If you like to take risks in your life on a daily basis you would have pretty much in your mind the question: WHY NOT. Last time when I relapsed (40 days ago) I came to the conclusion that all the time when I am tired (maybe when I am tired I don’t take the right decisions and my mind it is a bit blurred) and I am not planning my time I will find myself gambling. Since 4th of July (when I had a hard one being very very down) till today I took care that I will have my day planned and I will be rested enough. Today I was tired and had a gap on my schedule of 8-9 hours. You all know what happened. But the main reason why I went to gamble was that I a thought came to my mind that I would recover the money spent last week while on holiday (not much; not much when you forget the meaning of money - I am still in process when I rediscover that money can help you sometimes to be out of trouble/s). And I said to myself: WHY NOT? And I gambled again. And I did recovered them. And I cashed in the money and left the gambling shop. WHAT IS NEXT? How do I stop these awful thoughts that are coming and coming to my mind? How do I stop these cravings?
I said to myself that this is just a relapse and I will go home, rest, and then plan my things again and that I will have to remember myself all over again that no matter what in the end you will loose.
What do I do wrong?
I’d ask how you are trying to stop your gambling? Are you going to GA or talking to anyone regularly who understands or are you just trying to go cold turkey?
If you accept that the illness is a lifetime one, at some point you will get the urge. Yours is when you are tired based on your post. It could be that you are an addict as well and you haven’t changed your behaviour. By that I mean how you react with situations that you use as an excuse to gamble.
I go to GA and apart from the unity of the group, I learn different tools to help me get through situations and I now react differently.
At the start I talked about accepting this as a lifetime illness, but it’s only looked at one day at a time. Just don’t gamble today, worry about tomorrow then. Easier said than done, break it into half days or hours. The urge will pass.
Chris.
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