Nearly 8 years free! However, only a "success" of sorts.

Not so much a success story, but I didn't know where else to post it!

However, I can honestly say I haven't gambled since August 2015.

Prior to that, between around 2004-2015 I had an open-the-window-shout-at-the-moon-never-coming-back problem with Roulette. FOBTs both in the bookies and online.

I used to haunt this forum after a big loss around the end days of that. I still read regularly now and felt the need to stick my two-penneth in again! 😉 

Roulette was a perfect storm for all of my issues, as they are for so many people. My boredom and need for a thrill to escape the humdrum grind of a meaningless job driving around seeing adverts for perfect lives to aspire to. Then coming home and microwaving my Fray Bentos Pie for one, (which incidentally you should never do because they're made of metal! Ha!) and watching TV adverts telling me what I should be, and what I COULD be if only I staked a few quid.

Worse than that it fed into that narrative of "don't give up and be a quitter! Get up! Try again! Just one more spin and I'll win it all back!!!" - and you know what? Sometimes I did! Which reinforced my thought pattern. That's how d**n insidious the whole shell game is!

You know the score. I'm not unique in this.

I reached rock bottom about 5 times during that period. As we all know, "rock bottom" can sometimes have a trap-door in the cellar, I lifted it up and sank down even further to a "real" rock bottom. Yet, what is this? Another trap door... etc.

I'm a borderline alcoholic these days - no one would ever know - I have a reasonable job, a caring partner, my life wibbles on, but I know I'm drinking at problematic levels and have been since I gave up roulette.

Why?

Because I need a buzz. I need that dopamine fix on a chemical level, deeper than that I need to feel a buzz on a soul level, that life isn't just THIS!

I heard a great thing the other day from a doctor friend of mine - so many people present to her with depression & anxiety. She only has about 10 minutes with them to get to the bottom of it before issuing a script for SSRI's, but most times it's a case of what she calls "CLS" - "c**P Life Syndrome!" Shouldn't need medicating!

Who can blame us for trying to improve our lot with gambling or with alcohol or even with drugs, if we have no other tangible way of immediately fixing the horror of our daily existence?

So, thank you if you've read this far, my point is hopefully a positive one - There is NOTHING that can ever replace the buzz of gambling or drinking or drugs. They are unnatural external stimuli which flood our brains with a delicious neurotoxin short-term fix. They are all ultimately "drugs" because we are biological people.

I reckon the only way to abstain and improve our lives is to accept that, yes, life WILL be shittier without our "go to" crutches and coping mechanisms. The notion that taking up painting or going for a great run, or (even more insulting imho) "mindfullness" is insulting to people like me who really struggle to find purpose in our lives.

So if we can accept that life will be more boring and grey without gambling, drinking to problematic levels, etc,  yet we won't feel the crushing lows and all the sh&tstorm that goes with having people who love you and having to explain why yet again we've lost all our money, etc. I can only drink enough to go to work the next day (I'm a cheap man, cheap wine, so maybe £15 tops!). There's nothing like gambling which can rinse my bank account of £15k in an evening!!! Crazy! Really should be illegal like it is in most countries, even the USA!

I reckon that's the real challenge, to accept we can't replace the buzz, and deal with it. That's when we grow. 

However, to keep it real - my sh&t still stinks because even though I've been gamble free for nearly 8 years, I've maybe substituted one addiction for another, so hence my nervousness to post this in "Success Stories".

It's hard to stop. I wish every single one of you the best. Go well.

(And apologies for the spacing and grammar, I'm on train at the moment having a terrible day, so guess what... I might have a drink! Hopefully I won't though. And 100% I WILL NOT GAMBLE. Nothing ever brought me so ffing low and to the edge of the abyss.)

MT.