TiMe FoR cHaNgE

Steve and SA - thanks for your posts.

I guess i do need to go back to basics. Woke up this morning wanting to play poker, tried logging on, and hey presto it won't let me - the magic of self exclusion.

so now ive got a whole day to do nothing, fidgetting away as i haven't had my "fix" for the day. why does life have to be so hard?

but im feeling a bit more optimistic after not being able to log on today. i have no means to play anymore. and if i cant play, i cant lose, and if im not losing i cant get deeper in despair.

so i might just sit in or in the garden and do some thinking this afternoon.

Hi Rb.. like you say to play more poker will only bring further personal misery and financial drain. Perhaps now is the time to put betfilter on your puter. Takes away temptation completely.

Hope you enjoyed your thinking in the garden. Nice to have a garden.

All the best.. S.A 🙂

Well...hello diary, has been a while. A new year,a new start is what they say. feels like same old same old for me.

good news is i havent gambled this year and im not in debt! but my head is so screwed up. Its hard to believe i started this diary 3 and a half years ago, I never thought back then Id be in this position now, a shell of what i was back then.

but its not just the end of another year, its the end of a decade. i know gamblings not for me, but i know how easy it is to slip back into it, especially after staying up 1 night last week and watching on tv some 21 yr old win $8.5million playing the game i love so much. but this will never be me. 5 years ago i chased this "dream" and its taken along long time with many sacrafices to realise gambling wont solve my problems.

so 2010. heres my goals:

1) sort my head out and do things that make me happy

2) get promoted at work or find a new job that values me

3) find a girlfriend

4) buy a car after i solded mine over a yr ago to pay off debts

5) start saving for a deposit to buy a flat in the next 5 years

6) contact old friends ive neglected for so long

7) join a gym

8) dont let others take advantage and walk all over me

9) look forward and not back

10) stay awake - gambling doesnt help

So it's been a while since I've been here. Alot has happened. I used to come here everyday for at least 3 years, thought I had sorted myself out, but today I realised I'm still weak.

In the last year I've bought a small house (thanks to kind family that helped me), I've got a good job, and I was self sustaining. But all this time I've been playing poker. I now have a mortgage and 2 loans to pay off, and today I blew what ever i had left in my bank account. I have £100 left. Thats it. I have nothing else to my name. It seems like I keep going down this road, I know I shouldn't but I dig myself out which takes months, then within a day I'm back down to rock bottom. No way to pay my bills, noone to talk to, no one cares.

Why am I this way? Its been 7 years since I started gambling, and I still cant shake it. Life is just getting harder. I hit myself in the head so hard today it still hurts, but i feel like i deserve it.

well here I am again, for how long who knows

RB

Hi.. welcome back and yes i'm still here fighting my own battle, setbacks and all. You gotta house a good job and a kind family. If you stop gambling your life will improve quite quickly i'd say. I know its easy to say but hard in reality. Keep fighting it, keep fighting.. S.A

WOW! Almost 6 years ago I started this diary, how life has changed since then!

I haven't been here in a while, but after 9 months poker free, I'm starting to feel a bit "gambly" so thought I'd come back here and see what's new.

Makes me happy to come back here and remember all the support I got in what was the lowest times of my life, when i just wanted to die and be forgotten about. But it makes me sad to think and see so many other people going through those times still, it's so hard when you feel like nothing is worth living for, but this site gives a glimmer of hope.

In my time away from here, I've started my life again to some degree. I have a good job now, I have some confidence back, I pay my own bills and dont struggle financially anymore. I'm still in debt but only by £5000, amazing considering I had lost over £100k to poker in 6 years. I've worked 2 jobs to get out of that, and life is finally getting easier.

But after all that, I feel like playing poker. I stay well away from temptation...the TV, Internet site, even adverts i switch over, but i still want to play. I guess the difference is I know I shouldn't and I have the control not to allow it to happen this time. So many times I've failed, I hope not this time!

RB

Hi

Nice to hear good news hopefully you will pop in every now and again to say hello

Mike

So last weekend I gave into the growing urges and played poker after a whole year away. I lost close to 10k in less than 30 hours. And here I am for about the 10th time at square 1.

It could have been worse, Im getting better at controlling it somewhat. I just read Mark117's diary and the realisation of not making the most of life hit me like a sack of potatoes. I just turned 29, and spent the last 8 years gambling away everything I'd earn. In that time I've had 4 credit cards, 5 loans bigger than 10k each, been homeless, gone hungry, lost all my friends, shutout my family, and have basically become a zombie. I hide it well on the inside, most people just think Im quiet, but would never suspect I have a serious problem.

I've wasted my twenties playing a stupid game I can't win. I wasted the prime of my life playing poker, for what? Initially money but then? I lost sight of it all.

I quit. No more. Done. Had enough. Finished.

I turn 30 next May. Before I get there here's my bucket list.

1) Reduce my debts from 15k to 5k.

2) Get fit. Poker has made me so unfit. Can't afford the gym but hopefully running and some weights a few times a week will help.

3) Get out and meet a girl! I've been single for over 6 years due to poker.

4) Get back in touch with old friends.

5) Try to make amends with family Ive shut out

6) Get a tattoo

7) Stop living to work, and work to live

8) Find a hobby, even if it costs money. Golf for starters

9) Go on holiday. I havent been on one in 10 years.

10) Get counselling. I can't do any of this alone

Well hopefully this list will go better than the 1st one I started here 6 years ago!

I choose to make a better life for me

Hi ya,

I am not going to preach to you about you should do this and that, cause you know what you need to do to give you the help to keep this addiction in remission.

Welcome back, all be it in these circumstances. Can feel you positivity in your post to change you life.

Stay strong my friend,

Look forward to you posts.

Dusty

I posted here the last time a year ago when i last relapsed, and I havent played poker for almost a year now, the longest Ive ever done and its been so hard. I started this diary when I was 22, I'm now 30 and fell like I wasted all my prime time in my twenties to a pointless game that left me broke and mentally scarred.

I dont get the urge to play much now, but whilst Ive rebuilt financially to a point (I only have a 7k loan now to pay off, I was in debt over 40k at one point), the rest of my life is in tatters. i want my 30's to be a time i remember for the happiness, not the sadness like my 20's, but the way i feel right now i dont know how to be happy. An emotional wreck that doesnt know how to express those emotions kind of sums it up. who knew that first bet of £5 9 years ago would turn me into a soulless, emotionless robot, with no friends, no life and no hope for the future.

poker is an evil, dont get sucked in people.

Hi Rb.. I'm 41 and have to look back at my 30's which have been disappointing in many ways largely due to gambling. So you have a decade on me and your debt is much reduced and as long as you stay away from gambling then with a positive mind set you will remember your 30's as a time of happiness.

Onwards and forwards. take care... S.A 🙂

Hello diary....its been almost 3 years since I wrote here, and it's been a long 3 years! I just re-read a lot of what I was writing, I started this diary almost 10years ago and I really don't recognise the person I was when I was in my darkest gambling days, some of the things I've wrote here are just not me, I don't remember writing them and even didn't realise I was capable of feeling that way.

Life if very different now. I haven't gambled in 2 years and I've had to work so hard to turn my life around. I'm debt free now, own my own house (with an expensive mortgage, but it's so worth it!), I have a stable job, a great girlfriend, and for once in my life I almost feel happy. I'm 33 now, gambling ruined my twenties, it was all a blur for me. I'm so happy I started this diary all those years ago, it serves as a reminder of how desperate I was and never want to go there again. Sure I still get urges, but have found ways to deal with them now. It's sad to see so many others here in similar places to where I was, but I hope my story can give a glimpse of hope to anyone feeling at their lowest - it can get better step by step and life doesn't have to be that way.

Maybe I'll visit here more often 🙂