Eat, Sleep, Lie, Repeat!

Hi living a lie, i feel a mirror image when i read your threads, treating gambling as a second income, that's exactly where i started from in 2009. These roulette machines will easy give you £50 quid - as we know they do sometimes but not every time - when they don't a lot of people walk - not happily but walk - me i could never, i at least wanted my stake back. Sometimes in early 2013 i would play all night, trying to win back £K10, well the result is on here and well documented. You sound a lot younger than me and I think you earn a fair chunk more a month, from your recent threads i think you know the time is to quit, problem is nothing much else gives you that buzz - iv'e tried and i am trying to find other things to keep me happy, but the re-alisation of what i have lost will not leave my mind. Quit my friend before bankruptcy and loss of home comes on the horizon.

Thanks lost my life, so many of us have the same struggles but it's never too late to pick up the pieces and have a far better life.

Day 19 has been a lot calmer than I expected, Saturday is a hard day but I'm glad to say I've had no urges and survived. The days are really adding up now, I simply have to stay strong!

Just reading your diary great to see you doing so well.
Keep going
X

Today has been an absloute grueller, I have been sat in all day desperately wanting a bet, I've been picking horses out, looking for football bets and looking at the golf odds. I gave up control of my finances and this means to gamble I need to make up a lie for why I need funds, I could have thought of something, but thankfully I didn't. For the past 7 hours I have had to fight it hard and I've just survived. Will be glad to be back in work tomorrow! I could be positive and say well at least I won today because I didn't gamble, but its hard to feel like that when part of me thinks I could have won. Clearly past history shows that I always end up potless so I would not have won because I can't stop. Tough, tough, tough day but its 20 days without a bet and thats progress.

Great work not making up lies to get your hands on gambling tokens but why punish yourself by studying the 'form'? You could have won, it's true, but very unlikely...If you had done so, you would have only wanted more & the end result, as it always is would have been financial loss & back to day one! Never forget what got you here, we cannot win because we cannot stop!

You did great today but you need to find a much safer way to occupy your mind - ODAAT

Thanks ODAAT, I think after so long gambling it becomes hard to adapt to normal life and find things to occupy my mind. For 19 years money has been purely gambling currency. I stress over it even though the longer I refrain from gambling the more I have. I don't understand money anymore, I need to get used to having it and being able to budget and not stress over the lack of it. Today has been a struggle, but I'm still going, 21 days without a bet!

3 weeks is great, you are doing fab & you will get there! I am much further away from my last bet than you & still very very uncomfortable with money! In fact, I have had an inheritance sitting in my accounts, terrifying me for months, as the OH merrily fritters it away! We are in the process of commuting it into bricks & mortar which has seen our daily diet of take-aways & evenings out replaced by soggy sandwiches & home cooked meals of questionable quality but finally I feel free! I am yet to determine if it is because of the point that I have reached in my recovery or the knowledge that I am once again in debt but for the 1st time in forever, I am not stressing over money & it's incredible!

I get that for 19 years you needed it for one thing & one thing only, I have walked in your shoes saving 2p in the supermarket & feeling pleased but that is not the way to live our lives! I resorted to a colouring book to while away my idle hours in the early days, now I wonder how I ever found time to gamble @ all! Keep pushing through these struggles, I still have a long way to go but every fight I have had with the urges has made me stronger!

Normal feels great, it really does & you will start to feel it just keep pushing through - ODAAT

Hi living a lie, well done on 3 weeks gamble free, every day is a success. I have been reading through your diary and there is some very powerful stories there to add to your barriers not to gamble again, but the synic in me thinks this isn't enough. You have gambled for 19 years (15 for me), speaking from.experience the only way I have managed to tackle my gambling effectively is to understand it, understand my triggers, understand what it gives me and what it takes away, understand what it is shielding, I only figured this out through councilling,

I sincerely hope you consider this. To.beat this for good you need to put in lifelong barriers, ask.yourself do you think you will gamble again, ask it a few times, be honest if the answer is yes or.maybe you need additional help (sometimes in life we have to show weakness and accept this,) give it a go, I really think it will help.

You have started the road to recovery now build some bricks to cement your gamble free home. A bit like the big bad wolf, gambling can huff and P**f but it cannot blow it down as your house is made of all the barriers you have in place.

This disease has taken far too much from you already, it's time you started fighting back and living your life without this huge burden every day week month year etc.

All the best in your recovery.

Today is a good day, today is a gamble free day.

So Tuesday has passed me by and I'm happy to report it was day 22 without a bet. I also didn't have to fight any urges which is good. I thought I had posted on here but found myself laid in bed thinking did I or didn't I post on my diary today. It turns out I didn't so I'm glad I now have. So day 22 had become day 23, its not easy but its progress, after 19 years of pain its going to be a long transition to beat my addiction and get used to normality!

Hi livingalie how are you getting on?

Hi Living a Lie, hope you are ok