My diary 14hrs gamble free

Day 18,

It's been a very long few days at work but have managed to do alot of reflecting. I was thinking back to 2009 when I hit a major gambling crisis and decided to go to rehab. It was a 12 week course that was run by someone who was a recovering alcoholic/counsellor. The course was based around the 12 steps of the aa programme. Looking back It's become crystal clear to me where I've gone wrong. I've found the old me who's run on self will who's been self-centred and an ego maniac. Ive realised the whole 12 step programme is designed for the ego maniac who's got a very low opinion of self to the point that the ego has to step in as a form of protection. Every step in the programme is designed to take me down a peg or two so the false pride and ego can be crushed and that healthy pride, humility, self respect, integrity and a loving relationship can develop with my self. I had some great recovery during rehab and after when I continued to go to meetings and apply the programme daily to my life. After a few years my thinking decided I was cured and the daily medication I needed as a sick person would take I gave up. I stopped mixing with recovering addicts and associated with active addicts, I stopped going to meetings and I soon found the old me with the same old behaviours and consequences. The sick person that needs medication for my recovery everyday because the medication I've had in the past will not keep me well today.

I'm looking forward to my day off today and getting on some zoom meetings.

Overall I'm feeling very good and have some healthy pride and integrity developing again thanks to the work I'm putting into the programme to ground me daily. 

I'll be back!

Over 6 weeks now....

I haven't posted on here for a while however I've been very busy doing lot's of work on myself. 

I've come to realise that my recovery is less about the number of days and more about the quality of my recovery. I've had many spells where I've not gambled for many weeks however I've still been anxious, irritable, defensive, moody, angry, fearful and resentful. 

This time I'm taking a good look at who I am with all of my vulnerabilities. I'm someone who carries emotional pain from the past, I have an inner child that's hurt and is emotionally traumatised. My sense of self was damaged in childhood and has been repeatedly damaged by addiction in adulthood.

I've known for a long long time that I've not been emotionally well and that my addiction is only a very small part of the problem. 

Over the last few weeks I started doing two online diploma courses on borderline personality disorder and inner child counselling. It was as though it was made for me. Every thing it describes has been me. It's made me fully aware how I've developed and also how I can change. I've faced some difficult past events and managed to re-frame them, which has resulted in more beneficial beliefs i can apply about myself. The negative statements towards myself, black and white thinking, mind reading, projection, negative statements towards myself have all ceased. Through mindfulness I'm using every opportunity I can to break down the reinforced negative neural pathways I have built and am building a new construct about myself. 

I feel like a totally different person. I have also now been smoke free for 15 days and don't even crave it. I think the reason I've found it so easy to stop is because I'm being able to regulate my feelings emotions. 

I'll be back! 

I'm back again.....

I've been continuing to put in a massive amount of work/investment into my recovery.

I've really discovered the true extent of my problems over the last 9 weeks. In the past I've seen the gambling as the problem, when infact it's been far from the actual problem. 

I happened to come across inner child healing by John Bradshaw and watched a few of his videos on YouTube. I could not believe that what he was saying was so fitting to my past. Everything made perfect sense as to why I developed to become the person I had, and more importantly how to heal.

Over the last few weeks I've watched all of his series, "homecoming" and read other books from other people John spoke highly of in the field of inner child healing. 

I've just finished doing a diploma on inner child therapy online. 

It's crystal clear that in order to get the approval, affection, affirmations and attention from my parents in my childhood I had to abandon my true self. I also had rejection/abandonment issues from my biological father leaving the family home when I was 5yrs old. My stepfather who replaced him is entrenched in shame, fear and anxiety which caused him to be highly critical, controlling and living as if he was perfect. I had to be a certain way to recieve love (conditional), not show true feelings or emotions without feeling shamed. 

All of this caused me to abandon my authentic shamed, no good self and live life through many masks and scripts to hide the shame that I felt inside. The fear/anxiety I lived with was the fear of being exposed as the shamed person (the painful shame i felt in childhood). 

Over the last few weeks I've been reconnecting with the hurt inner child and feeling and releasing the pain of the past. I've put the shame firmly back with who it belongs with, released repressed anger and tears. 

I've been regularly rebuilding the loving, caring relationship with the inner child part of me that I long since abandoned as no good. 

I can see that the emptiness (hole in the soul) was what the compulsive behaviours were filling inside of me. 

I became fractured when I became shame bound. 

I'm now coming up to 10 weeks gamble free and over 5 weeks cigarette free.

I can't explain what I feel as it's nothing I've ever experienced before.

Much love to everyone.