My recovery diary - honesty throughout

Hi suzanne

Thanks for your message, feels great to be at 11 days. Feeling strong but always wary of any potential stimulus that could lead to a relapse

Well into day 12 now and still feeling strong, looking forward to the 2 week marker

Keep going Jim, early days but it will get better the longer you stay away. Any urges come up just remember how long these 12 days have felt and you do not want to be at day one again trust me.

Hey Jim, how's it going? 2 weeks free of gambling I hope, feels good right?

Hi Guys

Sorry I haven't posted for a while its been a really busy few days. well anyway the title of my diary is 'honesty throughout' and thats exactly what I'm going to do. So basically made it to the 2 week mark yesterday without even a thought of gambling, fast forward to today and I received an email from a casino that i didn't recognise with my usual account name in the email. So basically i went onto the website and logged on with my usual username and password and to my surprise I had made an account with them and I had 20 in there, so this is where i came to a cross roads. The logical part of me was saying withdraw the money but instead I decided to play it as I didn't want to go through the whole verification document process (probably an excuse and in reality i just wanted to gamble) so basically that 20 quid last all of 3 minutes, ended up depositing another 30, then another 50. Got completely carried away and ended up with 100 invested, luckily I managed to get it back and have now decide to withdraw it all so nothing lost and nothing gained but being honest Im disappointed with myself and Im now back to day 1. Going to take a positive from it that I withdrew the money as a few weeks ago I would never have done that and would have kept playing until I going to learn from this experience and I won't make the same mistake again. I have self excluded from that casino and I will get back into writing in my diary in detail. How everybody else is getting on alright?

Apologies for the poor grammar, Im writing this as Im walking on my phone

Hello again

today is my day 1 as i didn't have time to write on here yesterday, I want to make an effort and express how Im feeling on here in detail. Well I have to be honest and say that Im angry at myself for my slip up as Im not back to square 1, I got complacent and began to think that i and got over my addiction in 2 weeks which is extremely naive. Going to take this as a learning point and move on, hope everybody is okay and Im amazed at how many people are writing in their own diaries on here, its great to see.

Morning everyone

Day 2 and currently experiencing mixed emotions, Im happy I'm back on track but still disappointed with myself for slipping up, also that slip up has given me great urges to gamble this past few days and Im struggling as In my head as I keep thinking "one big win and my problems are solved" but logically I know that even if that does happen the next 100 times won't be as good and will involve losing a lot more money. So need to get back into the swing of things and my experience this weekend has lead me to say to anybody reading this who is having the urge to gamble, don't ruin your progress it truly is not worth it.

Its nearly 11 in the evening and Im sitting here struggling to fight the urge to search for a few new casinos and deposit some money, its crazy because last 2 weeks and I didn't even come close to this. Think it must be because I slipped up on the weekend and got to play slots and experience the thrill again, maybe its me as a person as i often find myself going through life trying too find the next adrenaline rush and theres not much close to hitting a huge win on a slot from a small stake. Anyway no real meaning behind this post just a sort of thoughts aloud post in order for me to not gamble.

Apologies guys going on another rant but just sitting here really disappointed in myself reflecting on the past year of gambling, Ive only legally been allowed to gamble for a year and Ive thrown away at least 5 grand. Ive had to seriously reconsider my character this past few days as I went along thinking I was a really hard headed stubborn individual who would be resistant to the lure of gambling, then again maybe its my stubbornness and will to keep depositing and clicking in order to beat the casinos which is my downfall. Safe to say its been a difficult couple of days, and something Ive noticed on quite a few of the diaries on here, all of a sudden you hit a point where the honeymoon period of not gambling is over and the realisation of how much money and more importantly time you have wasted. Well life is a constant learning curve and if we are not constantly learning and evolving throughout our lives then what are we really doing here? Well apologies for the rant guys but I needed to get it off my chest, wish everyone all the best in their journey.

Afternoon

Well feeling a bit more positive today, had a difficult past few days for whatever reason but lack of sleep worrying about gambling certainly hasn't helped. Anyway Ive made a big step forward today and installed k9 software which i have been testing out by searching for all my usual gambling site to pleasantly find they are all blocked. Not sure why I didn't install it before, maybe its because I truly wasn't ready to give up gambling, can't see anyway that I would be able to gamble now as I hate going into the bookies anymore as every single time you are able to visually see a person in there who's life has been ruined by gambling and its show in their person, well one big positive step forward today and going to spend the next half hour reading and commenting on peoples diaries.

Jim

Fella it has been said many times that to recover from addiction you have to give that recovery away,

Seeing you gift other threads is for me a great way to do just that.

I hope it rewarded you as much as it will the folks you took the time to write to.

For it I salute you fella.

Gift yourself a better life

Abstain and maintain

Duncs stepping forward never back

Cheers Dunc

you're right somehow helping others aids in my own recovery, thats why this community on here is so valuable to us. Its hard when like today my laptop is going up the creek and without gambling I could have bought a new one 2 or 3 times over and now you sit here wondering how you're going to finance it, well in life you have to take responsibility for your own actions no one made me gamble and for the mistakes with gambling in my past I have to deal with them today.

Cant believe it, Ive done it again. Gone and thrown away another 200 quid, I just haven't been able to shake the feeling of the amount of money I've lost and amazingly I turned to gambling to change my fortunes. I give all these amazing people advice on here but can't take it myself, i was easily able to get past k9 as I knew the password. I know have about 900 quid for university that have to keep hold of. Im chaining my k9 password as we speak to a bunch of random letter that I can never know. Im sorry that I let myself and you guys down.

Hi hope

Don't be too hard on yourself you are in recovery so keep going stay strong because we cannot win because we cannot stop

Every blip makes us wiser and stronger to fight this addiction if we really want to stop

Well done on not giving up giving up

Suzanne x