NEED PEOPLE... I just need people like you to be there for me right now

A 9 wrote:

We need to learn to live alongside it at the pace it dictates instead of rushing it along expecting everything to be wondefull in a short space of time , recovery / redicsovery's what were striving for but as we know it's for life so then " why the rush " ?

Yeah I think you pretty much summed it up here Al... Once an addict always an addict I guess!

Well anyway shortly before I left for work the wife came down and I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, she was in the lounge and started chatting so I assumed she was on the phone, I had the radio on loud so turned it down slightly but carried on listening to it... She went on for about 2-3 mins. When I brought dinner in she said "So, what do you think then?"

I explained what happened and we both burst out laughing :o)

It was a welcome exchange that pretty much took the edge off life - at least for the rest of today anyway.

Was helpful in so far as snapping me out of the malaise and taking me out of my thoughts for a while. Laughter is a powerful tonic they say don't they :o)

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Thanks again Al ;o)

Hi ALN,

Just wanted to say I’m really pleased to hear how well you are doing and you have now become more in control of your thoughts and how to deal with them. This is a massive thing in your recovery and shows how much stronger you have become moving forward in your gf life. Can I ask if you still attend GA? I’ve been going and it’s always stuck in my head you recommending me to go when I first came clean. I find it so beneficial and am learning week in week out just how to be a better person. Hope you have a nice weekend and meal whatever it is lol.

Take care

OAU

Well I just found out tomorrow I have to take a client to the Watford game for work...

I'm sure God revels in making a mockery out of me, especially on Sundays which I assume is still his day off. I suppose stuff like this is his version of sitting down to watch something mindless like X-Factor on said day off. I must say touche in this instance though, his comic timing was second to none with this one.

I'm wonder if anyone will notice if I keep my eyes closed throughout... Let's just hope the cameras dont hone in on our seats or I will end up featuring on the outro of match of the day... We are two rows from the front to make matters worse... :oO

Such is life I guess... We'll see what tomorrow brings. Good Sunday to you all.

Hi S - just been reading your diary again as it is one that is always so thoughtful and well written. I know what you mean about the 'old behaviours' and I can see you have been given some excellent advice already. I just wanted to add that I think the act of reflecting and looking in on yourself is hard and seeing the truth is only the first step. Nothing stays constant, not your desires, not the urges to gamble and, crucially, not those around you either. Time is needed to adjust, and learning to act on what you see in yourself takes time too. I think you have come so far, so fast, that you need to just go easy on yourself. Remember those around you are growing and changing too. Hope that makes sense, I’m a little annoyed at myself today, to say the least, and so may be feeling a little too low!! Take care of yourself!

Hey S

Thanks for the note on my post, so happy to see how well you're doing! I'm getting by, each day is still a bit of a struggle but I'm staying focussed.

D x

Hey bud thanks for the post on my diary. Yes, it was a lovely weekend away shame I was a little ill and now back home sort of bed ridden.

Sorry to hear about recent struggles bud hope this week will be much better for you. Have a great day.

Earlier it was peeing down with rain and I was in the car in traffic. An older guy walked past pushing his bicycle with a flat tyre and loads of bags of shopping hung over the handlebars... He stopped by my car to pause for breath and looked me up and down from the street - he had an air of hopelessness in his eyes... I knew what he was thinking - "what am I doing wrong" or "why not me" or something like that.

I thought to myself... "If only you knew mate, if only you knew"...

The whole thing reaffirmed the complete pointlessness in comparing yourself to other people. You haven't a clue who you're actually comparing yourself to. Best to set your own personal parameters I think.

Also today I had a flashback to the day my wife took a day off from work and we spent the day calling banks, setting up blocks and transferring full financial control over to her. I remembered that day and thought "yes, I well and truly lost that battle didn't I"

My thought today is symbolic to the fact that I am well and truly out the game when it comes to gambling. It beat me to a pulp and I just want out... I don't want it to beat me up anymore and will just steer clear of it in order to quietly rebuild my life, simply and honestly this time.

SMan,

I enjoyed reading your post.

I believe to commit to quitting gambling you need to actually want to stop. Admitting defeat is crucial in this process. I see some on here who say that gambling has beaten them up and they usually go on to long periods of abstinence. Others, want to stop losing and that is a different thing altogether.

If only we could all admit to defeat then we could all start to recover and heal. How does this happen? It happens with time. Of course, the enemy in this equation is lack of patience.

You gave me something to think about tonight so thank you for that.

Take care.

Tomso

Yes mate for sure - so many times I relapsed after periods of abstainence but only now do I realise that all those times I was only looking for a bit of time off from gambling, I secretly thought I'll get back what I lost and more once I'd recouperated.

Now I don't want the money back, I just want to live my life peacefully. Keep the money gambling. It's yours. Just leave me be, please.

Today I asked my wife for a hot chocolate and she brought back a coffee. Rather than accept the misunderstanding like most people, instead I chose to obsess over the finer details leading up to the order, poring over every word exchanged between us so as to ensure that she fully acknowledged that it was a mistake on her part. By now I was consumed by the all-familiar victim mentality and the fact that I felt aggrieved needed justification.

She made a case that I confused myself when giving her the order - and to be fair a pretty good one at that. By now compulsive behaviour was running rife in me so I actually found myself trivialising the information I had originally given when I recounted it to her in an attempt to compound the notion that I was indeed the victim, I was the one aggrieved and that I was in fact right, she made the mistake, not me. She held her ground but I could see that she was questioning herself.

Although the exchange itself was very much amicable today, in the past they haven't been so.

Gambling aside, I want to stop affecting my wife's confidence and making her feel unsure of herself in order to service my ego and compulsive nature. It's not right and it's not fair. Today's exchange made me confront this issue head on and it's one I will be dealing with moving forward. I have a long way to go with this and there is much work to do in this area.

The compulsion to be right, or even be perceived as being right... that my thoughts and feelings have ultimate authority over others and are correct... psychological games when things don't go my way eg playing the victim... Feeling aggrieved when I have to come to terms with and accept a reality that skews my own... Warping information and events to feed my compulsion to be right... It all smacks of an addicts mentality really. I guess this shows that the need to gamble is gone but not forgotten... It manifests in other ways, it always has done without me realising. It will take a massive effort for me to change a habit of a lifetime but as I have always eluded to on here before... I want to make amends for the ways and behaviours that walked side by side with my gambling and my addict mentality... Just staying off a bet won't cut it in relation to the amount of hurt I have caused around me. She deserves better anyway, someone who is honest, humble and someone who supports her and brings out the best in her - not someone who makes her doubt herself just so they can massage their own ego and self-will, and is even willing to manipulate a situation to achieve this. I must be and will be the former moving forward.

Thank you for this insightful post ALN. If anything it's good to know I'm not alone in these thoughts and feelings... knowing this gives me hope for change - sometimes in the aftermath of such behaviour I tend to lock myself away from people for extended periods as I just feel like a lost cause, no good to anyone so to speak. I am starting to get that this behaviour is part of the addictive nature and for me at least, the beast needs to be completely exorcised in order for me to live a pure and wholesome existence. Still plenty of work to do it seems. I keep my wife and son at the forefront of my mind.

Thanks as always ALN

SMan,

Very good post. I thought it was just me. I am the worst ever for playing the victim with my wife. I could go on with hundreds of examples of this but I won’t. I realise that this behaviour is terribly unhealthy and affects me far longer than my wife. Usually I can go in a huff for hours after the incident and it only annoys me more when I feel terribly wronged only to find out she has long since forgot about the whole incident.

I wish I could change this awful character defect.

Tomso

Tomso wrote:

I wish I could change this awful character defect.

Tomso

Hopefully we can mate. Hopefully we can. Staying off the bet is the first step to freeing those shackles of being governed by our behaviour and urges... That's all I know for now, but I know that for sure.

I also know that the behaviour described defo feeds into my isolation and self-loathing in the aftermath so I need to arrest the problem at source so it stops harming me, and others in my presence. Isolation and self-loathing are part of the scene that gets set out before any problem gambler starts their work. I've worked so hard to tear that set down in the last 6 months so going to unreservedly try to keep it that way.

Hope you're good and keeping up with the fitness ;o)

One thing I have become aware of
about myself (or maybe was aware of all along but never cared) is that I really dont worry about things that people around me tend to worry about.

What I mean is it that dawned on me today (at work actually) that a lot of my colleagues will be cautious and and careful in the workplace - they are worried about consequences and outcomes and tread carefully as they perform their tasks. I noticed someone spoon-feeding me information today, when I questioned them about this they told me that I am very 'laissez-faire' when it comes to risk management and consequences, hence the need to spoon-feed me when we work together (to protect themselves)

I guess over the years I have lived on the fringes as a result of my risk-taking - pushing my boundaries time and time again until finally the dam burst. Maybe I have a heightened awareness of what actually constitutes a bona-fide risk with consequences so will only employ risk management at a point way beyond the average person.

I have also noticed myself doing this in other areas too... Eg my driving habits and also my son for instance (my wife will say - we better take him to the doctor tomorrow - I say; ah it will probably clear up soon, give it a few more days then we'll take him)

Due to my history of risk-taking and consequently living on the edge - does it actually mean that through experience I have acquired a heightened understanding of what constitutes genuine risk and have therefore transcended societal conditioning associated with fear, liability and catastrophising... Or in fact is it really time I grew up now.

Any thoughts related to this would be much appreciated.

Another thing I wanted to mention was that while I was in a swimming pool today I was dwelling on the above and suddenly said to myself "there you go thinking about your recovery again, you're consumed by it man! What the hell did you think about before all this? Or moreover, what 'could' you be thinking about instead within these moments that is more constructive?"

Anyway I concluded that before all this essentially all I thought about in dead time was either the next bet or 'something that needed doing next' but not in a constructive way but more of a compulsive way... Approaching things with an addicts mentality.

It dawned on me that yeah, all I ever think about in dead time is myself and my recovery... But so what? Its about time I took care of myself, and this journey has endowed me with increased self-awareness, humility and a level of honesty I never had before.

Have I wasted loads of thinking time since my recovery? No... Thinking about recovery is all part of the process for me and as Matthew McConaghey says in that great YouTube video of his - eventually you realise that attention to the approach is the endgame, the thing to aspire to, and that is ongoing and never-ending. That's the thing that brings you the rewards, not the prize at the end.

I would have never got to this point had I not gone through what I've gone through. Thinking is all part of that process for me at this point. I am improving and getting stronger every day and that's all that matters right now, by any means necessary. Gambling fades further and further away into the distance.

Could I / should I be thinking about other things during these periods? Well again, I have concluded no because I've tried maximising my thinking time in the past to make it completely 'task-focused', but like the gambling I just can't help myself, I become obsessed with things and this obsessive thinking evolves into me approaching tasks in an unhealthy manner.

Maybe I should just clear my mind during these times and think about nothing. But then I worry as a result I will sacrifice eureka moments and increased self-awareness. It may be healthier though and less pressure.

If I think about recovery in dead time for the rest of my life I'll take that you know... I'd rather be mindful of where I'm going at all times rather than leave myself vulnerable to being completely thoughtless as I have so often been in the past when not taking care of myself... If this is what it takes to stay off a bet for the foreseeable then I'll take it.

It’s a famous AA one boys...Few minutes of your time that may help you with the concept of those character defects you mention...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b3odwo4T5oI