My recovery diary (JENILEE)

Hi Jen,

Thank you for your kind words last night. You sound in higher spirits and so good to see you tackling each day head on.
Ya know...i tricked myself into thinking that i can do "planned" gambling and control it. Yes i lost a lot and yes i won the f****r bk and stopped. Does it mean i am in control and cured from the addiction? No....cause every part of my body wants to head bk there today, cause I'm eager to loose it all. Strange when we say that eh? I want to give my hard earned cash away....crazy for sure.
So what i have learned from yesterday. That i need to follow full abstinence cause if i won't do that i will bring death on myself....cause emotional f**k up is not worth the hassle and "fun" for a few hours...cause one day the "luck" will end and it will be too late to put things right...and that's scary thought cause this gambling S***e makes me someone I'm not - danger to myself which inevitably will affect my loved ones.

Anyway...waffling on your tread lol..sorry...just putting my thoughts down of how my psychological state reacts to gambling.

You do what works for ya, don't need to tell ya how huge smile you planted on this face with your last sentence in your post 🙂

Stay safe and at peace

S x

Hi Jenilee,

Thanks for dropping in on my diary earlier today with your kind words.

I promise to catch up with your diary when I get a chance later on, hopefully...

Keep strong

Ade x

Not trying to feel sorry for myself. But feel like I'm in a rut. I'm a little bit bored. I'm very tired of winter. I miss my fiancГ© and don't know when we will see each other again though hopefully will have an answer to that soon. And I think the gambling temptation is partially just due to boredom and being tired of nothing but work and not getting what I want LOL

comments welcome.

Any suggestions on how to get out of a rut.

do have friends around but it is hard to make plans as they have their own lives which are often on a different schedule than mine. I am lucky to be able to occasionally spend time with them but it does not work out where I can spend time with them every single time that I am bored. So that is a challenge how I get bored and lonely and tired of being by myself.

as you all know I do allow myself to gamble. But I don't want to gamble every time I am bored as that would be several times per week. And I would like to stick to once a week or once every other week for gambling, so other ideas?

Well no responses. I suppose we all struggle with looking for the answers to the boredom question. That's okay I promised myself I would keep posting on here whether I get responses or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I do enjoy when I get the responses on the interaction with others. But when I don't I still need to post for myself so I can go back and read what I post and analyze my journey. And I still do lots of reading on other people's diaries and I post some there too. Today is my long long workday Thursdays I work from 5 AM till 8 PM so there Will be no time for urges today. Or boredom LOL

Hi Jenilee, soz for delay...NT has a thread on tips for keeping busy! There are a lot of great ideas on here to keep the monster @ bay!

Keep fighting - ODAAT

Hi Jenilee,

Read through your entire diary today, and like many others who have posted before me, I have to agree that trying to control a gambling problem is extremely difficult. I can only talk from my own experiences over the last seven years, but abstinence for me has given me a chance to draw breath and think with clarity about how much time and money I have wasted over the years.

Today I am celebrating 100 days without gambling. It is a far better feeling than any cash win I have ever had.

It took me a long long time to understand this addiction with gambling.....

Just a reminder......

I AM ADDICTION
I start in small subtle promising many ways things,
I promise you enjoyment and pleasure beyond your wildest dreams,
I deliver guilt and despair more horrible than your worst nightmare,
I promise you power and courage,
I give you feelings of powerlessness & hopelessness,
I will force you to live in fear always,
I promise you relief and escape from all your daily problems,
I create for you greater problems than you ever imagined,
I promise you many friends but
I allow you only isolation.
I promise happiness but
I create much sorrow.
I will steal from you your dignity,your families,your friends,your children.your homes,your demons.your spirit & your life.....For love, freedom & happiness are impossible in my presence.
So NEVER UNDERESTIMATE ME
I am devious & manipulating,
I have no preferences as to who I pick as my victim, rich or poor, young or old, black ,white, yellow or red.
I have killed men, women and children,
I have no conscience.
So if you have met me, always be aware if you think you can beat me... that I will be gone from your life and all will be well again.
NEVER FORGET that I will always be there, waiting in the dark shadows, just around the corner.
I am very patient and I will laugh in your face if I can lure you into my evil world of hell on earth again

wishing you all the best on your recovery

Ade xx

Thanks Ade ODAAT & Sandra for recent replies, first of all! So my long workday, as I said earlier Thursdays are always very long days for me, is going as smooth as can be expected and going by I wouldn't say quickly but ok. Sometimes they drag on.

Later today at my other job when I take my break have several phone calls to make dealing with setting up payments on debts & some bills. I hate doing stuff like that and today I have several to deal with on my schedule of goals for myself,. I'll just take it one at a time. especially sense I am still struggling with low motivation at times, and feeling burnt out and overwhelmed. So dealing with problems still isn't always easy for me. If you've read my prior diary posts you know I've struggled with low energy and motivation. It is getting a little better but still is not great.

I will Focus on the sunshine, being partway through my long day, my recent engagement, and the things that are good in my life. Onward and upward. 🙂

Thank you for your comment in my diary- good luck with your journey xx

Well I had my plans preset weekend gambling. Due to actions of another person my party we were at the casino longer than planned. I am proud to say that although the time limit wasn't as short as I would have liked, due to another person on my party who had control of the situation not being ready to leave, I had $100 of money in my pocket which I did not want to spend figuring I had already spent enough and I did stop spending at that point and was facilitate us getting everything together's and the other person together so we could leave the casino. I was losing and I had spent the $50 of my money I had planned to spend and I was able to know that I did not want to spend the other hundred. So proud of my choice there. Also I successfully made some non-gambling plans with friends for the next two days at least part of the days.

Hey,

Sounds like your plan worked. May i ask if your fiancГ© is doing the same? I mean controlling his gambling as you do?

Few days with some friends is great. I'm sure you will have a lot to catch up on.

Stay safe and all the best to you!

S x

I don't know Sandra. He really doesn't have much opportunity to gamble where he works. We only gamble together when he comes home. I don't know really what is approaches we haven't talked about it. He's problem is more with drinking, and he does it much less often now, but I don't know what his own internal goals are to control it. Things are getting better between us in fact we recently got engaged but we've had a lot of communication problems and we've just started really working on our communication so I suppose These things need to be talked about

Just a daily update. My friend from last night had to stand me up, because she was stuck over at work. By the time of the night that she let me know it was fairly late. I guess it could have been a time when I could have been tempted to go to the casino and gamble, but instead I asked my mom if she wanted to come with me to wash my car and go out to eat so that is what we did. Plus it probably helped that I also had plans with a different friend for tonight so I knew I would get a chance to do something tonight. These are both plans that I had forced myself to make it now I am glad I did. I think I will have fun with my friend tonight. She does not gamble by the way. We will probably go for a few beers.

Just a quick post

had a great night out with a friend tonight, no gambling nowhere near gambling. Dinner and a few drinks and laughs over old times. Felt... absolutely positively great. !

Just reminded myself, and I'd like to remind others that there is fun possible without gambling. ! Sometimes we forget that....

Just rescheduled my plans from Sunday they got postponed with a Nother friend for Thursday night. This leaves me doing something with a friend that is not about gambling twice this week. I have found, and spending some time in introspection, the more plans I make with friends per week the less I gamble. It's like keeping myself busy having fun doing other things. But I will admit, I often have to force myself to start making the plans with other people I just lose interest in things I used to love all seems like too much effort, but I found time and time again once I make plans with others and do them they're so fun and I'm so glad when I get on a roll of making more plans etc. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum this time. Hopefully this will serve as an inspiration to those who have gotten out of touch with friends and other nongambling activities.

Later on tonight urges for an unplanned gamble. Was feeling lonely and out of sorts and or missing my significant other who could not call tonight. But I resisted the urge is and didn't gamble watched a movie instead