The fog is lifting!

Hi Rach

Sounds like you're doing great so far. Paydays bring all sorts of challenges & its sometimes hard to keep focused. I find things so easier (urges wise) when ive no money but ultimately the aim of abstaining is to HAVE money so its catch 22.

Feeling 'bluuurrrrggghh' today. I agree completely with sonic boom it was easier when I was skint. I'm still skint, but have around £250 that I need to pay debts with, the problem is, my debts minimum payments total to 3 times that so I have that nasty little devil whispering in my ear that I could try to treble my money. I have to keep telling myself that I can't win because I can't stop. But it's hard today, I'm not gonna lie. I'm going to take myself off to bed now I think with a glass of something strong.

Rach I've just come home from work and am happy to see you've got through today without a slip. Last year when I was on a good run of days without a bet I can now look back and see why I slipped up again. Life was empty, I felt good because I wasnt gambling, but I had huge debt repayments and as a result it was hard to fill the void. I eventually thought I could win to clear my debts and as a result have more money for to fill the void in my life. This doesnt work and just means we have more debts. You need to sort out a debt repayment plan that works and is manageable. Feel free to contact me on the challenge email if you fancy a chat, especially if the urges are growing too strong. Life is destined to be so much better for you Rach, all it requires is that daily choice not to gamble. [email protected]

Hi Rachel,

Never commented on your tread before but as they say better later than never 🙂
Glad you chose bed with a little strong drink instead of bloody nightmare on those sites. You are right, we cannot win because we cannot stop. What's a point of teasing tiger on his whisks eh?
Good decision and just hope no hangover tomorrow.

keep up the fight, keep believing in yourself. You are not alone in this, you will defo come out the other side. I am cg...but i also know that anything is possible if we put our minds and souls to it 🙂

Be proud, another road block been navigated safely.

One day at a time

Sandra xx

Hi Rach,

Massive well done on dismissing those thoughts, I do the same, have a bloody drink, if Ihey pester me. As I never mixed drink with gambling, I needed my head clear to gamble BIG JOKE and it was on me lol.

Suzanne xx

Hey Rach,

The first month is like a new rollercoaster ride, your feelings have been all over the place, your feelings of feeling low at this time are not unusual, your mind is going through mega changes, these moods swings do change like the weather, just push through them, believe me each mood swing we push through makes us stronger.dont get negative about these feelings, it's all part of your new amazing recovery, I have from day 1 called my recovery a rollercoaster ride, and boy, has it been one, hold on tight girl, you are doing fine, you will soon be going back up,and even higher than before.

Keep in mind one day at a time with everything, and slowly but surely you win every single day, gambling was the worst ullusion we ever got into,

Walking along side with you Rach stay strong, positive and keep safe, the addiction hates that.

Take care

Suzanne xxx

Hi you, I'm back...& echoing every word that everyone that beat me to it has said! You have to stay strong, especially now so that you can prove to yourself you mean business! It's because you're not @ the month yet that it is so hard, this is the 1st time you have had money & you're trying to figure out how to stretch it, you will figure it out, I know you will!

Sending you strength - Your June

Worried about you now Hun & if the truth be told, becoming a little stalker-ish :-0

o*g (my turn to squeal like an excited child) how did you do that?!? What with just dropping by on your profile & scrolling up to smile @ someine else's baby, I was really starting to worry about us both & I just cracked! It was the shiny donut with a hole (you know what I'm talking about) that made me do it 🙁

I'm so flipping proud that despite your blues, you chose not to be the cupboard door I once was with £300 that I managed to stretch to a big fat zero & I can whoop whoop with you @ the end of a full amazing month 🙂 Bleugh it sounds like I'd lost faith but I hadn't, I'm just tell-it-like-it-is June & you had me sweating girl I can tell you!

Anyway I've got my head torch on, the glow in the dark ball & the mutt in his hi vis so if I manage to defrost my fingers @ any point this evening, I will put in a more rambling effort 🙂

Yay...Ur back...I missed yoooou!

Ok, back in 'clarity of mind' land and fed up of feeling sorry for myself, and virtually daring myself to gamble.

I got paid on Wednesday, was fine all day but woke up on Thursday to the reality of having to try to make £250 available money stretch to £500 minimum to pay the minimum repayments on my debts. The more I read on here, the more I blamed it on the fact that I was feeling tempted to gamble (that's what we do isn't it, blame anyone and anything). I reasoned that as most people on here seemed to be saying that everyone slips 2 or 3 times at the start of recovery, that I may as well get one of my times over with early, I could then re-set my counter to 0 and get to work on building it back up again, as though my slipping was a pre-requisite to my recovery. I went on to one of those casinos that allow you to play for fun without an account. I set up an account (inwardly high fiving myself that phew, I haven't self excluded from this casino or any other casino linked with it). I then sit, hands hovering above the keyboard thinking 'am I really going to do this?' Just as I got to the stage of thinking 'well, I could just put £25 on, that's not going to make a lot of difference to what I can and can't pay, I can afford to lose that' my beautiful boy comes bounding down the stairs. I slammed the laptop shut like I'd been caught watching P**n! The look on his face, the worry - he knew. The shame, God the shame, what was i thinking? I try to reassure him that I won't gamble anymore. I promise. I went straight back on line and self exclude before I have had the chance to deposit. For a fairly obscure casino, the service was as good as can be expected - they emailed back, do I want to exclude for 5 years or forever? Forever. Ok, they reply, and you also won't be able to open accounts with any of our sister casinos - they then list (I kid you not) over 20, maybe even 30 gambling sites that I have never even heard of, that I will never be able to open an account with. How many of these parasitic sites exist I wonder? Crazy, crazy.

So, what have I learned? I've learned I am a tragic, weak fool. I've learned that I love my son more than I crave gambling (or remembered, I've always loved my son more than anything). I've learned that I need to be on my guard always.

So, here I am, exactly 1 month in, still standing (just).

Thanks to June (ODAAT), Suzanne, Sandra, Phil et al, I may not have replied quickly to your posts, but I have read them and taken encouragement from them. I sometimes have to hide at the back of my cave for a few days but I do poke my head out from time to time to see if the sun has come out 🙂

Ironic then that for me, you bring the sunshine!

& you're not a tragic (well maybe a little but that's romantic), weak fool because it doesn't matter for what reason you didn't gamble, it just matters that you didn't! Dirty brown smelly stuff man, you can't shake the demons on your 1st pay packet - Mr Gamble won't give you up that easily, you were one of his favourite customers, a twinkle in his eye (probably)! But, whilst we're on the subject of setting records straight, I don't care what rules you've read about slipping, I'm not giving up my 6 months to conform (no way Jose) & therefore as my new Bezzie you should deffo bah humbug that idea too 🙂

I know this month was going to be particularly sticky for you with the rent dramas last month but you will figure it out! No more dares for you yet girlie, you don't need the grief! Give the big lad a knuckle rub on the head from me...I'm chuffed he kept you safe!

Keep @ it - ODAAT

Wow Rach thats a moving post, well done on making the right choice. It must have been so hard for you to self exclude, but you did it and its another test passed along the way. The journey won't be straight forward, but you have laid a strong foundation! Keep it up!

Well done Rach, lovely honest post.

Suzanne xx

Hang on a minute Potty mouth (how can you actually write whole naughty words & I'm not even allowed to use n*b with a k on it!?!) I don't think people in glass houses (knowing the cast of Corrie past & present) are allowed to cast aspersions on the fashion conscious 😉

Ooo, I don't envy you that conversation with the boy but I would have killed for that when I was little (to be honest, even now it would be nice to have an acknowledgement)! I can categorically say you are nothing like my mother if that was ever going through your mind? You have a much stronger relationship (he sounds so grown up & supportive, I'm really happy for you) & he doesn't have to be gambling (/looking @ P**n with you) to spend time with you!

There are many reasons for being sucked into the pit but very few have the strength to climb out without a big long arm of (grown up) support from above...Your support is so young that his arm is barely over the edge but I literally have a vision of you all battered & bruised where you have climbed to reach him fingers to fingers! I genuinely think your strength together is all you need to survive - ODAAT

Mate, it wouldn't be half as bad if the gormless pose was just for the shouting 😉 but he will be making an honest Cougar of me on Halloween (yes it is themed, no it isn't fancy dress) would you Adam & Eve it?!? so yes I will indeed have over a year clean by then 🙂

Tonight my friend, said Northern monkey is downstairs (I have taken to my pit in a state of disrepair after a rather tedious day @ work that would have seen me racing to gamble but a short while ago) making me fish fingers & mash (frozen obviously, is there any other kind) with (I'm hoping) spaghetti hoops 🙂 He puts up a fuss when I have suggestions like this & complains about me being a CHAV but I know it's only because this meal is not compatible with gravy! When I say making, he is currently trying to figure out how to turn the oven on & will then be no doubt looking for the mash in the fridge or a cupboard maybe? No I lie, the spaghetti hoops have evaded him & I have had to go downstairs & scramble up onto the worktop like a chimpanzee to rescue them from the top shelf, that he is perfectly able to reach, because his X-ray specs do not work past the front row of tins! & there was me thinking he'd be distracted by the mushy peas, seems I don't know him @ all - probably just as well 😉

14 you say, hmmm...If my once lovely Nephew is anything to go by, he morphed into my not quite so charming (a lot like her Aunty) niece sometime after his 16th birthday so by my reckoning you wont be needing anymore exes in about 2 years :-0 I'm not sure you're allowed to prod children with a stick so maybe put that away for a couple of years too!