Abstain and maintain.Stepping forward never back.

Hi Duncan

Well done for making two weeks. I am a day and a half in and am already seeing things more clearly so can see where you are coming from. Keep up. Our wives and kids deserve it.

I have just got back to work from lunch. Walked right past C -ral and l -brokes. Would normally have put a few quid in the blackjack machine but not today - soup and spicy lattice at Greggs as a treat. One or two quid in the machines does not seem a lot, but it is when you have no more money for lunch because the cards are maxed out! I cannot believe this has been the norm for me these past couple of years! If I keep reminding myself of that I should be fine. Hopefully you will too.

Regards

M

Day 15 had the best nights sleep i can remember no more fear to make it restless I feel less anxious about life today than i can honestly remember.8 days after money went into the bank it is still there, which in being there means funnily I feel less inclined to want to gamble I guess through my determination to abstain from gambling and the reallity in which I seem to be looking at life with by breaking this mind cycle of a way out is to gamble which all compulsive gamblers know just heads you straight back to that dark road of self destruction. And how looking forward and not back has such a positive affect on my outlook so here is to another gamble free day and a brighter tommorow. duncs one step more foward one day at a time.

Hi Duncan

I'm sat at work reading some diaries & yours caught my eye!

You have done so well & a lot of the emotions & feelings you express really does it home for me.

Will definately be following your journey.

Good Morning Dunc..

Just a quick tip of the cap or high fiving in tadays money!!

Will echo Ghost here, sat here as always enjoying your take on things and the realisation that right in front and around you, you've got every thing of real value..

Another fantastic asset to these diary's and loving this journey of yours.....

Exmug......

Day 16. Paul as a lover of the flat cap I doff it straight back to you, day 16 today and I have to say these new gamble free glasses I am wearing are fantastic! We have three kids and our eldest will be 18 in six weeks he attends college studying 3 A levels and last night we attended a seminar on his university funding which he will need to attend uni this autumn and sitting there some thing else clicked inside my head. I used to be 16 days ago a person living in someone elses skin a selfish self centered aggresive jumped up fool who spent his life in the foolish pretence that he would be someone else. And I sat there taking stock our kids going to go to uni a first for our families and our other 2 will be sure to follow and well I fell back into my skin and boy it fits well! I can beat the one thing that has blinded me from truely seeing this is my shot my life by never gambling again and now day 16 I have hold of the stick that used to beat me down and believe me all I am beating right back and I will not lose the fight not today tomorrow or the next! one leap one stride at a time With honesty I feel with these tools I have been given which I will continue to embrace the forum,the diary and GA and my stick in hand I will continue my lifes work to remain arrested in my addiction.

Duncs compulsive gambler no bets today!

Duncan, you are a true wordsmith! Keep up the good work and keep up those entries! You may have been a bad gambler but obviously you are a great dad. My kids are only little but I am sure there are many dads who only dream of their kids going to uni.

Best

Mark

mark thanks for your continued encouragement i write my diary first and foremost for myself and when the clouds of the gambler loom in i read back through my thoughts and see when i set out on my journey the pure hell i created that i was living in and that gives me further strength to combat this terrible addiction and with honest reflection i can say this that is but the start of a long road and with my own frank admission to all that i am a compulsive gambler i know i am ready to fight an honest fight to beat it and one thing i am sure of 16 days in is by this admission the people that matter in your life will ride the bus with you and like you will see the value of your admission day by day and to boot they will understand and help you to remain in a position of arrest. If i keep that knowledge close by it will only aid in my recovery. Duncs. 16days no bet!

day 16 i feel the need to follow up my day with an insight into the emotional rollercoaster of emotions i have been through during my ga meeting tonight more so for myself to see if my emotions are different after sleeping on it. As probally many have experienced before i got an insight of how trully destructive this addiction can be through a new member who attended the meeting tonight. A man who from the outside looking in had life on a plate at a young age had forefilled more than most meagre men could wish to achieve in a life time of honest graft. Then only to here how solely through gambling addiction has lost it all and still sat amounst a group of recovering addicts of the same affliction in total denial, three quarters of the meeting used up with listening to excuse after excuse as to why he wont address his addiction. I did not feel i wanted to contribute to the meeting just sat with my chin on the table with the realisation it could have been me. I felt anger, upset and humbled by all i heard. To end how sobering and i shall learn what i can from this further harsh lesson i have witnessed. Further more i wish as a fellow human being that his suffering will abate i simply wish him well but helpless in the same breath as he seemed as if he did not want to help himself. Duncs one step at a time.

day 17 no gambling, after my GA meeting today has been a day were the want to gamble could not be further from my mind and upon reflecting on the meeting i conclude that if that is the medicine i will recieve in attending said meetings then it will although horrible at the time serve me well in my journey to abstain from gambling. I would also like to further reflect that it was said at the meeting that by the fella that he had attended a different GA in the past and stopped attending due to the fact he felt it was a soft approach to which one of the group replied that at our meeting you are told it how it is which I can say is certainly true and further more i take great heart in the determination from the group as a whole to encourage and help the fella in whichever ways they could, offering there persononal help outside the meeting in many forms from helping him to control his finances to accompanying him to help talk it through with his family and all in the face of what seemed a lost cause. I take great hope from all of this in my own battle to conquer this addiction and I hope i will in the future find the equal strength that all showed to help others understand that there is a light at the end of every tunnel no matter how dark the journey to get there will be. So for the first time in an age I look forward to a weekend! of course upon my guard but relishing the thought of it all the same

duncan compulsive gambler one step nearer that light I know is waiting for me were which I intend to spend the rest of my life.

Sounds like you are in a great place at the moment. Being able to look forward to a weekend knowing that you are desperate to keep away from the hell-hole which we call gambling can only be a good thing.

Long may this continue!

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

GT

good morning all! thanks GT i am always spirited on by your words. Today day 18 a saturday a day before when it meant a day filled with nothing but the gamble, today I have baked cookies, cakes and made the bread dough for the burgers i am going to knock up for the family supper, a week ago i was apprehensive and found myself compelled to do things to try and fill the void gambling left and besides money the time I gave to my addiction was I can see overbearing, today I do these things because I have a fire of desire burning to do these things.I find myself listening to my kids, my beautiful wife and 18 days ago I felt worthless,a worse burden to my wife than the kids like the unrully child I can honestly say we never had, worst of all someone who led by his addiction could not be trusted to go to the shop in the knowledge he would end up in a bookies. Today I feel like a man again someone who belongs someone who can make a constant worthy contribution and all because the one thing that has been so destructive in my life has been arrested and stick in hand I will continue the this journey,I have stepped out of the shadows there is light in my life, that is my wife sarah,my ever so forgiving children, Joe,Lily-May and the youngest Callum oh and of course never forget our mad budgie harry who even has enjoyed the benifits of my new begining through the medium of more millet! All this because today no bet! tomorrow no bet and one step at a time one day at a time onwards and without doubt upwards!!! To one and all enjoy your weekend I know I will!

day 19. My day has started how a sunday should a lay in youngest son brought home a sunday paper to read in bed after his paperound, nice cup of coffee and a cookie from yesterdays baking. Radio on talk sport, this is the life. Then i open the paper straight to the middle pages for the football section and i counted no fewer than 17 adverts to suck in the gambler! Now this is i guess the public choice of sunday paper since the demise of the news of the world and not the ***** ****! And every page tempting offers of free bets. Now i am strong in my recovery i can easily turn my attention to the bits i want to read but find myself disgusted at this over advertising, in your face on every page. I feel this is as i am learning is an obsticle i will face every day for the rest of my life but someone out there must see it from the compulsive gamblers viewpoint.i guess we are not like other addicts because you cant see our illness like that of a smoker were i noticed yesterday ontop of no adverts, warnings on the packets now they hide the ones on sale in the shop behind a screen. I know some might see this as just hiding it but i do think it is still being addressed were it seems we are in large left as mear casualties, the weak in some eyes and all i ask is a fare chance to beat my addiction along with countless others! Thats it rant over thanks to gamcare for giving us a voice. Now i will get on with enjoying another gamble free day! Duncs one more step one day at a time stepping forward.

Gambling will never go away.

But we can all stay away from gambling.

Now can I have some of those cookies?!

GT

day 20

Getting there i am afraid the cookies did not see it through to this morning the kids reckon we have mice! day twenty today and a bank statement came through and showed what a difference 20 days makes as there is still money in our account and being sensible i hope to have no debt by feb2014. This means we can attain a life of modest means and i think this will releave any pressures to kid myself that that gambling is a fast track to solving the debts that gambling compulsivly has put me in i know and 20 days in still stick in hand that i will continue to beat this addiction i now have my sense of being back,the life i always wanted just could never see it through them gambling glasses the new ones i have i want to keep so one more step one more day that is another gamble free one for me!

I am looking to get something inked in my skin in the future to stand as a reminder of my addiction and what it will do if i ever let it return i have been looking at composing a verse or two, whilst i have been writing my thoughts i have composed these poems i would like to share with all.

"The Compulsive gambler"

Whether its horses or slots we will gamble the lot,

to fill the compulsion inside

we lie and cheat, live a life of deciept

we live only only to feed that desire.

We become full of hate,never reget our mistakes

but live only to gamble again.

False promise to stop

too busy losing the lot

oh what a life the compulsive gambler leads!

" The recovering compulsive gambler"

With a confession,an inner strength from within

we find ourselves re born,a life we begin.

A life were a gamble would destruct so much,a life we rebuild in again people trust.

We redeem ourselves with a new found desire

never to gamble again our simple aim.

With the help from others we see a new path

we can move from the shadows no darkness at last,

now stick in hand

friend and loved one beside

we beat back the demon

that ruined our lives,

all of a sudden our future so bright

life with no gamble

no bookie in sight!!

duncs one more step.