Re-building My Life

Hi Tomso,

I slipped over 30 times in 7 years, Tomso you are not a bad person but gambling takes over and runs the show and you lose yourself. You need to pull yourself and get as far away from abet as possible. Do the basics you know them and try to write the bad stuff down you have done when gambling.

Michael

Hey Tomso

As Michael S said - you know the basics and we all know, after a lapse and then wanting to come straight back, it really is back to basics - TIME, MONEY, LOCATION. Take control again instead of allowing gambling the honour.

I know it will be a horrible time for you right now but life still goes on no matter what. It's what you do from here that's important. So you just grab that control right back out of the hands of gambling and start again. A day without gambling is a day without losing!!

Take care Tomso. Thinking about you and praying for you.

Feb.

Tomso

Fella that post could have come at the end of my gambling life, it is without doubt the same story that many of us share.

At GA it is said that the compulsion to gamble is a progressive addiction in nature and yours is another case to prove that true.

You strike me as a winner, a natural want to win excists in you, you hate to lose.

Thing is my dear friend with gambling the odds are stacked so far against us the compulsive gambler that the chance of actually winning is always outweighed by the losing.

As feb said you need to put some primary blocks in place.

But above all else tomso in my mind you need help fella, you cannot do this alone, you have to come to terms with your losses and accept that gambling beat you.

You say you hate coming back here because of the shame, I can see why a strong charecture like yourself would feel that way, but in the time since you set out in recovery you did the most progressive work in arresting your compulsion when you were an active member of the forum, sharing that wealth of knowledge with others, a new compulsion, one were each day you a winner and helped others do the same.

So the choice is yours, keep at it and undoubtably lose all you hold dear, I stepped too close to that path myself, or if you trully want to arrest your compulsion to gamble, take all the help out there, make the change and work on living a gable free life.

It is interesting this week the forum has dedicated time to the forever recovering against the cured.

For me there is without doubt NO cure, but to recover for life from your destructive gambling will bring rewards a plenty, as long as the right choice is made each day.

Fella lastly be kind to yourself, yes you have made a massive f**k up, you are a compulsive gambler, it's your choice, you made the first step, you posted here.

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Tomso

So pleased u found the strength to post and found the courage to admit what's happened , yes its a big loss but its recoverable in time it can be sorted , as fellow compulsive gamblers it can happen to any of us as always its how we deal with it afterwards

Have to agree with Duncan we can't do it on our own and that thoughts a scary one there is no cure it can never be beaten a level of acceptance is needed a different mental approach towards gambling, that's not to say we can't live a normal life we just av to be very careful and in life there will be times we mess up that's just the way it is unfortunately for us compulsive gamblers it can end in disaster

The balance is always hard on here but staying away for a lot of us isn't the answer there's so much support and whether we like it or not we need it even when we think we don't

Stay strong

Castle2

Tomso

I suspected your absence meant you were back gambling. Many people, myself included take years of attempts before they reach their goal.

I know you are determined to beat this for yourself and your family, and glad you found your way back.

I dont subscribe to this new diary nonsense, add to your original diary, look at your posts on there and see the progress you made and the steps you took to make that progress and begin those steps again, Do what works best for you. You have had all the advice, you somehow need to be able to take it.

Some latter posts on your previous diary seemed complacent to me, you thought you had done it and there was no stopping you, you quoted that no gambling and no smoking was easy peasy and the like. now you know it isnt. Regiain the strength and direction you had before and avoid complacency.

Day 1.

Don't really know what to type. First I will start by saying thanks to those who posted on my diary and hopefully you won't be offended by me not posting back.

I suppose in a way nothing has changed other than the debt of course. I am still a terribly addicted gambler and I have debt because of this only now rather than taking a year to clear debts it make take four or five.

I am a collector of data. I collect data at work and can compare sales months, weeks, days with previous dates and times. I do this with my gambling. I have placed bets during seventy days of this year. Seventy days out of nearly 365 has caused absolute devastation and for the rest of the time I was a good boy. Jan-12, Feb-5, Mar-7, Apr-1 (Failed on the last day - almost got to one month), May-7, Jun-8, Jul-2, Aug-7, Sep-5, Oct-8, Nov-3, Dec-5. Most of these days were cosecutive runs until I stopped again i.e. a four day bender.

I have no explanation for this post I just felt I needed to post something to get me started and I am fed up posting the same old s**t.

Tomso.

I have been reading DMac's diary and in particular his last post. The triange works there is no doubt about that and I know because I have used it with great results in the past. The problem with the triangle is you first have to draw a line under what has went before. You have to accept the debt. This is where I am struggling. Accepting a very, very bad situation.

Today, I am working very hard on accepting my situation in order to allow myself to follow the triangle. I know the debt will reduce if I follow the triangle. It will be slow but it will only go one way, which is the way I want it to go. Working on my usual unrealistic calcualations if fine but will I be able to live on so little not just for a week or a month but for a good few years. I suppose I have to cowboy up and get on with it. I will never know unless I try.

It is lunch time and I am not eating. I didn't eat breakfast either. Amazing how hunger doesn't register when worry is afoot.

In my head, I know I am messed up. What is the difference between being nine hundred overdrawn in a grand facility or being three hundred overdrawn. There is no difference really it is just numbers. So why do they cause me so much concern?

At least I am back posting. Oh how I wish I came back two weeks ago.

Tomso,

Sorry to have you back under these circumstances mate. You are right - it is great that you are posting, and treading the path to recovery once more.

The early days are grim - we all know - so I apologise if the following comes across as forthright. But whatever you've done so far is not working, and my take is that you need a different approach. As I'm aware, you've not previously tried other avenues (GA / counselling / CBT therapy) but I've come to think that the true sign of strength, courage and maturity is TRULY addressing the problem - genuinely accepting your flaws and doing everything in your power to overcome them.

I agree with Captain in a sense - I think your old diary is an important part of this journey. It has followed a very similar pattern thus far; gambling episode - remorse - abstinence - clarity / happiness / fulfilment - gambling episode. It is truly fantastic that you are back here, but as I've said previously your inspirational diary entries lose their significance & power when you stumble and fall each time. So look at them - assess them - and decide how you might approach things differently now. My sense is that merely posting on the forum may not be enough for long-term resolution.

In the past, you've distanced yourself from people who'd gamble all their cash/house/savings; you've said you'd never jeopardise your family's money. But you know what - you probably never thought you'd be the guy who would do 4k in a gambling binge. We all know how slippery the slope is... Personally, like Duncs I spent years and years on the hamster wheel of ups and downs. Now, I've clocked up over 12 months...but I only managed it when I truly - COMPlETELY accepted that gambling could play no part in my life. And did everything I could to get rid of it.

Please - do the same for yourself.

Good luck pal

D123

Hey Tomso

Just wanted to add my support to you too....

Not sure what to say expect I can also relate to what you are saying .Accepting losses is hard and I think it's a human desire to try and go back in time and rewrite history..Much of my diary anger is about this.

I also can see you are a hard worker, a grafter. Sometimes it can be about retraining ourselves to reward ourselves for " good behaviour" in different ways but it's not the whole picture,

I was rewarding myself for good behaviour in the wrong ways. In the short term changing the rewards can help but in the long run it can be more about whose life am I living? ..my own ? or fulfilling a lot of other peoples expectations.?

If I reward myself it's usually because I need breathing space from doing a lot of what I don't really want to do out of duty in the bulk of my life.

Just wanted to say ..it's ok to change your mind 😉

R and D xxxx

Yo,

Hay mate , just wanted to say to my opinion you hit the nail on its head .

Firstly accept who you are , because from my experience you can not change it .

We are (I wished we were not) but we are compulsive gamblers . And nothing's gonna change that .

We did not choose to be that way , the same way as people born with a disciplinary ( philidimide comes to mind) but it is what it is.

What happens next is what counts , what happened before yesterday's sunset is out of our control. We can leArn from it . But my dear dear friend beating ourselves us atchieves dilly squat ( sorry my spelling is really bad today :-))

So please dust yourself down , move on.

Design your spread sheets , plan your way forward , in your own unique way . The ways that give you security

All any of us can do at the end of the day is battle this addiction , and the fact that we continue to battle should be commended .

So do me a favour , give yourself a break here , because you know as well as I do that negativity is food for the addiction , it rubs it's hands in glee when it believes it has us on a place when we are sooooooo worried about the debt that the only way out seems to be another bet .

Right Mr , I know that I have not overstepped the mark .

Because our friendship is stronger than that . But I refuse to accept the self pity , come on mate get real , move on and put yourself on the road to sort yourself out .

What happens then , you become stronger than the addiction!!

Shiny xxxxxxxxxx

HI Tomso,

I havent been on for a while and i havent been reading either wanted a break from the site to see how i would do.

I just wanted to offer some moral support, we all understand those feelings of self hate, that feeling of supidity of being totally out of control and like the snowball effect it just gets bigger and bigger and impossible to handle.

You must feel like you have a mountain to climb in terms of tackling the debt but i remember my first GA meeting i was told this isnt a debt problem its an emotional illness and boy were they right !.

Although my dads death was and always will be the worst thing that has ever happened to me in some ways i gained some positive action from it.

You have to above all, ACCEPT where you are, the debt, the person you are, the person gambling makes you, and i mean whole heartedly beleive it in your very soul, Until i did that i couldnt move forward.

Let it go mate, accept the position your in and who you are and look at moving forward, ever so slowly but even little baby steps are taking you in the right direction.

There is an on line GA meeting on a thursday evening it starts at 9pm, you dont even have to type anything if you dont want to. TRY it.. !!

take care mate

blondie x

Hi Tomso,

Sorry to hear about your recent nightmare, but just want to echo the others. Many wise words from people who cares. Don't give in this habit, you are who you are and you seen the brighter side before. Nothing stops you of doing so again.

Don't isolate, don't blame yourself. Live now and today. Don't look back, you have turned new sheet of your life, start this chapter with more wisdom and strentgh you got in thid journey. Believe in yourself, it will get better.

All the best and keep posting

Sandra x

Yo,

It takes a lot lately to hit my emotional side .

Thank you for your post , it hit that spot .

I feel very humbled that something I wrote , helped to stop the nightmare you were living .

And opened the door so to speak .

I am after 54 years , learning (slow process) that I matter in this world ,and that I do not need to believe that as an addict I am inferior to the rest of the human race .

Today you most defo made me feel that I mattered.

For that I thank you .

Shiny xxxxxxx

Morning Tomso.

I can relate to how you are feeling, as i was feeling the same 2 years ago.

Perhaps you are heading to your "Rock bottom"? I know I was and in a strange kind of way, I was glad. Towards the end I was hoping to lose.Sadly it took 2 months of reckless gambling for me to accomplish this.

I then knew I needed help.

Hopefully you'll stop now and not make it harder on yourself.

Wishing you well,

gazza