is not to gamble and it is difficult to put into words just how determined I am to to achieve this. Second goal is to stop allowing exposure to gambling to upset and annoy me so much.

Yes to GF one day at a time but also to GF for the rest of my life.

Checking in day 96 GF. No urges or thoughts of gambling which is obviously the main thing.

New Year blues continuing a bit and wife mentioned she was suffering with it a bit as well. Both busy at work so getting home late/tired with little energy to do much in the evenings so seem to be just sitting watching pointless television for a couple of hours before going to bed. Bit of a change from December when seemed to have something on most evenings and every weekend.

Time to kick start some activities before I get bored and do something stupid - I really do not think it would be gambling - tried that and it made me extremely unhappy but best not take any chances.

Hi Muststop123 - Sorry to hear the January blues are kicking in. How about the scuba diving that you mentioned a while back? That sounded so exciting.

A couple of years ago, my son went on a school trip to Egypt and he learnt how to scuba dive. He found it magical. Scuba diving is probably one of those hobbies that has a lot of hassle connected to it (the gear, the training, getting to places, etc) - but I imagine the payoff is just fantastic.

I always picture deep blue seas, shipwrecks, treasure and sharks, all with a bit of James Bond thrown in.

I get what you mean about TV. It can be a bit of a drain if it's just a filler. Although, depending on what your tastes are, there's usually something worth watching. A couple of days ago I bought the Ken Burns documentary series on Vietnam. I think maybe it had been on the BBC last year - but it's nearly a whopping 20 hours of documentary brilliance on a sujbect I don't know much about (other than what I've seen in the films). I'm really looking forward to learning about the history and politics of the war. Mrs E overheard me listening to an interview on YouTube with the filmmakers and she's also keen to watch it now. I can imagine it will be a unconfortable and sad viewing at times - and will make any gambling worries I have seem trivial and self-inflicted.

But I hope you find some activity that will kick start your 2018 into a much better light ... which brings us back to wetsuit, oxygen tanks, shark cage, diver propulsion vehicle ...

Hi Equinox

You make the idea of scuba diving sound a lot more exotic than the potential reality of me in my speedos at the local swimming pool. I've started watching Peaky Blinders from the start of series 1 on catch-up - I am halfway through season three so easy to work out how how much time I have "invested" in that since the New Year. If you haven't seen it, it is hardly a spoiler alert to say it is about 1920s Birmingham gangsters. Oddly, although one of their major income streams is illegal gambling, so that is a continuing thread through the series, that part of the storyline does not affect me in any way, guess it is because it is so different to my experience.

My slight new year blues have been kind of blown out of the water. Firstly for a positive reason as we have decided to go on one last big road trip holiday with our son before he goes off to university so loads of planning to do for that. Secondly I got a phone call from my brother while I was driving home last night to tell me they have just found out his wife has stage 4 cancer. Completely out of the blue and obviously thrown us all sideways. Makes all my moans and minor complaints seem pretty petty and puts my self inflicted gambling issues into perspective. Not sure what future holds for her as only just got diagnosis. Not sure if this necessarily sits in a diary relating to stopping gambling but from reading other diaries I have read about people who have relapsed due to family illnesses. I am making a commitment to myself that this is not going to be a factor in my stopping gambling - first, because I really do not want to gamble again so it is not like I am going to use it as some sort of escape and secondly I think it would be an act of extreme selfishness to bring another problem back into my family when they have a lot more important things to deal with than my issues.

Day 98 GF and with 100% honesty can say I do not want to gamble.

Day 99 GF and won't be gambling today. Idea actually makes me feel ill and there are such horrible consequences that I would have to be insane to consider it. A quick look at some of my early posts is enough to make me realise I do not want to go back there.

100 days GF.

A while ago I think I would have considered that a bit of a milestone. Does not really feel like that. 100 days ago was the important day that I decided I was never going to gamble again.

I am willing to acknowledge i have a gambling problem because I can't gamble responsibly but currently this is not affecting me any differently than, for example, to not being able to eat seafood because of a food allergy. If something hurts me in some way, then I should chose not to do it. I know this is not the same for everyone as addiction affects us all differently but at the moment it is working and life is pretty good (apart from sister in law but that is not gambling related).

The blocks remain because they do me no harm but no urges.

Muststop123

Hello Muststop,

It absolutly is a milestone and congrats for it. Whether 100 days GF means any more to you than the 99 before or any day after its still a milestone that shows your commitment and dedication to stopping. I feel like we can forget how hard it felt to reach that point where we realised how deep we were in. The easiest thing is often to just carry on but whatever it took to get us to this point we have put in place what we needed to to stop.

Well done, keep going =)

Well done muststop123. It’s a milestone for sure. I am really pleased for you.

Muststop123 wrote:

... this is not affecting me any differently than, for example, to not being able to eat seafood because of a food allergy.

Congratulations Muststop123 on hitting the century. You're an inspiration, my friend.

You really do have the determination of The Terminator. Gambling just doesn't stand a chance with you.

And I'm going to start imagining my gambling as a dodgy prawn cocktail dish that will kill dead if tasted. Zero urges from this point onwards.

Thanks for the comments all. It is the continuing support and motivation the members of this site give that help me stay determined.

Difficult to explain why I do not see 100 days as a milestone - it is more that I just see one version of myself who gambled to varying degrees upto 100 days ago and then another version who has changed onto another completely separate railtrack who does not gamble. I don't want my experience with gambling to be a hugely negative defining point in my life, it is just the day I switched onto a different track. I think I am a bit more self aware of myself and how I think now but I am basically the same man, I just choose to not give away money to online casinos.

Day 102 and no urges or thoughts of gambling.

Day 106 GF.

Stupid busy at work and home at the moment and apart from remembering to come on here I have no thoughts of gambling.

I have no urges and am finding it easier to ignore the TV adverts. I actually feel a bit embarassed when I see the adverts now as they just look so shallow - ooh bright lights, happy smiling people all winning money. They are as bad as the actual online sites when you get on them, the pathetic names of the games and win-cash-bonus-free ideas everywhere - can't believe I actually got taken in. Anyway that is the past so absolutely no point in dwelling there - guess I just found out I am just as easily led as anyone else despite thinking I was a reasonably sharp cookie!

I am glad you are starting to ignore them, they ain’t going anywhere anytime soon that’s for sure. Congrats albeit a bit late on getting to 100 days :). Scott.

Scotto85g wrote:

I am glad you are starting to ignore them, they ain’t going anywhere anytime soon that’s for sure. Congrats albeit a bit late on getting to 100 days :). Scott.

Thanks, yes I think it will be a long time before gambling advertising is as controlled as tobacco advertising but as you say, no time soon:(

Day 109 GF and no thoughts of gambling over the weekend. Very busy with work, outside interests and issues relating to my sister in laws health but pretty sure this is not the reason I do not want to gambling. I am not harbouring secret thoughts of wouldn't it be nice if I could have the odd little dabble occasionally. I've tried it, it created one of the lowest points of my life and I never want to go near it again.

Let's all keep this another GF week.