75 days GF

Hello alwalm,

Welcome to the Forum. First of all, well done for being gamble free for 75 days. You are doing amazingly well!. I would like to answer your question with some questions, since there is not a simple answer to it. What is the desire really about? What is the need that is seeking to be satisfied? Can you satisfy this need in a healthy way? You may not know the answers to these questions, but it will be very helpful if you did. You managed to stop gambling for a considerable amount of time and this has probably resulted in you having more time in your hands. Have you found something to replace it with?

It may help you to have counselling and talk about all this. We provide free sessions and it is very easy to set it up if you decide to. Our lines are open from 8am until midnight, 7 days a week, should you need to speak to an adviser and arrange a session.

Wishing you all the best and keep up the good work.

Best wishes,

Forum Admin

Had 3rd session on Tuesday 23rd Oct and left feeling a bit more positive. I think the secret is to stop wallowing and be more constructive with my time in order to distract me from these unhealthy urges. Thank you for your encouragement and continuing support.

Hi alwalm,

You sound remarkably similar to me. I've gambled since I was 14 if not earlier.

Arcades first, then pitch & toss, cards, then bookies when it was just horses, greyhounds and football (min 3 away or 5 homes !).

I've had just about every online account there is & in the early days had multiple accounts with each one. I've normally bet low odds so have staked more than a million over the years. I've lost high tens of thousands, but would struggle to tell you eaxctly how much. Ive bet on Basketball from the Philipines and obscure Tennis matches in South America - it sounds ridiculous when you read it but there you are.

I'm in debt to the tune of £35k accross 5 credit cards - but at least this time have stopped for good.

I'm only on day 59 & am not sure if it will ever get easy.

What I do know is I don't miss those lost hours spent online or the hours wasted when I just popped into a bookies on way home. I have to occupy my mind and body so now try and exercise every day fairly intensively - so by the time I've cooled down, showered etc, its probably taken 2 hours. I think this is the key - you have to fill that void with something, otherwise the mind will wander.

Anyway - keep at it a day at a time.

Ken

Best wishes Ken and good luck on your journey of recovery i wish you well and thank you so much for sharing your experience. It means so much knowing i have the support and understanding of good people like you.

79th GF Day and sitting here feeling so much relief knowing i dont have to lie or hide the truth about the previous days losses Friday night we had our 2 grandsons aged 4 and 6 staying the night and i enjoyed every minute. Not so long ago iwould have looked on it as an interruption to my online gambling. Its made me realise what a dreadful person id become whilst the addiction was controlling me.

Terrific going alwalm,

It's never just the money, it's the time and life we have missed.

Must be wonderful being fully involved with your grand kids without the spectre of a day of losses behind you.

They probably enyoy your company much more as we know who miserable, aggressive and unpleasant gamblers can be !

Stay strong & keep going

Thanks for your kind words and support K2 it means so much and good luck on your journey.

Family love respect diminish

All staked and lost in a photo finish

Another plan to save my soul

7/1 Sterling to score 1st England goal

Surprise surprise wrong again

1- 0 England Harry Kane

Betting shop full of chums and bums

Chasing that payday that never comes

You see yourself and you despise

Heading home to tell more lies

Laptop debit card get out of trouble

Oblivious inside your gambling bubble

Problems losses they all grow

You kid yourself others dont know

For tommorows gamble beg borrow or steal

Horses slots a spin of the wheel

Cognative thinking you so lack

Keep telling yourself youll win it back

This wretched habits got you beat

Now youre a master of deceit

Some truth at last in the words youve spoken

Ive got a problem im truly broken

Theres no magic cure in a bottle of pills

And you wont find the answer in WILLIAM HILLS

Finally admitting what youve always known

Youve got an addiction you cant beat alone

Cant win back what i once had

But i can man up be a husband and dad

Say and mean with conviction

I truly want rid of this addiction.

Hi Al,

A belated well done on passing 6 months. I’d raise a glass but I’m full of cold.

Superb going

Hi K2

Missed you, your wise words and guidance. Hope you and your family are well. Still struggling with self hatered and guilt but with you watching my back life always feels a little brighter. 166 days what a fantastic achievement. Being a horse racing and football man ( domestic or international ) i know youve felt all the ups and downs i have on this awful ride. Hope im not opening old wounds mate but do you have guilt Ken and if so how do you deal with it. Always respect your opinion and advice.

Stay Strong

AL

Plenty of guilt Al, guilt and self-loathing, and as well as feeling it most of the time, there are occasions when I will be having a really good day & a specific incident flashes into my mind that I just can't shift for the rest of the day.

An example. When my son was about 2 or 3 (he's at University now) we sometimes used to need to get him to sleep in the day time by taking him out in the car for 10 minutes. No doubt you can guess where this is going. He was asleep so of course I thought 'why not pop into the bookies' (like any normal human would think that). I thought I was in for about 10 minutes, but honestly have no idea, but when I went back to the car, he was awake & bawling his eyes out. I've done plenty of worse things, much worse, but it sickens me thinking about that.

However, I try and remember the following.

1. Excessive negative self judgement is a big barrier to stopping for good

2. Guilt (along with stress, anxiety, anger, boredom and plenty of other things) has been a trigger for me to gamble in the past. The 'fxxx it, fxxx everybody' attitude, or "might as well be hung for a sheep than a lamb".

3. The more guilt you feel, the more your self esteem is lowered. It's a vicious circle.

4. Self forgiveness isn't necessarily letting yourself off the hook. We are doing our best today & that's hard enough.I read somehwere that 'Self-forgiveness opens the door to change'. In the long run stopping for 7 days, 30 days, 90 days isn't the hardest bit. Healing yourself is the hard bit. It sometimes helps to think I'm in that stage now, and guess I'll be in that stage for a long, long time.

5. We don't have to be perfect, we don't have to try & have others see us as perfect. We just have to be better than we were.

6. Self improvement and forgiving yourself aren't mutually exclusive. I think in our case they need to go together.

7. We are not alone. We wern't unique when we gambled (and I often told myself I was) and we aren't now. Others trying to stop for good & making an effort are going through exactly the same pain.

I can tell myself all of the above, and sometimes it feels like I am trying to convince myself.

We just have to keep trying.

In unity, solidarity & resistance.

Stay strong my friend.

Ken

Wow... Once again thank you guys. Absolute top draw insight and thanks once more for the brutal honesty K2... I'm not sure how to do it but someone told me turning trauma into strength is one of the keys to a fruitful recovery... Well anyway candid reminders of what this addiction can lead us to do is enough for me today to draw the necessary amount of resilience I need to take me into tomorrow.

Hope you're both ok.

AL,

Hope you are well.

Massive congratulations on hitting the 200 day mark. I'm sure it felt like an impossible task in the dark years (decades !).

You have broken the cycle, but it's only part of your overall recovery. Keep doing it a day at a time - it's all we can do really.

Avoid complacency, stay strong and focussed.

I'm having a couple of pints on friday - but my first thought will be to quietly toast you.