My Diary of Shame

Hi Kelly,

Thanks for your "hello" last week. I really hope you enjoyed the glorious weekend gamble free and are as happy as can be!

My response to your "hello" is on my thread.

Mark x

Nothing crazy from me tonight Mrs D, just put a game down whilst I still had lives left & thought I'd drop on by with a little mini fist pump! I've pretty much avoided the games since my early days of recovery (where I considered I may need the fabled Candy Crush support group) & so I've accrued all sorts of special powers & ways to get more lives. I used one such lot for more lives, another because I wasn't paying attention & then I promised myself one more go, just the once (as far as I can remember) before closing down the cover & feeling my shoulders physically relaxing. I'm washing the fist pump down with a family bag of minty Aero bubbles (minus 5 in the bottom coz they've made me feel sick) & my favourite can of full fat fizzy! Now this is what I call living the dream - ODAAT

Morning, again. Just wanted to get this down...

Today I bought a present for someone very important that both made me realise that I no longer find spending money on others easier than spending it on myself (all spending now feels a little bit naughty) & transported me right back to my childhood.

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about those days, not because I'm scared to, more because I can't be bothered. I think of them as very privileged & mostly happy even if the psychiatrists would described them otherwise. On the whole, I don't have a lot of good to say about 'Dad' & he generally gets nothing more than a reference to siring my sister & a slating for being an addict. He died a s*x offender, to my knowledge it was voyeurism, not touching @ the end (not sure whether I'm trying to explain or justify but it's irrelevant) but I know of an inappropriate incident with a family friend around my age that alcohol shouldered the blame for. I hope there weren't any more & as much as the thought disgusts me & as much as I can't excuse that type of behaviour regardless of what junk you are feeding into your system I saw him differently today.

Today, I saw an intelligent man who took on another man's child (me) & despite what I now accept must be his own psychological demons, he gave it a good old shot @ dragging me up! He disciplined me (albeit with flicks on the head & a five finger red mark once when he misheard my mum about where I was), got up early in the morning to 'coach' me when it looked like I was going to 'be something' (I lasted 2 days & about 6 laps of the Rec but his heart was in it even if mine wasn't) & knowing what I know now, put food on the table. I don't give him any of the credit "you ain't my daddy" but he's the only dad I knew & for me to walk away from that chaos & find myself a kind, loving, stupid man that makes me strong enough to want to go through the good, bad & ugly of recovery, I can now see that he deserves some acknowledgement! Fortunately he's 6 feet under so I don't need to do battle with myself as to whether to say thanks in person but I just know, somehow, that this will be an integral cog in my journey.

I'm calm, life is good & I've even put a phone call in to the Old Goat (my Nan loves her nickname) in the last few days & some words onto paper for her to crow about with the other wrinkles. Bridges not quite built with my mum yet but there's a few pebbles being dropped down & I'll take the progress - ODAAT

Hello, and just saying hello, things pretty okay with you and long may it continue, im off to start counselling today, yippeee!

Hello ODAAT

Thank you for sharing. I hope you're doing fine now. I really like your diary.

Godbless and take care.

"Today I bought a present for someone very important..."

Oh ODAAT, you really shouldn't have. Good news, I'm off work tomorrow, next day express delivery with UPS ODAAT. If I do happen to nip out then there's a safe place behind the wheelie bin.

You have been uncharacteristically quiet on the forum lately.

Always as difficult as it is important to let go of the past to allow ourselves to move forward.

Pleased to see your continued progress.

That's some difficult stuff to deal with. You have done/are doing amazingly well ODAAT.

You really are very strong.

"...when it looked like I was going to 'be something'..."

He could see it, now we all can.

God rest his soul.

Awwwh !

Thanks Kelly , it's nice to be missed xx .

Yeah ! that question was a bit deep for me as well really , I've obviously got far too much free time at the moment as my flurry of post's over the last couple of day's are testiment to ! .

It is that that whole " I've gambled for so long thing " isn't it ? , it's become an integral part of our DNA , just like getting up in the morning ( or in your case at silly hours ) :)) and the feeling of it's far easier to carry on what I've always done regardless of how much it's hurting , than to risk change ?.

Right that's enough of that " Deepness Stuff " for me , I feel another Box set coming on !! .

I hope your well and that life's improving on a daily basis for you ? .

Be happy " Special K " and I'll talk to you soon XX

OMfG (small f because I know I shouldn't but I just can't help myself)...

I've just been chewed a new one @ work & I feel like c**P!

I can only think of 2 previous incidents that have even come close & one was a bitter old hag calling me ignorant because I used to scuttle past, head down. Not ignorance you daft old boot, that's a serious lack of self confidence but I feel soooo much better now hearing that you think that much of me!

The other time was a daft miscommunication because I read my audience wrong so boo hoo me, suck it up sister & lesson learned!

This time, I went an extra mile trying to make someone's life easier & picked up the phone to them anticipating a couple of options but got something I really hadn't bargained for. It was ok, nothing coud be changed, I apologised, a lot, & got a few actions that I could do & then in the middle of kinda justifying my case, I was told to put my colleague on. Weird, I thought, but who am I to argue with a supervisor, only to discover that he'd obviously gotten sick of talking to the idiot & was giving my colleage the list of instructions I'd already promised to action :-0 I played it through to the end, there was no harm done, half of our work is subjective anyway & I know I am allowed to make mistakes (even if some people don't agree it that they are) but I did cry. I cried because it seemed like I had affected someone's homelife delaying them by a couple of hours, I cried because they had to then try & reassure me that I had never been anything but professional & I wanted to cry more because when I got to Euston & there hadn't been a train for over an hour (what a wonderful timetable for trains leaving London on a Saturday night), the platform was announced & the train doors remained firmly closed, despite the driver being in his cab! But now I'm crying because I'm mad, who on earth does he think he is speaking to me like that? Treating me like a naughty child! Not giving me the opportunity to show him that although I couldn't put right my mistakes, I could @ least shut the stable door after the horse had bolted! Ignorant **rude word**!

And that's why I love this place, re(dis)covery...I can't control what he does, only my reaction to it! I came here looking for answers & found I had them already, thank you Mrs D, Bill W, Bob Smith & all you lovely people out there standing in my army!

I'm sitting up tall, head held high, still working on my future - ODAAT

Hug coming atcha! Proud to be standing by your side! -joan

I get it. I never know what to say to people. I feel deeply for others but then become selectively mute. It sucks! You are more than words on a page. I love that you and Ed visit. A day doesn't go by that I don't think of him. Just tonight sitting with Patrice in our yard. I looked up to the sky and whispered hi Ed. A hawk soared over head. Maybe that was him. I don't know.. I'm rambling. And yes, I think sometimes just sitting next to someone even in silence is all that's needed.

I nearly came along with the support tissues last night, sorry but once those pain killers kick in I start talking a load of shot :)) ( your now thinking is he on painkillers all the time aren't you ) :(( It's never nice when as adults someone gives us the tongue lashing due to a misbehaving child , thankfull having been self employed for the last 37 yrs I just give myself a good talking too in the mirror but even that can come to blows ? .

As you said you have a hellava lot more control over what you allow to affect your life these days and at times like these that's sooo important , hopefully you feel better this morning and have gone to the special draw with the big girl pant's in :)) .

Look after yourself " Special K " and " Don't let the B'stds grind you down " xx

Ever since we've had our disagreement over mustard I've been wary in posting on your diary , but I thought what the hell.

I have a question for you and observation. If, you decide to reply I would rather have it on this diary.

Here goes, in my time on gamcare , I can't recall another diarist who's taken about re(dis)covery quite like yours! What I'm trying to articulate here is that you had I believe a 2 year stint in abstaining from gambling and then from there that's when you decided to look into and start attending the GA rooms. Unprecedented on this forum! So, despite having my own view in why you decided to go ? I'm curious in yours ?

My observation is, that you still remain ODAAT in your humour, support and well thought out posts, yet you appear a more at peace ODAAT, yet I now read between the lines a more evolved ODAAT. You've always, before GA and after GA seemed someone with an open mind, but ( possibly read wrong ) not an advocate of GA, despite never really wanting to put it down or dismiss it for others, So, what changed ?

This isn't a question or observation that I feel I need answering for my re(dis)covery but I feel your answer would be beneficial for the for and against GA. I'm sat in the middle by the way.....

I now wonder whether I made any sense ??

Shoulders high, boobs out, head up, stride on. Smile, even when you don't feel like smiling, smile. Karma is a git. I am finding that, as I fight fire with the fire with the witches of eastwick. They will need you before you need them.. I had a very insulting (no mis-understanding) email from a woman yesterday, and today, she had to grovel and ask me to cover a shift on payday for her. Like hell I will, and she knows that I can, and could come to her aide. But she should have thought of that yesterday, before she cut my nose off with her attitude...

Take care,

Julie x

Complete sense Paul, except the bit about the mustard, you do know I can't turn people to stone through cyber space right 😉

Still got 3 Emmerdale's to watch, eyebrows to tweeze, choclit to eat & many other things that people in the know call procrastination...But I'm churning the question over & over because how does one write they were too arrogant to see it without sounding like an arrogant pig? If I had to pick one word though, that would be easy...Acceptance.

I don't know when it happened & if I did write it down, chances are it wasn't on my own diary but @ some point, I realised I was broken (& I'm too tight to pay for therapy). Initially, I was adamant, that knowing what I knew about myself on the run up to reaching out, I was convinced if this place was enough for me to stop gambling after nigh on 30 years, then it was possible to do it "my way" (without GA/counselling). I guess somewhere along the line, the gentle massage of the site & the huge kicks up the derriГЁre from Dan & LB, I accepted abstaining wasn't enough!

Don't get me wrong, my life was a googol times better without the gambling misery icing my every available moment but the void that that left provided me time to be me. That meant I could no longer hide from the aggressive grizzly bear prone to hibernating that stared back @ me from the mirror.

There may have been an element of don't knock it til you've tried it but I was I was here, a lot, proclaiming "do as I say not as I do"...To my equals?!? I'm not a leader, a teacher, the all seeing eye, so who on earth am I to preach to others & what good was I doing giving false hope to people reading my rantings. I hadn't discovered any of the serenity I saw in Duncs or in Dan (Mandy Saligari a non site example) & had absolutely nothing to lose by walking through the doors.

All that is required is a desire to stop gambling & me clinging onto the lottery as something 'normal' people do was just another bit of my crazy so that was easy to let go. I am not a normal person, normal people do not list sleeping as their only hobby, neither am I master of the universe, despite my desire for the world to evolve around me but I am an addict. I was going to write that I think there may have been an element of addiction keeping my doors open, holding me back from accepting the help that I was blind to me needing but the reality is, it was my massive ego. It told me for all those years before I came here "you got this, you don't have a problem, you can stop if you want to" & I got here & with the help of people on the site, I did stop gambling but being here was like clicking the on-off button on my Surefire which was angled into my future...This is what you could have 'won' v this is what you got!

It's been flickering on & off ever since but GA gives me the hard pouch for that d**n torch...If I work my recovery, the light stays on.

Step 1 requires me to accept I was powerless over gambling (tick) AND that my life had become unmanageable (weeeell). Now you know I don't like labels but that was an all or nothing word for me & more importantly, if I admit it, I am a failure. I still had my job, my car, a roof over my head & was successfully robbing Peter (Nan) to pay Paul (every bank & credit card ever invented) when I hit my rock bottom (& I know I can't go back to check out the basement) so I wasn't as bad as Cava Charlie who'd resorted to pay day loans ("well done me" ego massage in progress). I've raised this twice: one response was plate spinning is not managing & the other was "yet". 2 equally valid points & so yes, my life HAD become unmanageable (tick) & that doesn't mean I'm a failure, it means I'm an addict & I cannot gamble anymore.

GA as a single answer to all my problems doesn't make any sense (if anyone has ever opened the big blue book you'll know it's akin to opening the Doomsday book, probably) but other people breaking it down into bite sized pieces (plus JFT/ODAAT) turns it into a structure. It's more than learning the difference between yes & no for me, I was taught that, it feels like the parental guidance I was perhaps lacking as a youngster.

So in answer to your question, like any true addict, I was in denial, resistant to change & now, not so much.

GA can't change me but with the love (still struggling but wouldn't have written that when I 1st rocked up) & support of the people in the fellowship it can give me the tools I need to change me - ODAAT

"Smart@ss " :))