Striving for a new normal

ODATT, thank you, I have posted on your diary but wanted to post the bulk of my reply here so it's easier for me to read for future reference.

I have a gambling addiction, I have admitted to myself I have a problem and I've also admitted to my husband and my mum, I have seen a counsellor, I've cancelled my bank card so I have no immediate access to money, by my own choice I installed blocking software on my latop but whenever a particular windows program wanted an update they clashed and I would get the blue screen of death.....so after emails with windows and betfilter I made the choice to remove the program and give up my bank card instead. I've got some self hypnosis videos for stopping gambling (and confidence building), I've looked in to attending GA but the nearest meeting to me is over an hr's drive away and I can't get there in time due to having children and the husband working.

I managed to stop for just over 12 weeks before and then I runied it, I runied it because I have no self control, because I don't believe in myself, I feel like I'm not capable of doing anything unless it's destroying me. My first childs dad destroyed my confidence so much that even now 16yrs after we split he can still reduce me to a wreck, my husband is the complete opposite....he tries continually to boost me back up, with him I can relax and be myself, with him i can laugh and be free, he has seen me at my worst and still he wants to be with me! This shocks me, why the hell would he want to be with me when I'm so awful and I show him continually how awful and weak and pathetic I am by gambling.

I do want to stop, I don't like who I am, I am scared....I don't know what I am scared of because I know that by just letting it all go it'll help make things better, it will not solve all my problems but it'll make things an awful lot easier.

Letting go of something that has been offering you salvation for goodness how long may feel impossible especially with addiction screaming so loudly that it is the only thing that can help! I know how incredibly fortunate I am to have found these sites because I was able to read so much & see that the best chance of recovery was to slam all the doors to gambling shut, people leaving one or two open invariably walk back through them sooner or later! If my recovery starts to waiver, I am heading straight to GA! I didn't even use gambling to escape so I cannot begin to imagine how difficult this must feel for you but if you take a step back & look @ you from the outside as though you are a TV program playing, you would be screaming @ you not to give in when the urges strike! You will be saying that the gambling doesn't fix anything & that you are a good person who doesn't need to keep punishing yourself! Maybe if the TV you turned round & asked you what she should do instead you could suggest a walk, or some reading or baking, anything! Anything but self destructing the way you are! Whatever you went through to make you hate yourself needs addressing! Addictions are a symptom not a cure to our faults but we're all human & we all deserve a bit of peace & to feel happy! Counselling can help, I'm sure it can, surely it's worth a shot? Your husband is with you because he knows you are still in there somewhere! Don't be afraid anymore, let Mr Gamble do all the worrying, about time he lost another loyal supporter 🙂

You can do this - ODAAT

Oops, double post, Soz...That's the beauty of the tubes for you! It's great that there's Wifi down here but it sometimes has a mind of its own ;-0

If we're watching tv and it comes up (even an advert) I do sit there saying "no don't do it, it'll ruin your life" which when the brain is thinking straight i can see all the negatives.....but when I'm not thinking straight I can't see any of those at all, but it's not as if I sit there and think to myself "but this time i might win" as an excuse to do it, that doesn't even enter into the equation until after I have lost more than I can hide and want to recoup.

I have sat down today and looked in to my nearest cbt therapist......she's based 10/15mins up the road (fantastic!!!!), there is no opening times/days on the website so no idea if it'll fit in to what suits us as a family, but she does also do skpye therapy so if needs be the husband can sit with the kids and I can do that in the bedroom or something, she charges £60 an hour and my first thought was "where the hell am I going to find the money for that!" but I can and have spent more than that in less time....so the task this evening is to sit with the husband and talk it over.

That therapy sounds very promising...I hope you can figure out a way to pay for it! I'm no psychologist but I'm sure this isn't about money for you...You are breaking inside & punishing yourself for goodness know what & you need some outside help to break this cycle!

I completely understand the thought process...When you are sat in front of the telly I'm guessing your triangle is broken? Everytime I went home broke I could see the madness in gambling but it never seemed to last once I had money in my grubby little mitts once more! I kept putting in measures: reducing my cash limit, taking the cash withdrawal facility off of my credit card (but I had so many bank accounts & was always able to justify carrying extra cards), then I moved onto self exclusion & instead of just going into machine shops (because there were none I could go in) I ended up in the bookies (which terrified me sometimes because of the clientele being drunk, bouncing round off their faces on goodness knows what, shouting & screaming) where I didn't need to be able to take cash out, I could phone bank money into my account & just hand over my card, over & over & over! You are doing what I did...You just need to kick down that last hurdle between you & the finish line & get hubby on board with not giving in anymore, downloading the blocking software if need be! I'm not going to lie & say it's easy, it's not...It will mean you really get a proper look @ yourself & you won't have anywhere to hide but I don't see any posts where people come back saying recovery sucks! People only come back here when they slip because they have lost what recovery provided!

You can do this...Your family need you to, it's no life growing up with a CG as a parent, but more importantly than that, you need it for you!

Keep the faith - ODAAT

I didn't get the chance to get on here to write yesterday as my youngest decided not to nap....it was a very long day! lol.

I spoke to dh wednesday evening about therapy and he seemed a bit miffed as to why I want it, it will have to be a conversation for another day as we had the kids about, then he had to visit his brother and drop a gift off and didn't get back till late, yesterday the youngest didn't nap so we had our hands full in the evening and then he had to go out again, so a conversation for this weekend.

I can honestly say I haven't gambled since monday night...I don't do it during the day (week day) as dh is at work and I have no access to money...Tuesday and Wednesday I kept myself busy in the evening by reading diaries on here and last night I sat and played a computer game I've been meaning to play since it came out in May this year....funny how you never seem to find the time to do it when your gambling!

I am a bit worried about getting through this weekend, normally I would have a go atleast one of those days, but I've set myself the task of sorting the kids clothes out so that should take a while to do, and then by the time the shopping/normal housework is done that'll kill a bit more time. I am looking forward to monday though...dh is away for the week so won't be here to put any on for me, i could ask him over the phone but when he phones in the evening the kids hog the phone so no time to ask then and then when he phones again later it's normally at bedtime so i'm not going to ask then as I'm settling down for sleep, I've half figured out some dvd's to watch while he's away in case I can't sleep.

Woke this morning to the news that our ISP has been hacked again! Cheers for not encrypting all of your information, as if I haven't done enough damage to the bank account I now have to watch out for that too!!!! Trying not to think about it too much as it'll only stress me and I know that's not good, will just keep an extra eye on the bank account.

Hoping everyone has a safe and gamble free day

OH is with tt for his phone, it is worrying, just don't give any info out via phone, email, etc, and keep an eye on your accounts, won't be hard for me lol, well used to doing all that when I was in the grip of Mr G, too many years of lying and avoiding, phone calls, never mind the post 0((, but at least one positive has come out of doing all that S***e, keeping double vigilant will be easy peasy .:)))

Keep strong and think positive this weekend, you will feel sooo much better on Monday, and keep that triangle broken,

Take care and take small steps with everything.

Suzanne xxx

lol Suzanne, I know exactly what you mean about the constant checking of the account....and avoiding the post...o*g there were days where I hated the d**n postmane!!!!

Well I've managed to survive the weekend, I sorted all 3 of the kids clothes in the end and mine too, found some stuff at the back of the wardrobe I haven't worn for ages which I can now fit back into after finally shifting nearly all the baby weight so now have a massive pile of washing to work through to freshen it all up. Dh is away this week and it was honestly quite a relief when he left this morning, sounds daft but knowing there is no bank card in the house feels like a massive weight has been lifted, I have cash for anything I need but as we did a big shop on the weekend it's unlikely to be used....unless I manage to run out of coffee!

I have decided to use some of the time that I used to waste in a more positive way, I've decided to make myself an exercise plan, something realistic that I can stick to, exercise is meant to be good for us so I figured it's the best thing to replace the destructive behaviour, it might kill me along the way but atleast i'll be doing something good for myself lol.

Hoping everyone has a safe and gamble free day

Last night went really well, no major urges.....I wouldn't really say there were little urges, just the occasional thought...of the stupid tune that my favourite slot plays....what a waste of a thought! I suppose it really helps that the dh isn't here to even be tempted to ask him, hmmmm would it be wrong to ask him to not come back? I was having a mooch through faceache last night and saw I post that I thought was very approporiate...."destroy the things that destroy you"....it sums it all up....destroying this horrible gambling addiction before it destroys us!

Hope everyone has a safe and gamble free day

Thanks for your lovely post,

Keep strong and stay focused you are doing fine.

Suzanne xxx

It was a very long day yesterday, I couldn't settle with anything, couldn't concentrate on anything so I took myself off to bed as soon as the kids had settled and just laid there watching tv until i finally passed out, woke this morning feeling a bit more human, it didn't help that the night before I had very little sleep due to the youngest being up lots and starting yesterday at 5am.

Double figures today, well done,

You will feel unsettled for a while, just keep pushing through, one day at a time,

Have a good strong and positive gambling free day.

Suzanne xxx

Spoke to dh thursday night and explained how worried I was about him coming home friday, I told him no matter how much I begged, pleaded and nagged, he wasn't allowed to deposit any money for me, I've told him he's got to play the bad guy and that I may not like him very much for it but it's something that has to be done. Managed to get through the weekend without asking once, but boy did I want to! It did help that I ended up with a stress migraine yesterday....well it helped in the fact that it was another night that I went to bed early lol. Not quite come to terms with the fact that I can never gamble again, but I am trying, I keep telling myself that I can't have one go as I never stop at one, I managed to get this far and I don't want to ruin it, I haven't quite managed to get over my last "pity party" and can't put myself through that again.

Thanks for your post om,:)

Well done you on getting through a tough weekend .

Stay strong, determined and focused, and just take one day at a time,

Take care and stay safe

Suzanne xxx

Well today is day 28, it's been a long time coming!!

*Warning – a bit of a ramble*

I've had many false starts over the past 6mths, I was finding I could go 4/5 days fine but then would get the biggest urge that I couldn't work past and end up back at square one, I got to the point where I didn't want to come here and say I'd failed yet again, I couldn't handle the humiliation of putting in to words that I was failing in every way possible when I and my husband knew it already......so I stayed away. In a way this was a good thing for me to do, it gave me one less place where I had to admit I have a problem (even though I know I'm not the only one here that feels like that), and one less place where I showed how little control I actually have.

What I ended up doing was sort of weaning myself off, I would tell my husband my maximum deposit limit (in £10 deposits) and once it was done then that would be it, sometimes I was satisfied with it and sometimes I was a right stroppy b***h!! I would go as long as I possibly could before having another go, over a period of time I wasn't doing £50 every night....I'd dropped to £10 every 4/5 nights...then once a week, it seemed to happen very quickly, I wasn't getting the same enjoyment from it but I couldn't let it go.

My husband would come home from work and I would just tell him honestly how I was feeling, how I was desperate to have a go but how I also didn't want to, he would pack me off to have a hot long soak in the bath or to do my hair....anything that would distract me, I would say to him that if I had a go on “x” day then I wouldn't have a go until “y” day and I was sticking to it, I wasn't begging in-between days x and y like I normally would, I'm not saying it was easy...those were the days where I got sent off to go do something, sometimes I told him I was going off to do whatever because I knew if I didn't then I would ask and I didn't want to ask as it wasn't “y” day...self control started to set in a little.

Then 8 weeks ago today I switched smoking to vaping.....this seemed to be a really big turning point for me.

Normally husband comes home from work, sometimes I would have a go while he cooked dinner, sitting in the kitchen with my laptop, smoking and drinking coffee, sometimes I cooked then spent the rest of the evening in the kitchen with the laptop smoking and drinking coffee...see the connection....drinking coffee and smoking in the kitchen........well after I switched to vaping it wasn't the same, I can't really describe how it was different but it was not the same, normally £10 would last 1 cigarette but with vaping it was still there, it hadn't finished, it wasn't going to finish until the tank was empty...but the money would still be spent in the same short time, the smells in my kitchen wasn't the same, smoking and vaping smell completely different....it wasn't quite as it used to be and this is when I dropped to once a week.

But I couldn't drop that one, oh no, not that one....if I didn't do it then I wouldn't get the so called “bonus” on a particular day and I wouldn't get the entry in to whatever the weekly “spectacular” thing was...oh and the sky might fall and the world could end!!!

Then 4 weeks ago I had my last go not knowing it was my last...I had my last “bonus” and last “spectacular” thing, when the day came for my normal go I looked at my husband and said “today is the day I normally ask for a go, well today I don't want to” and left it at that, I got through that day no problems. On the day where I would normally get a “bonus” I felt a little panicky because I wasn't going to get it due to not depositing within a certain time frame but it was ok, I got through it! And then the day where I would normally get the “spectacular” thing I was a little panicky again but I got through that too!

By this point I'd reached 14 days without depositing any money and I realised that the sky hadn't fallen and the world hadn't ended, everything was still as it should be......and I've just continued like this ever since.

So we reach today, day 28, my husband says I should feel proud of myself, and part of me wants to but the other part says I shouldn't feel proud as I shouldn't have been so stupid to have allowed it to control my life for 9yrs like it has.

How I've found the money to spend like I have is beyond me, I look at the figures and they don't add up, in theory what I would've spent should mean a nice little bit in the bank but it's just not there....although I have finally had the car serviced and 2 new tyres put on, need another 2 but there's no money this pay month for that...although I did say to the husband last night (while we were talking about this) that if I wanted the money to have a go then I would find it so why the hell can't I find it for tyres!!!!!

I'm not “cured”, I still have a long way to go but I wanted to come he re and say I'm ok, I am a compulsive gambler, I will never be cured. I still want a go but I tell my husband when I do and he either sends me off for a nice hot bath or if I'm feeling strong enough then I tell him I need to go for some time out, I know if I have a go I will want more and then I'll be back to square one again and I don't want to be there when I have worked hard to get this far.

So, if you've made it to the end of my little ramble (and managed to make sense of it) then you deserve a medal, this has taken me just over 2hrs and a few tears to write but it needed to be done.

Be kind to yourself.....you sky won't fall and the world won't end!