"TALES FROM THE OTHER SIDE"

A very happy 2010 to you and Jim

love

W xx

hi jac.

we spoke earlier and i said i'd read your diary.2 hours later...here i am.i've just raised the bar for my goals.2 hrs ago my ambition was to be on this site free of gambling in 12 months.now i want to be the same but also helping others.you are total inspiration.i sincerely hope we speak soon.

jimmy

Hi Jac

Thanks for post. I have read through a lot of your diary although not all of it.It looks to me as though although we can never say we have this addiction beat you are certainly in cotrol of it.Your help and advice is well appreciated on this forum i can see.Clever pun by the way Ex-cellent lol A ll the best Jeff.

Thanks again for your good wishes Jac, much appreciated.

Hope all is well with you & family and offer my heartiest best wishes for Good health & happiness for 2010 and beyond.

If anyone ever needed inspiration then they only need read your diary. Each day may bring it's own challenges but met and dealt with head on as you have shown can be overcome.

Lang may your lum reek as they say up here hehehe.

You help so many on here Jackie which is really very kind of you. Thank you for thinking about me, I appreciate it.

Jas x

Hi Jac

Thanks for such a thoughtful post, you made me smile because you got it so right, again!!

I am heartily sick of being sick and shoveling down a cocktail of anti inflammatory and pain meds plus various other prescribed drugs. So far have reisited the doc's offer of ant depressants. I am not depressed but apearently their effect can asist my condition. I had them before and the help doesn't compensate for the wololy feeling which is a side effect.

I am pretty okay just now, the mind isn't fighting life this week, although the morons at work could do with a reality check when it comes to lvivng with a disability LOL.

I c an't thank you enough for all your support of the last few years, you and Jim truly inspire me as much now as in the early days.

Stay warm ans take care

love to both

W xx

Thanks for your post Jac,

It was lovely. It scares me to think about monkeying about with my meds as Im already on quite a high dose, but you are right that I must tell my doctor about this episode.

Anyway, thats all for now...

Take care,

f x

Hi Jackie,

Thanks for the post on my diary. You really made me laugh about the toilet roll...I didn't dare mention that too (I have a stock of those too)...imagine our homes joined together...with our joint store cupboards we could live through world war 3!

I love your postings. They help me so much, they really do.

Jas x

Hi Jac,

Apology accepted. Time to move on.

DT.

Hi Jac. Thanks for your new year message, much appreciated.

Thank you for all your help and support for last year and all the good advice you and Jim have given me.

Some people will never get the message sadly, and dont want to stop for whatever reason. Unfortunately , even when they are desperate they will still find the reason and money to carry on having a flutter making all the usual excuses on they way, full of their own self pity.

GA has given your family and mine hope and diection but its not for everyone and those that dont want it will struggle and carry on to do so rather than face uo to their illness.

I for one am grateful to you, and i know many others are too so please keep posting and helpnig those who genuinely want to stay gamble free.

Love Keith

Thanks for your post on my diary Jac. I hope you are right and her plans fall through. I wish her all the happiness in the world ,but with someone in England lol. Jeff.

Good morning,

Thank you for your kind posts, very much appreciated.

Well despite the personal slagging off I received on Friday I'm still standing!

Its all experience... What doesn't kill you, definitely makes you stronger in the long run.

It would be stupid & not realistic to not accept that over time, I will sometimes feel the rage... especially from those whose toes I have stepped on, such is the path I choose to tread here.

What I wont be told is that I have no right to be here... just because I may say things that you don't want to hear or agree with. Or that I don't understand or feel the pain that this addiction can & does cause.

So with all that taken into account... I was obviously going through the 'expected' feelings & emotions that go with being personally slagged off, on that particular morning. What I didn't expect was the extraordinary emotions & the effects that came flooding to the forefront of my mind, brought up in me from another section of this persons post.

(They are a couple and are, according to their last post, struggling with their emotions & feel so 'stir crazy' because they are staying with In-laws, who have kindly taken them into their home. They are extremely frustrated having been there for several months. The position that they find themselves in, I understand is a direct result from gambling)

The feelings that I first experienced when reading were of sadness at their obvious struggle at the moment... I can feel the hurt, the anguish, the feeling of being trapped.

Then I suddenly found myself remembering similar feelings that were coming flooding back to me... From 21 years ago!!! They were sooo strong.

I know those kind of feelings that the poster talks of.... I know them because I and my family lived them. I do understand some of what they are going through, because of the gambling.

My emotions changed to those of anger... all I saw then from the post then was self pity. I thought, You are in this position because of your gambling but state that you will enjoy more gambling in the future! Does not make the slightest morsel of sense to me? Why would anyone hurting so much even consider including & repeating a major factor that has caused them to hurt in the first place?.... Such is this addiction, its called denial. This addiction IS complex. It is a mental illness after all, thats why it can be so hard to get to grips with it, by ourselves.

The difference for me In my 'story' was that I didn't have the luxury of sharing parents accommodation, no matter how small & inconvenient the room/space offered. It was far worse.

I found myself re-living the past. To the days when we had lost our flat in those gambling days. We found ourselves in b&b. One small room which was 'home'. (We had no cooking facilities, although I sneaked in an illegal kettle to use when the owner wasn't about!) One small room that had to cater for Jim, my toddling daughter, all our belongings and a carrycot(no room for cots etc)... because I was only 3 weeks away from giving birth of my second daughter! Anyone who has children will understand the gravity of the situation. Both physically and mentally.

We had to vacate by 10am each morning(rules of the establishment) Jim went off to work daily. I had to manage the best I could, not easy

each & every day for nearly a year with such young children. Packing up what I needed for the children's day. Seeking out friends, playgroups, libraries anything that would keep us off the street during the day dodging all kinds of weather until 5pm... when I could be allowed access to our room, our home. It nearly killed me.

I guess I was so busy living & surviving that I never had the time to actually deal with those times of my life at the time(Until now!lol)

I didn't have the luxury to assess it & bleat on about it as I was more concerned about my children's health & welfare and doing everything in my power to move on from such a situation and getting my family into good safe accommodation.

**The reason that I am bothering to write all of this is not for sympathy but to highlight that gambling can always take you lower... IF YOU LET IT.

What you may think of as your rock bottom is mearly a ledge. Appreciate what you have.

Anyway to say the least it has been an extraordinary weekend for me working my way through those 'forgotten' memories. It has been hard for many reasons.

Thank goodness those days are long gone. Life is so different in so many ways for me and mine now.... Now that the gambling addiction has been understood, respected and put where it belongs.

I hope that you can all put your own gambling demons to bed. I am wise enough & educated enough on the subject now days, to see the patterns of successful recoveries and there ARE definitely winning formula's out there, writing there diaries & comments, right now on this forum.

They do tend to do less bleating than some because they are busy living, learning from their mistakes and doing EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER to stop themselves repeating their OWN HISTORY. Repeating a previous behaviour or thought that will take them back to the same place that caused them harm, stress, loss of Money, Time, Jobs, Partners, Family and Self respect/Esteem, sanity etc.

It takes time, things don't get better overnight but they definitely will if you have the desire to rid yourselves of what has damaged you in the past and work on ourselves.

Recovery Doesn't happen on its own.

(or if people just ignore the addiction)

Wont happen while people keep the dream alive. (In any shape or form)

Honesty with yourself is paramount.

Seek out professional help if you want(plenty out there, in various forms) especially if trying to get to grips with this addiction but finding it all impossible.

There really is a light at the end of the tunnel... once you 'see' it, it becomes so much easier to follow though to a better life for you & yours.

Thank you to those who have read my waffles this far. I have purposely not mentioned the name of the poster in my thread because these words above are my thoughts that I needed to write down, in order to help me with my own recovery. This is definitely not meant as an attack on you thats why I have kept you anon.

I wish you as always, to be well and have all the success in the world with your own recovery. I hope that your unhappiness is not repeated now or in the future when you too may have children.

Be happy, life's way too short 😉

Jackie

Please don't change Jackie, I like you just the way you are.

Before I came to my senses and was gambling like crazy I was a vile person. I was arrogant, I wouldn't listen and at times I would behave like a petulant child. You are so right, this is a complex illness and when you think you have reached your rock bottom, although it seems bad, could actually get worse.

You have been through the mill and I really thank you for sharing such personal information. I really appreciate it as I am open to seeing it from the other side, in my case, my husband and my children. I was s******g their lives up. Not just financially but emotionally, which, in a way, was worse.

If I post anything now which needs addressing or challenging then I take it on board. I will do anything to change. The touchy feely approach doesn't always work.

As I have said...please don't change. After all, if you didn't care then you wouldn't have bothered posting...would have been so much easier to say nothing..but where does that get any of us...nowhere, that's where.

Jas x

Hi Jac

I am happy to read your long and very interesting post.

I have been reading and got the gist of the postings and followed the events unfolding.

Thats the reason I am relieved to read your experiences caused by Jim's gambling back in the day.

I must say I read the same post initially with sympathy which also turned to anger.

My hubby and I moved back in to care for my mother and lived in the same situation as the anon poster about 18 years ago. In this case not due to gambling but because she needed full time care and y wonderful hubby agreed, no even suggested we sell our home, in negative equity at that tiem I must say, in order to move in and provide what was needed.

Privacy was gone and we lived in a goldfish bowl for over a year.

We finally got better care providers and some financial support to pay for it so got our own place again but lived maily with my mother.

We did this not because of gambling/self inflicted financial c**P but because of love.

To read the self pitying bleat made me fume.

As jas said don't ever change my girl.

So many here could and should benefit from your experience, I know I have 🙂

Sorry for rambling on your diary.

Take keeping the meds along with me lol

Love

W xxx

Great post Jac. I feel the same really. No one is going tell me im not welcome on here or im not supportive just because they are full of self pity and havent the desire to stop gambling.

I do understand when in the grip of this illness how things can seem out of prospective and things can be said that are regretted later but there far too many people who want sme kind of magic cure and are not willing to put the work in.

Thanks for being around x