Living with my biggest mistake

Hi Lost and Found

Welcome to the forum and well done on what must now be 81 days GF, that is a tremendous achievement. There are some people on here with a lot of experience of dealing with our problem and I am sure they will be able to support you with advice and suggestions on where to go if you need more professional help. I have found the help and advice invaluable.

If you do want to start your own diary, if you go to the main Recovery Diaries index and go to the bottom left of the page there is a link to start a new topic.

Good luck and keep strong against the evil poison that is gambling.

Day 29 GF and don't want to gamble so I won't.

Counselling tonight and have mixed feelings. Guy at counselling is excellent, sees through my clouded thoughts and really helps me understand why I do/think things and has offered to help come up with approaches to dealing with them better. Unfortunately my ham fisted attempts to broach any of these issues with my wife has just caused more upset and left us in a position where I think we both are happier to leave them where they are - basically forget about them and get on with our lives. As I left this morning wife said "don't envy you tonight going to counselling, don't forget everything is alright really" as if she really does not want anything to change.

Having read a fair few diaries on here, I think the one thing we all have in common is we may think too much.

Good luck everyone today, fight those demons and keep GF for another day.

Thank you MustStop123. I am so sorry for posting on your diary! The forum I am used to was very one dimensional and linear. You just post in a continuous thread. When I came on here, I was like, 'wow, where do I go!'. I will start my own diary, thank you for the support. I have edited down my post so that it does not take up as much room on your page. It would not let me delete it fully. Really sorry about that. I really hope you are well and I wish you the very best in beating this addiction.

All the best and keep going. There's a better life out there.

Lost and Found wrote:

Thank you MustStop123. I am so sorry for posting on your diary! The forum I am used to was very one dimensional and linear. You just post in a continuous thread. When I came on here, I was like, 'wow, where do I go!'. I will start my own diary, thank you for the support. I have edited down my post so that it does not take up as much room on your page. It would not let me delete it fully. Really sorry about that. I really hope you are well and I wish you the very best in beating this addiction.

All the best and keep going. There's a better life out there.

Hi

Please don't apologise, there is no need, I was pretty confused about where to post when I first came on here!

All the best

Day 30 GF and I am counting that as a month despite there being 31 days in October!

Time for a stocktake on where a month has got me.

Felt like an incredibly long month and if I was a minor celebrity on television I am sure I would be talking about an "emotional rollercoaster". Not embarassed to say I have cried more in the last month than I have previously in the whole of my adult life and felt such incredibly strong emotions of shame and self loathing initially that completely overwhelmed any logical thinking and let my mind wander into some pretty dark places.

Feel in a much better place now. My hatred for anything to do with the gambling industry and my physical revulsion to even the names and logos of on-line casinos means I am not suffering from any urges to gamble is an outcome which I am glad to have because I appreciate many here have to fight strong urges.

The money I lost is gone forever and just have to accept gambling has won that battle but I can win the war by never giving it another penny. I am 48 and with a bit of luck I could have another 40 years in me. I lost £6000 and if I had not given up gambling completely and tried to gambled responsibily as I used to I could quite easily have lost £200 a year on days at horse races, ocassional football bets, roulette on holiday, sweepstakes at work etc. 40 years at £200 = £8000 I could have lost without even really noticing. I win, gambling industry you lose.

Relationship with wife is good at the moment but we can make it even better. Maybe this was the kick I needed to try a bit harder to be a better person. Counselling good but if it is to have any impact I will to turn words into actions which is the hard bit.

Going to keep this diary going and try and post and give encouragement to others where I can.

Good luck everyone

Day 31 GF so that is definitely a month in anyone's eyes!

Not going to gamble today because I don't want to.

I still spend quite a lot of time thinking about what I did but not with anywhere near the same amount of despair. A lot of regret and shame but none of us can change history, only the future.

Busy weekend ahead.

Keep strong everyone and if you are struggling with urges just take it one day at a time - go to bed tonight as a winner because you did not gamble.

Checking in with 32 days GF.

Busy today so no time to babble on.

I do read and check in on as many others as I can even if I can't think of anything constructive to say because I don't have the answers. The despair this gambling evil causes really upsets me even if I am managing to keep away from it myself. Good luck everyone who is struggling with their demons - just keep away for one more minute, then another minute, then another minute...

Muststop123

Thanks for the post on my diary on Friday, it was a huge help.Well done on 32 days and well done for telling your wife so early and getting things in place to help you. I look forward to reading about your future progress.

33 days GF today. Number goes up so slowly but as long as it continues to go up all is good.

Absolutely no urges or interest in gambling. It is a mugs game with no possible positive outcomes for me as I will never leave a game with any cash in my account. The one thing I have learnt about myself is I do respond to negative experiences - if something I am doing voluntarily (gambling in this case) makes me ashamed, miserable and physically sick, then stop doing it and things will get better pretty quickly. The physical blocks and lack of unmonitored access to anything other than small amounts of cash will remain (no idea how long - months or forever?) but I now consider them really as a comforter for my wife - she on the other hand considers they are there because I want them which I guess I do but not for myself as I just cannot ever see a situation where I will gamble again.

Well done on 33 days Must, it's a brill achievement! The stuff you have in place seems to be working for you - it doesn't really matter who they are there for, they're working and keeping you and your family safe. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounded like to me you are beginning to try and convince yourself that you don't need the blocks you have in place anymore, because you can't ever see yourself gambling again. From what I've read on this site, it's still early days for you (even earlier for me). I just wanted to say be careful, and keep going, you're doing really well. Sorry if you think I'm out of order, but i just sensed a bit of danger slipping into your post. Take care and thanks for your continued support.

Hi Velvet

You are 100% right, it would be really stupid to risk any temptation by becoming complacent and loosening any of the blocks so early on. The consequences of slipping up are just too awful to risk.

Thanks for the reminder. I let my mind wander off into the future too much!

Muststop123

Well if I needed any reminder of the need to keep my feet on the ground and concentrate on keeping gamble free day by day I have just had it.

Checked my bank account online to make sure the payment to take all the spare money out of my account into my wife's had gone through and stupidly scrolled down a few pages. I had kind of hidden the details from myself and whilst my wife has full access to my accounts now she never actually made me sit and go through all the individual transactions in front of her, I think she was probably being kind as I was a fairly pathetic mess initially when I confessed - we just worked out how much damage I had done and went from there. The list of transactions of £250 and £500 going out every day to various gambling sites together with a few much bigger ones coming in when I had tried desperately to withdraw winnings before ploughing it back in just to lose again makes a sickening read. What exactly was I playing at? If I did not have the evidence in front of me I am not sure I would believe I could act like that. Utterly shamed by it.

Big wake up call. Need to take this seriously. This is not the behaviour of a rational person and this was me just over a month ago. 33 days is nothing.

Have stunned myself a bit. Need to pull myself together before I even consider driving home.

Muststop123 wrote:

This is not the behaviour of a rational person and this was me just over a month ago. 33 days is nothing.

Have stunned myself a bit. Need to pull myself together before I even consider driving home.

Muststop - I've not posted for a couple of days because I'm struggling with the logic of gambling (there is none, I'm sure) and don't feel I should post until I know what I want to achieve - but I feel on the brink of doing something dumb (about to arrive in Euston, 3 stops from a casino...) and this has helped to pull me back on track. Thanks for your diary, it's helping no end.

Into day 34 GF.

Yesterday was a bit odd as I ended the day a bit emotional. Think looking at my bank statements let me look back into the dark abyss of what would/could happen if I let myself slide back into gambling and it scared me quite a lot.

This is a bit different to how bullish I have felt about not gambling recently. So time to circle the wagons and concentrate on the short term focus of not gambling today. Need to keep a balance between being positive about not wanting to gamble again whilst reminding myself that I am a CG. Think deep down I was maybe trying to convince myself that I had only gambled irresponsibly for 4 months and not had any urges since I decided to stop so was I really a CG? Dangerous territory.

Keep strong everyone and let's all end today with another gf victory.

Day 35 GF

Just happy to not want to gamble today.

I do occasionally have irrational thoughts about how come I was £1000s up at various points and how it would have been so different if I had just stopped then. Of course this is not true, after the loss of the first couple of £1000s I was never actually "up" because I had lost so much previously. Similar to the thoughts of how not gambling was not all bad I had occasionally after being GF for a week or so. Think my mind still sometimes tries to re-frame the past to ignore the incredible lows of gambling and its consequences and highlight some unachievable positive outcome of gambling like walking away with a large win which of course I know is never going to happen because however much I win it would never be enough. Need this diary to remind me of the lows and how I felt.

Think I am going through a second stage of realisation. The first was that I had a problem and needed to stop. The second is that I do actually have the mind of a complusive gambler despite only actually acting on it for a short period of time.

Think the key for me is I understand that only by totally and completely abstaining from any form of gambling, ever, is this going to work.