Lost the plot...so back.

Hi @milkman ,

Please don't forget you're always welcome to call the helpline 0808 802 0133 or the netline if you need to talk to an adviser.

We are here 8am - midnight, seven days a week.

In the meantime, please keep posting and sharing your journey.

All the best

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Great to hear from you milkman.

it’s massively  positive  to see you are still watching over us and taking responsibility in your life with real conviction

i feel your pain when thinking about those bad moments. It’s so easy to move on hide away and forget about the problems during battle of this awful addiction short or long term.

it seems to me you are moving in the right directions and I definitely admire you in your journey  to continue becoming gamble free.

i need to personally keep more of a focus on it and even if it is to be silent  however reading daily posts on this site is more than I have done productively in the last year on conquering this addiction. It’s time to start acknowledging  again.

I do not  gamble daily like I once did however I need to work out how to get over longer periods of time  and stop going back to old ground every once in a while which is my new aim for 2019.

Keep up the good work keep inspiring us ?

I reread the first 20-odd pages of this diary tonight. My diary (I post under 'milkman', but the diary's name is 'M1LKMAN - simply because I lost the password).

Lots of old names that I shared the journey with - Pellekanin, Pat, NIBoy, Blondie, NT...and others.

I wonder where they are now. Reading the diary was painful in one sense, especially the relapse around May 2013. It is all there and you can see it coming. Winning Post remarked on it before it happened.

It was also a delight, in some ways; I wrote about the time around my second child's birth, and rereading it I'd forgotten about all the delays and things.

In many ways, I'm not the same person as *that* person. I've become more wary and controlled, perhaps less spontaneous (I'm 50 now). I have the burden of responsibility on me, 4 kids. I've also managed, with some small success, to limit my gambling and not be overcome by it. Avoiding situations where I can lose a lot of money.

On the other hand, *that* person is still alive and well. I have had maybe 4 blowouts in the last 5 years. They were nowhere near the scale of previous ones, all losses under the 500 mark. They all came at off-my-guard moments - for example, a solo trip on an over night ferry (which had a casino); a 2 hour hour delay at a railway station - jackpot bandits within sight; and so on. The red mist descended when I lost - as always, I was a few pounds up at the beginning, but unable to stop, as I'd promised myself -  but I was able to stop myself before I did any real damage (although, I assure you, I am not rich and all these losses hurt significantly).

So, to now. Still trying to say no, the urges never totally go away, but my current life and commitments make it almost impossible to intentionally set time aside to gamble. I am basically satisfied with where I am. It is certainly not perfect, and I wish it were better, that the urges would go away. But, practically, in the last 5 years in total I have spent only a fraction of the money in any previous single year for the last 30 years, and that must be some kind of improvement.

I hope I read those words back 10 years from now and add further successes.

I had a blowout.

Years of being OK, then 2 nights of secret online gambling. Lost a lot. Can probably just manage it but created a big problem for myself that will take months to solve.

Writing this just a few minutes after stopping and still in a daze.

Finally a few green shoots of financial stability and  I couldn't stop myself. Lost a few hundred the first night and then chased it the second with more. 

My self-employed earnings are volatile during this COVID period and I've really damaged my family's finances.

I have juggled credit card interest-free payments to cover the immediate hole but the full horror will take quite a bit of sorting out.

No obvious trigger this time...i just lost self-control. Can't blame alcohol or raffles, lottery etc. There was nothing this time.

I will start posting again.

Hi milkman. Well done for coming back takes courage to admit what's happened. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason things just happen and what's more important is what happens next. Have you blocked your way of gambling now?

Hello,

I never stopped hovering over the diaries and reading them, although I seldom post. At the moment, however, I'm writing on my old friend 'Pellekanin's' diary, so I thought I ought to update mine.

I winced a bit rereading my entry from 26th sept 2020 (above). I recovered from the blowout and haven't gambled significantly since. I have been sorely tempted a few times, and played online for free (no stakes), which helps nothing I know and is a seriously stupid thing to do. Still, I didn't succumb. Long periods of abstinence definitely help you get better control in general, and I just couldn't bear to make a deposit after all the misery and loss of the last 35 years (and more counting the childhood arcades).

Although I wouldn't describe my finances as healthy they are definitely stable and, dare I say it, improving all the time. I've gambled so much over the years that it has taken some taken to really appreciate money again; I always gambled until there was nothing left in the bank or my pocket, and then until my cards were maxed out. Then it was beg or borrow time. I was on a knife's edge many times. Through improvisation and good friends - and hard work, both mental and physical - I manged to get back from the brink each time. One time I would not have - I was so far in debt, thousands and thousands -  but I had a stroke of luck from a one-off gift from a relative, unasked for, which made me wonder at the time if I had some kind of magic power. 

There's been one or two bizarre positive things that have come out of the addiction. I am a whizz at spotting a bargain; I can budget to a penny; and I hope it has made me a less judgemental person in general, I certainly seem to attract people who need a sympathetic ear.

This is mainly a good news post. Although I don't count the days anymore, I would say I've had maybe 4 significant gambles in the last 8 years, and maybe a few quid in a quiz machine now and then. But I know that the addiction is still inside me, and I can never rest easy. Of course, the problem is that there is no other feeling like it, to those who suffer from it. We can never be like those who can flutter a tenner and then leave it. We just can't do it. The highs and the lows, and especially if we manage to claw back a lost, are like no other feeling we experience. We have to learn to live with the loss of this feeling because we will never be satisfied, no matter what the win. Better to live life instead.

4 gambles in 8 years is pretty good going. I remember going gamble-free for over 400 days at one point before I stopped counting, and I thought I was cured. I didn't think about gambling at all at that stage to be honest but then BAM I was back at it. It's frightening how it can strike at any time. There were probably triggers but I forget them now, but we basically have a set of buttons inside us which, when pushed, can wreak gambling havoc. I basically go into a self-destruct mode and stop caring about everyone and everything. It's only in the cold light of day when you realise what a bloody fool you've been. Keep up your gamble-free life. You are one of the very few people in my life that I've talked to about gambling addiction. Thanks for being supportive. It helps.