Uphill struggle

Hi glad your feeling a little better and have started to think more positive, stay strong and good luck x x

Lovely to see the posative bits. ..
Keep fighting miss...you'll get there hun xx

I am not going to gamble.
I am going to get myself sorted with my debts and start living life again.
I've already made a start and I can carry on.
It's all down to me.
I can and I will succeed.
I don't want this in my life because it makes me live a lie. It makes me live a life of upset, heartache and misery.
I don't want that life. I want to be strong, I want to be proud, I want to be gamble free.
Never again will I think 'how much have i lost tonight?' Never ever again!
Gambling makes me feel weak, exhausted, vulnerable and miserable.
Not any more. I am determined. I am going to change my life for the better.

Hi LML , Nice post :))

A positive mental atitude is all it takes , everything is possible and well within your reach , one day at a time extend your hand and take what you need :))

A year or so ago I can't begin to tell you what a terrible place I was in , slowly making that choice everyday not to gamble has given me back the great life I used to have , keep making the same decision everyday and slowly but surely , your life will improve before your eyes .

I love seeing the positivity in your posts :))

Keep winning for real Hun :))

Alan xx

Thanks Alan. You have my respect. I have read some of your diary and as you have said I want to be able to put this'scattered jigsaw' which represents my life back together again.
I'm clinging on to you saying 'we can all succeed. We just need to want it.'
I need to focus on your words. I need to stop feeling the pain of being a compulsive gambler.
I need this knot in my stomach and pain in my heart to go away.
I need to know that I am not always going to feel like this.
I pray for the day for when happiness returns into my life.
I have lost so much. I hurt so much. Not anymore. Go away , get out of my life. You're not welcome. Come back the real me. The one that's been buried under a sea of hurt and misery. I want the happy me. I want that more than gambling. Today I want my life back x

Woke up this morning. The way I see it I've now reached the crossroads in my life where it's definitely make or break.
Yes, I know some would say you're always stood there but this time it's different. This time if I don't succeed I won't be able to get credit cards to bail me out.
What money I have in bank will be it. I won't be able to use a credit card to shop with when I've spent my last £50 of my overdraft on gambling. Because I've had my payments knocked down by the credit card company my credit card has gone and my credit ratings taken a hit. Because I've spoken to my bank about my difficulties they've took it upon themselves to remove my credit card which I had with them.
Things are a bit in the air with my bank at the moment. Hopefully when it's sorted I'll be able to have enough money left at the end of the month to let me live a life without credit.
Yes, I'll still owe thousands but I'll have to put them in that box at the back of my head whilst I concentrate on being gamble free and getting through each month.
Here's to my new life. It's my last chance to escape from this hell hole of a life without having to lose my home.
Today is a new day. Today is a new me. Today I will succeed in returning to being who I used to be. I can't wait. I watched davina mcall on this time next year the other night. Well Davina, this time next year I want to be able to say I'm gamble free.

Sorry, I feel the need to ramble. . . I've just been thinking, I've got one sick brain. I need to help it to recover. I need to stop throwing cr@P at it. Stop making it feel the need to gamble.
I've got to occupy it with good thoughts. I've got to grow up, face facts and move forward to a better life.
I could not say any of this to my friends/family. The couple of friends who I have told about my gambling are very sympathetic but admit to not understanding how I can condone spending thousands of pounds which are not mine on gambling.
Because of the nature of this site I'm hoping others understand.
I'm hoping I'm not a freak, an idiot, weak fool or mug.
I'm hoping I'm just somebody who's lost their way, fallen into a soul destroying trap called online gambling and that i can somehow pull myself back from the vice like grip that holds me trapped and escape to a better life.

Little miss lost wrote: Sorry, I feel the need to ramble. . . I've just been thinking, I've got one sick brain. I need to help it to recover. I need to stop throwing cr@P at it. Stop making it feel the need to gamble. I've got to occupy it with good thoughts. I've got to grow up, face facts and move forward to a better life. I could not say any of this to my friends/family. The couple of friends who I have told about my gambling are very sympathetic but admit to not understanding how I can condone spending thousands of pounds which are not mine on gambling. Because of the nature of this site I'm hoping others understand. I'm hoping I'm not a freak, an idiot, weak fool or mug. I'm hoping I'm just somebody who's lost their way, fallen into a soul destroying trap called online gambling and that i can somehow pull myself back from the vice like grip that holds me trapped and escape to a better life.

Many suffer from this progressive addiction. Takes a hell of a lot of honesty to work out how bad your illness has got. Keep rambling

You're right tri, it's certainly got bad.
I could ramble for England today. I'm sitting alone writing this. I look at myself from my feet up. I think to myself 'who am i?'
Who is this person sitting here? What kind of person have I become? Do I like what I see? I guess you'll all know the answer to that but the thing is I go to work, I'm a teaching assistant. I spend every day encouraging children to be the best they can be. I spend all day teaching and encouraging, saying it's OK to make mistakes as long as we learn from them - listen to me! Day in day out I preach this, yet still I go through life making the same bl@@dy stupid mistakes!!
Today I've got to practice what I preach.
Today I'm going to learn from my mistakes.
Today I'm going to never make that mistake again.
Today I take responsibility for what I've done and feel determined to draw a line. Halt the debts, heal my body and soul.
Today I start to get my life back.
Sorry if to some my last posts have sounded dramatic, but this is me. This is my diary. I am grateful I have it. It's the only way I can clear my mind.

Hi LML. I have been reading through your diary along with the incredible words of wisdom and support from other members who have travelled the same journey and who totally understand the complexities of gambling addiction. The pain of financial loss, the reoccuring nightmare of relapse and the hard truth of facing the fact the we are responsible for our decisions, and that there can be light at the end of the tunnel. I am so pleased that you are now taking positive steps on your road to recovery, however tough it may be, and stopping the self-hate negative feelings of despair that we all go through.

I believe that this forum provides the vital support for us because it lets us share our pain and worries, whilst providing real-life solutions and coping tools in order to become GF. Keep up the good work.

Thanks change for life and welcome to the forum.
Not too sure what kind of reading my diary makes but you're right when you say people have offered so much support. Thanks to them I feel I can try again. They have given me hope where on my own hope would be hard to find. For me, by my own choice it's a lonely addiction. I know many will probably say this is a big mistake on my part but maybe given time I will be able to go down that route.
Thanks for taking time out to post. Best wishes with your recovery.

Half- life, if somebody had said to me 5 years ago that I would be in this position I would have laughed in their face thinking how could anybody be so stupid as to put themselves in this position!
Yet here I am.
I have thought about GA and to be honest I feel I would like to be in a room of like-minded people who may be able to understand what I am going through.
Saying that, I just don't think it would happen. Why? Purely because I don't want to get recognised and It sounds like it's a predominantly male place.
My heads in an ok place today.
I hope it stays there for a while.
Life's such a struggle isn't it?!!

Hi, LML,

It's more important to be a room of like minded people, even if most of them are of the male persuasion. I go to GamAnon, across the way in the GA rooms it is mainly men but the women are valued members of the group. Talking to one of them outside, she said that for her it was the understanding that mattered, the men were men who understood.

As for being recognised, who's interested??? In the room, the like minded people are interested in the problem of compulsive gambling, the meeting is closed and only GA members are admitted. It's first names only and there's a strict rule that what is said in the room, stays in the room. Outside in the street, GA members might congregate to smoke before or after the meeting but no one cares about them, people passing are only interested in their own business. It's anonymous.

Take the thinking on to the next level and go to meetings - they can only help.

CW

Thanks for concern but I can't see myself going. That doesn't mean I'm not serious in wanting to stop.
I now have no means to gamble. My cards are out of my hands.
It's so much easier when you don't have a bank card saying to you - 'go on, just ВЈ50, you might win!' Then that £50 turns into hundreds. Yes, my card could talk. Those thoughts had nothing to do with me - did they???!!!
Well, off to my Sunday job again soon. I just look at it as my gambling debt job.
I have to do a breakfast club at school going in an hour earlier than I would normally and a Sunday job for the sole purpose of having to pay gambling debts. Not good some days when I think I wouldn't have to do this if I hadn't gambled. It can get you down.
No more, I want out. I want off this merry-go-round from hell. Problem is, because of my debts I'll be paying my pennance for the long forseeable future.
I have to believe my future will come good. Hard work , no gambling, positive thoughts = happiness - doesn't it???!!!

Don't know. Depends how you define hard work. If it means work on self, then probably but with some pain along the way. In the absence of meetings, how and where is that work to be done?

I have personally met GA members whose years gamble free are into double figures, the first of which isn't necessarily one. That's years, not days. They started out in the same way, they're not cured, they identify themselves as CGs, they remain one bet away from disaster and they attend to maintain their recovery. Such are the choices that they make.

CW