Last chance to make a change

The hardest part of recovery for me is the absence of any real change in my circumstances to reflect the effort that I have put in. It's only now that I realise the enormity of the money that I lost and what that now means for my family. Unfortunately, around the same time as I quit gambling two years ago, my finances underwent several changes which meant that my work was at risk and I was faced with pay cuts that put us under more pressure as a family.

I had at the time, 12 credit cards maxed out, a hefty overdraft, and 2 bank loans to pay off. I also owed money to Paypal, around 3 grand. I also lost the disability pay for my daughter which was a huge blow as without it, we struggle to make ends meet. All in all, I had my income slashed by over half and this was within weeks of just cutting gambling out of my life. I am proud to say that I have carried on despite our struggles and remained gamble free now for almost 2 years. 

The debt is still around my neck. I work but the pay is not steady, nor is it enough to cover my payments when they come out. Having a lot of disposable income before, meant that I could lose a few thousand without any real effect. That's how I got away with this for so long. I would lose several grand and have it back within 4 weeks. That is not the case now. Going gamble free means no gambling, which also means that there is not the occasional offset to your losses, the occasional win which softens the blow of losing the last month. The odd substantial 'win' in the past also enabled me to disguise my losses, enabling me to carry on undetected.

It was certainly bad timing. Without the loss of income from gambling and with my job steady, my newfound sobriety would have meant that we recovered quite well financially, from my addiction. But I was hit with that blow just weeks into my recovery and that made me crawl on my belly for the last two years, but I kept moving forward. I kept strong and I remained a non gambler. Not having enough money to live on was easier to accept when you were gambling but when you had stopped for two years, and were still suffering, still not having enough to cover bills, still having to worry about the banks and say no to your kids, then that is not an easy pill to swallow. 

I learnt to look at the positives of not gambling which have absolutely nothing to do with money. In essence, I was worse off financially, week to week than when I was gambling. So I began to see my gamble free life differently. I learnt to be mindful and to focused on the present. I learnt the art of contentment. I have nothing, but I have everything. I was never really gambling for money, but burying my suffering in a machine. The money I won helped me to do that even more, to spend more time numbing my senses. I had deep depression and would not acknowledge it or get help. I also had an undiagnosed medical condition which meant that I was not getting enough hormones. No wonder I felt dreadful. My body was shutting down. My mental state was at an all time low and gambling was just a place to go to forget.

There is a peace that comes with not gambling and it is beautiful. I can at least now share my struggles with my family and they can support me. We face our challenges together, but the responsibility and the burden still falls to me. That is how it should be. I put it there.

I work many hours a day but a lot of it just covers food and health care. I have overdrafts, loans and credit cards still to pay and they trickle down slowly. Still, they are going down. Interest rates have always kicked me when I am down. I struggle to pay hundreds a month and they put hundreds back on in interest. 

Do I feel punished? Do I deserve better? No, I don't think so. I think this is what I need, to work hard, pay down my debt and slowly cement my future as a non gambler. I built this debt up over decades, why should I expect it to just disappear?

What troubles me most?

I still think about gambling, not every day, but most days. Do I still want to bet? If I am honest, yes, in a way.

I am, after all, still an addict. I am just not driven to bet any more. There is no compulsion, but gambling remains gentle on my mind. I know that the second I bet again, the addiction will take control of me. I don't just stop being an addict, but I certainly can stop gambling. I just don't feed the addiction. I have my new found mindset and I understand the trap and what led me to gamble. But addiction is not about willpower or intelligence. If it were, I would have gotten out years ago. We all would. I am not stupid to think that I am ever safe from this addiction and must remain vigilant at all times. The beast sleeps. Waits for a moment of weakness.....

I am still an addict inside. My job every day now is just to keep a lid on it.

697 days GF

Hey,

You're doing very well! Keep the clear head, peaceful heart and soul intact.We all will get through this difficult time.For now we need to aknowledge every little mercy out there...eg. no gambling incidents...That is really positive.Stay safe, committed and be kind to you

S.......xx

Thank you SB28. I appreciate your kind words.

What a ride lately? My first real blip in nearly 2 years. I suppose these are really testing times. I have not gambled but I am literally wrestling with urges that are taunting the heck out of me. Yesterday was bad. Really bad. I was in tears. Complete inner turmoil.

The lockdown is playing havoc with my focus and my recovery because it is removing my ability to better my financial situation. I need to feel proactive. It's how I cope. Work is really slow.  My family would not have even felt this lockdown if I had not removed our financial security in the past. Now, they are suffering again because of my actions and I have tried so hard to make amends for things.

Debt has always been a huge issue for me, that and the feeling of being punished and not seeing 'enough' benefit for giving up. I am being treated for depression, anxiety and panic attacks and also some physical health issues including heart rhythm and thyroid disease. My medication needs changing but I can't do it myself and I am not allowed to get a blood test right now. Energy is low and when my meds are off, my head goes with it because I literally don't have enough hormones in my cells to be able to function. 

I am a fighter. I can handle this but it wears me down and steals my energy. I have found myself in my head a lot lately because I miss my escapism out to the countryside, walks amongst the trees and nature. It calms me and that is where I am my true self. I literally come to life outdoors. I am happy and I am me. But with the lockdown, it is too far to walk to the places I need to be and I don't want to just walk around the block. I need to get away, so I literally have myself cooped up in the house for weeks, only going out once a week to the shop. I can't escape onto my own back garden because we have issues with our neighbours, so avoid coming into contact. For years, I've wanted to get away from here, that's where a lot of my gambling came in. All I did was make sure I was stuck here for ever. Smart move.

I write fiction and use music to lift my spirits. I play guitar and sing and have been working a lot lately at bettering myself. But despite this, my head can be such a horrible place to be. I not only feel like a prisoner in my own home right now but also a prisoner in my own head. Thank God for my amazing family who can help me through this. I did the right thing and was honest about my urges lately. They are very supportive and have made plans to help me focus on nice things that we can together as a family. I played down how bad I am really feeling but I did tell them that I am feeling a bit down and having thoughts to bet because I know I need their support and their watchful eye. In the past, not telling them about urges has left me with them for days until I finally caved in and bet. Just telling them about it has helped to lesson the feelings somewhat.

What scares me the most is self destructing.....I am one tough cookie but when I fold, I do it spectacularly. I tend to take so much pressure for so long, then just implode. I have patches where I hate on myself and right now, the guilt is back, the weariness is back and the depression once again has taken hold.

I have not bet for nearly 2 years and every day, I still receive a text from the bank to tell me that there is not enough money in my account to make payments today. I am always playing catch up, always still behind. Always struggling. Even now, after everything I have done, I am still back pedalling all the way. Still, I carry on. I fight. I smile. But I am human and I am tired.

I don't want to gamble, but I sometimes just want that release. I have always seen gambling as escapism, and also a way to justify my own self loathing. If I feel bad about myself, then gambling justifies the way I already feel. When I lose money and gamble, then at least I can say I hate myself because of gambling, instead of just generally thinking that I don't deserve to breathe.

I will pull through this. This is tough for everyone right now. I have done exceptionally well for the best part of two years without a bet and I will stay strong. I know exactly what I should be doing, but sometimes, the pressure of always 'keeping face' takes its toll on me.

The truth is, everyone expects me to be okay now. I'm not gambling any more,  so they don't understand that I am still the same damaged person underneath. I know I need to fix that. I have been working so hard at addressing my issues, all the things that lead me to gamble and that's why I don't gamble any more, because I can see that my way of thinking is flawed. But I still feel these things, and it hurts sometimes. I still have all the same problems that I had before, (plus all the problems that gambling made on top) I just don't act out any more. In many ways, I'm still carrying them around. This needs to change. I feel in many ways that I have focused on not gambling but I need to work on fixing me. That will now become my focus. I have made progress but more is needed. I guess what I have struggled with is the fact that I've never really got a break. I have never had it easy enough to start focusing on me. It's always been a struggle, just paying the bills, making enough money to get by and trying to keep all our heads above water. It's hard to focus on yourself when you have 3 other lives that must come first. 

I am really trying to work hard on myself and it really does help. I know my flaws and my weaknesses and I am also appreciative of my strengths. I am learning to be kind to myself. But sometimes, it's still all against you, no matter how hard you try and that's what really gets me down. I have less money now than when I was betting myself into oblivion, I have similar amount of debt, even though I've paid off thousands, (due to interest and having my income and hours cut) and I was diagnosed with health issues just before the lockdown and left without any answers or advice on what to do and a massive wait for appointments. I really need to see the GP because my depression gets bad because I have thyroid disease and my brain literally cannot function and screams with tiredness and fatigue. I have been told that I need to wait. That's perfectly understandable. But in the meantime, I feel vulnerable and will need to be on guard and extra vigilant.

Giving up gambling did not solve my problems because gambling was not the problem. I was the problem. Blaming gambling is not really the answer. I can lock down all forms of gambling but that won't help me move forward as a person. It won't solve the real issues that led me to seek out gambling in the first place. I was just what the industry is looking for and I gambled to extinction. I had to reach rock bottom before I could let it go. Even then, I was thinking to myself that at least now there's only one way to go from here. It's like I needed my back against the wall before I could move in any other direction.

I know that I was susceptible to gambling because of my flawed way of thinking, my negativity, my depression, ocd, anxiety, social anxiety, inability to process my emotions....the list goes on. I have got to the stage where I can accept these feelings more and not fight them. I work on ways to resolve my issues. I practice Mindfulness and meditation. I don't punish myself for feeling bad. I can work my way out of a mood often but some times it persists for days and it is hard because I can talk about the mood, but I won't let them see it. I tell my family that I am feeling low, then laugh with them and play a game. It's weird, it's just how I deal with it. I never want to bring anybody down and even when I lost thousands, I would always smile and carry on just like normal. I don't want them to see me with my head in my hands. I am their mother.

I think though, over time, this 'mask' gets hard to wear and for the last few days, I have spent more time alone upstairs and in my head because it is not always easy to hide the way I feel inside. 

Kindness and strength to us all.

717 days and counting.....

I worked out my outgoings in relation to my income today and it is at 92%. That might sound difficult to manage but I have actually worked really hard to get it down to the point where I have more coming in than going out. Back in January last year, I had about £200 going out each month more than I had coming in. That caused panic attacks and severe palpitations every day and put me in the back of an ambulance. I do feel angry that we were dealt the blow of having our income cut right when I decided to get my act together to the point where me not gambling isn't reflecting in the bank at all. Now, with this lockdown, it's unlikely to get better any time soon.

We lost nearly half of our income within months of giving up gambling and it didn't make things any easier. As I say, we now have less income coming in and see even less at the end of the month than when I was blowing it away. That doesn't seem fair, but life is not very fair sometimes. You just have to keep focused and that's what I try to do every day. I also have two kids who have life long illnesses and their care was stopped so I now receive nothing for them either which is hard because that income really helped to pay for their needs and softened the blow of me having my hours cut. 

After a year of hard work, my budget finally balances but it is still an uphill struggle. I just about have enough now each month to get by on, however the pay dates don't match when bills come out so I nearly always have a deficit in the bank and I owe paypal money to meet this deficit until pay comes around again. I worry that things will get worse if work doesn't pick up again. I have worked too hard to have this all undone again and mentally, it is a strain on us all.

I'm doing the best I can. I just keep swimming. That's all I can do. I've had headaches now off and on for nearly 3 months. I'd like for things to get better a lot more than they did in reality. Do I feel punished? Yes, somewhat. Do I deserve it? Yes, probably. You don't leave the problems behind when you stop gambling. Many times, they stay with you and worse, they stay ahead of you. My gambling is in the past for good, but my problems still feature in my present and in my future and prevent me from ever truly forgetting about my mistakes.

Do yourself a favour and STOP gambling right now. 

809 days gamble free. Back on form again. Feeling okay. Fighting strong. Getting on with life and looking forwards, not backwards. Learning to appreciate life again, even the difficult things. Gambling is a form of self harm and something we can all live without. When you gamble, you lose more than just money. You can lose yourself and all those around you. Still putting my life back together but grateful for the chance to make a change. The 'FUN' in gambling really stands for Feeling Utterly Numb. That's how I would describe the last few years of my addiction. Not even pain anymore, just dead inside. I was capable of true destruction on a scale that now seems unfathomable. Massive stakes considering the income I was on. £1500 spins??? I cannot even contemplate those kind of figures now. I don't seem capable of it. I can feel how much I have changed and my attitude towards money has shifted so much. Still, all blocks will remain in place forever as a recovering gambling addict still has the word 'addict' in it. That is what still lies inside of me and I know that all too well. I will not feed the beast and hope that it will lie dormant and not bother me with its demands to be fed. 

Towards the height of my addiction, I reached the point of true self destruction. I was risking everything and I didn't even think beyond the next spin. That's when you know you have to stop. I think I wanted it to end. I wanted to make it stop, however that might come about. I think I thought that by gambling myself into oblivion that somehow it would force me to quit. It never did. Not until Gamstop came along. Gamstop gave me the chance to be free again, the freedom to think for myself and put distance between myself and my last bet. It gave me the time I needed to start healing and I am grateful for that.

I hope one day that I will be able to feel normal again. I am working on it but still a work in progress. I am damaged still, but I am proud of what I have achieved. Ashamed, however, that it all happened in the first place.  But peace comes from moving on and accepting my mistakes for what they were. I can carry them around with me forever, but what good will that do me or my family? At some point, I have to start living for the future and look at where I am headed, not at where I have been. That's the next big step for me. It's not enough just to leave gambling behind. You have to find a new path for yourself. You have to take your life in another direction and fill your time with positive, creative and constructive things. For 20 years, I was a gambler. For many of those years, that's all I was. Gambling was at the centre of my universe and it became all I was about. When I gave up gambling, I didn't know who I was without it. I had to force myself to do the things I used to enjoy. I had to look for things to do with my time. Nothing came naturally. Gambling for 2 decades left me empty and numb and distanced from everything that I used to be. Gambling changes you and makes you lean on it. It makes you need it. I always had gambling on my mind. I dreamt about it. I spent my time thinking about wins and what I was going to bet on next. When I couldn't gamble, I thought about it. Always. I begrudged doing things with the family or answering calls when I wanted to bet. I obsessed over getting losses back and changed sites constantly thinking I could get some luck on new sites. I had over 70 betting accounts and one obliterated bank account. Giving up gambling doesn't solve all your problems but it makes it far easier to deal with them. I have had to spend a lot of time rebuilding my life, working through the problems that lead me to gamble in the first place as well as all the problems that gambling created for me.

I put gambling in my own way to stop me from having to deal with life. I buried myself in a machine and it buried me in return. Now, 809 days without a bet, I feel stronger than ever before and have faith that I can remain a non gambler and live life to the full. I can wake up and face the day, face my challenges and my problems and deal with life head on.  Strength to all who have the courage to fight this addiction.

P atience

E mpathy

A cceptance

C ompassion

E quality

Hi lostandfound.well done for so long gamble free very inspirational and very hard fought for ! When you have said how destructive your gambling was you must have been in a terrible place I know how bad I felt losing 3k in 3days but yours was on a whole different scale. Like you I've come to terms with that abstaining from gambling has to be for life and it's about finding other ways to deal with problems and fill the gaps . I've actually gambled for 20 years for the most of that time fairly controlled my son is 15 now and I was all consumed with being a mum. But obviously my little boy became a teenager and we are still very close but obviously our relationship has changed a lot (as it should of course) . I came across a big gaping hope in myself and I turned to gambling . My husband found out early one Friday morning now 53 days ago and I won't go into it all but now with help to be gamble free I'm starting to feel stronger better more stable and it's wonderful not lying anymore no more secrets......I post on here every day and read a lot. Coming across your post gives me hope you worked your way out of a terrible deep pit I can do this too I've made a very good start. My hope for you is that you achieve what you couldn't do before because of the demon of gambling. Keep going best wishes . And yes for me too gamstop has been the gamechanger 

Thank you for saying that. Well done yourself. 53 days is a huge achievement. You must be so proud, especially after gambling for so long, just like me. It is not easy to leave this life behind, even though we hate it,  and we hate the cycle, we are drawn to it and cling to it like it is going to save us. Clinging to gambling for me was like clinging to a rock to stay afloat. I did this for years, telling myself that gambling was the only thing that picked me up, that it was the only thing that made me feel okay when in reality, it was draining my life like a parasite and fuelling massive depression and self harm. I needed to learn the hard way. I think I needed to reach rock bottom so that there would only be one way left to go. I needed my back against the wall. Every time I saw an opening or an opportunity, I would gamble. At the height of my addiction, I was afraid of what I had become and of what I was capable of. My home had gone from being a safe place to a place of torment and regret. So much pain and so many bad memories have etched themselves into these walls. Lockdown was very difficult for me as I always feel good when I go out into nature and this escapism was taken from me for many months. It was the only real time that I actively sought out places to bet with but luckily Gamstop stepped in to help me and save me from myself. I couldn't find anywhere that would let me bet so in the end, I gave up and got busy doing other things until it passed. This lasted for a few weeks and it was absolute hell there for a while, but now I am feeling much better and glad that I remained a non gambler. I don't beat myself up about trying to bet so much because I have to accept that it is normal to still feel drawn to gambling, even after a long time. The difference was that there was no impulse to bet this time, and I could feel that I wasn't really trying all that hard, just curious again, I think. It's important to remember that urges can't hurt you. It is normal to feel urges and you will no doubt feel them too. Just accept that you are feeling the urge, that it is okay to feel that way and just go do something else. You can't undo all that brain training quickly and it takes a long time to rewire the brain. If you remember that the true definition of addiction is the compulsion to continue doing something detrimental, despite the consequences, then it is obvious that no amount of learning or life experiences can really make you stop gambling. That's one thing that gamblers always beat themselves up for.....How could I be so stupid as to do this again? Why don't I ever learn? Urges are all about satisfying the urge in the moment, right there and then.  There is no thought about past experience or weighing up of the situation. It is just the brain firing, not the conscious mind so there is no rational thought. That's why it is important not to act on urges as they are brought on by impulses not by true memories and experience. They work a bit like this.....you are upset about something, your brain remembers incorrectly that you feel better when you are gambling and sends you the urge to go gamble. The message the brain sends out is false because it is not you who feels good while gambling, but the greedy brain looking for a dopamine hit. You can be losing thousands and dying of anxiety and depression while you brain is soaking up dopamine with every losing spin. This is because your brain still gets dopamine even when you are losing because it is not the winning that keeps you hooked, but the anticipation of winning. That is what the brain is really addicted to and that is why you can't stop gambling even when you are down thousands. All those previous losing spins or whatever don't count......but the next one does! That's why that deposit button lights up the second you are out of funds because they want you to deposit fresh off the back of a loss before you have the chance to think about what you are doing. 

Rebuilding is hard but it is incredibly rewarding and my family are doing it with me which is wonderful. As you say, no more lies, just support and honesty. I remember tremendous relief when I told my partner. The lies kept the gambling going. It kept me locked in to the cycle of trying to win back losses and covering my tracks. You couldn't turn off paper statements back then, so I was terrified of my partner getting to our joint bank account statements before me. He would kiss me goodnight and fall asleep and I would lie there, heart pounding, feeling sick at what I had done earlier that day and wondering how on earth I would get it back.

Of course, I would often eventually get out of bed and throw more losses at the machine. I just couldn't handle the loss. Even a small one. 

It wasn't even about the money, it was just the mentality. I didn't gamble for money but for distraction and to ease my mind. I had mental health issues, (still do) and diagnosed health issues that caused me depression and anxiety which I am now being treated for. For some reason, I saw fit to cut myself off from all my support and turn to gambling which did nothing but isolate me even further. Then my two children got diagnosed with lifelong conditions a month apart from each other and that just finished me off. I already had gambling in my life, although I was using it just for fun at the start, and betting with my partner, but then my gambling changed. I started betting alone and my bets grew big.

Time heals all as they say, but it can be slow. But progress is still progress. You can't do that much damage for 20 years and expect life to just return to normal when you quit. But it is so worth fighting for. Easily the best thing I ever did for myself and with the support of my family, even my children know, it is a huge help. They are now teens and my daughter is 19 and the biggest challenge I have faced is coming to terms with the time I have thrown away with them. Money is one thing, but it can be managed or replaced. But time is lost and can never be brought back. Still, we all have to accept our mistakes and start looking forward to a future of not gambling. If we carry on dwelling on our mistakes then we may as well still be making them as we are preventing ourselves from moving on and our families will still miss out on the person that we are. As a mum, it feels like I seriously messed up because I am supposed to be their inspiration and instead, I destroyed their security. 

However, I am human and I have to remember that I did not mean any harm by my actions. I also suffered greatly for my own actions and need to know that I can put this baggage down now and move on. I can make this up to my family not by getting the money back but by getting myself back. It is their mum they want back and my partner wants his partner back. That's what is important after all. 

Getting ourselves back is the best gift we can give ourselves and our families. Now that I have learnt that, I feel that I can finally accept my mistakes and focus on the present and on what the future holds.

Sincere thanks for contributing to my diary. It means a lot and very best wishes to you and your family moving forward. 

We can be the person we were meant to be, not the person we were. We are all human. It's not about the mistakes we make in life but what we do about them. I have spent the last two years or more, making amends for my mistakes by keeping my promise to remain a non gambler. That's all they ask of me and that is what I intend to do. 

Stay strong and take it just one day at a time. Get up. Smile. Plan nice things to do. Eat well, exercise if you can. Fill your life with wonderful things to see and do. Value your experiences. Be proud of your achievements and be gentle on your shortcomings. We all have them. Celebrate little victories and appreciate all the small things that in reality are the big things that really matter the most. 

You are not giving up something fun and exciting. You are getting rid of something that is harming you. You are better and stronger without gambling. You have done something wonderful by leaving gambling behind and are now free to be who you really are so go get that person back!

x

848 days without a bet. 

Ah, so I visit the diary once again, but not to quote a big number this time. Just day 3 gamble free. I have been battling with depression, crawling some days, literally. I have been ill and under the doctor, in and out of hospital appointments for the last 18 months....I have struggled with the debt still hanging around despite working so hard. My daughter is moving out next week and it has hit me that I never succeeded in moving house and getting her her own room. We can't afford to move out anywhere bigger and only have 2 bedrooms and two teenagers, one a boy 16 and a girl 19. We have been sleeping on a sofa bed in our living room for the last couple of years to give them a room each for privacy. It is so hard. Most nights I don't sleep. I feel like a failure. I will do anything for them. They are my world. I stopped gambling for them but I allowed thoughts of a quick fix to fill my mind with notions of making things right. I know this is not the way. I guess I just had to prove that to myself once again.

I have had a headache since January. I have also developed nerve damage and neck pain that they think is connected to sleeping like this all the time. I am getting my spine checked out for nerve damage and MRI along with endoscopy because of stomach pain. Nothing gets resolved. That's the issue. There's just more added all the time and I feel strangled and frustrated because for 860 something days, I have done nothing wrong and still been punished for everything. It doesn't let up. 

It has bothered me immensely that my daughter is moving out without me getting that peace and closure that would come from succeeding in getting us a better place to live. I am tormented by this daily.

That and the debt that ties me to my mistakes and triples the amount I lost with interest.

I work long hours and on my own too. I have a lot of time to be in my own head. I have pondered over the idea of betting for weeks now. Playing free play to see how things would pan out if I were doing it for real. Stupid, I know. But I have struggled more than I can put into words really. I also began the self harm again and the GP is helping with this.

There was no impulse to bet. It was planned strategically. I opened an account and let it sit there for a few days while I thought some more.  I tried to find other solutions, asked the bank for a loan with a decent rate but got turned down. It seems the bad news was really stacking up and I felt like it was all on top of me. I felt like I was being steered in the direction of gambling again.

The damage was minimal. That's not the point. I gambled again and I feel so disappointed about that. The stupid idea was to get some money and get out. (yeah I know) Well I got plenty of money, but I didn't get out. I am an addict and I guess I forgot that part. I couldn't walk away with whatever I got. I realise it was never about the money. It was about self destructing. I hit the red button again. 

I have been struggling with the idea of missed opportunity. Like most gamblers when you throw your winnings away like that. I have spent the last few days working through what happened and it is perfectly clear to me that I was never going to take anything from them except another valuable lesson.

You see, it wouldn't matter if I still had several grand in my balance today. I'm still not going to see any of it and now I realise that. Even if I withdrew it, it is not mine. It is marked. Be it, today, tomorrow or some time in the future, it all goes back again. Money is tied to gambling and always finds its way back to gambling and this brings me peace because I can stop tormenting myself over 'missed opportunity' and realise that the only opportunity I missed was the chance to say NO to gambling.

I guess I feel like people assume you are alright when you get your GF days up to what I had. There aren't too many people stepping in to say well done, they assume you have got it sorted I suppose. I feel like I just have to get on with it. It's like I don't gamble now, so I must be okay, but that's not true. Gambling addiction is not like other addictions, there's no weaning you off, no patches or anything like that. It's just cold turkey. Stop and get on with it, and I feel like there's a whole heap more judgement out there for gambling addicts that other areas don't get. None of that helps with recovery. Plus, I don't think there is any other illness out there that leaves such devastation in its wake. You have all that to deal with when you find the strength to finally quit gambling. One of the biggest challenges I faced was that quitting gambling was not going to make all that go away. The so called 'party' is over but the clean up is still going on. If you are a drug addict or an alcoholic, then your health can improve once you stop using, but for a gambling addict, the financial implications stay with you and your health and well being is intrinsically tied to your debt and your struggles even while you are gamble free. That is the number one issue that I face. Where is the plus side of not gambling if the results are still the same? Mentally, I am still under huge pressure and my health is failing because of it. This last relapse did not damage me financially but it has unsettled me and confused me. 

 Nothing comes easy. So many hurdles. My physical and mental well being is one of the biggest challenges I face and the fact that my financial situation is worse now than at the height of my gambling due to reduced income. So I suppose I felt sorry for myself. I am done with that now. 

Time will bring clarity. I just wanted to put this down in my diary because I feel it is important for everyone to be reminded that days, although important, do not mean you are safe from gambling. It does not matter how far you are from your last bet but how close you are to your next bet.

I read a quote that meant a lot to me.

'Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.'

Thankful for another lesson. 

Peace to you all.

I'm sorry to have to read about your situation. I too have gone two years plus with a relapse, twice actually, so I feel your pain.

Is there anyway of getting your debts and interest frozen or a reduced repayment plan so that you can enjoy the fruits of not gambling?

I had great success previously with getting payday loan interest repaid to me as well as having small debt repayments for various debts. If you need help with that please let me know.

Chris.

Chris, thank you for your reply. I am sorry I did not respond sooner. I have been picking myself up since my relapse and feel much better now. I have come to terms with what happened and drawn a line.

Thank you for your advice regarding the debt. I have looked into many aspects of getting debt relief but I always come unstuck because I went all out with my gambling and was in a very bad and misguided place many years ago. I was not entirely honest with my creditors on my applications so they lent me far more than they really should have, had I been honest with them. 

I also bet with my poor partner's accounts and have been advised that going down the route of claiming back interest or anything like that would open me up to things like fraud. So it seems I am stuck with it all. I am just trying to keep up with payments and improve my credit score so that I can qualify for balance transfers which will help me pay less interest.

I am stunned when I think about the extent of the lies that ended me up in this situation. This disease is purely shocking. I just was not thinking at all. It seems I wasn't even aware of the implications of what I was doing.

Strangely, I am still okay. I remain an incredibly positive person, despite everything. I think as gamblers, we learn to cope so well, to our own detriment really. We can really take far too much and push the pain barriers right out the window. If I am grateful for one thing, it is that. I am strong now, galvanised almost. I am changed because of my gambling and because of that, I wouldn't change my past. It has destroyed a huge part of me but it has left in its place, a new more resilient part.

What I can say is that the best thing about suffering this addiction is the understanding and compassion that you can then share with others. I will always be grateful for that.

As they say, never look down on others unless you are helping them up. 🙂

Sorry to hear of your situation and I hope you feel better for getting the words  out on in the diary.

I’m not going to offer advice but will say you shouldn’t feel a failure for not achieving your goal of moving house and enabling you all to have a room.I’m sure your family love you all the same and you have the years ahead to be able to do something for them that will give you satisfaction and make you feel proud.

Good luck with everything and thanks for the post as you’ve a lot of wisdom to share.

Hey, thanks so much for saying that. You really made me think. I spend so much time looking back with regret and don't look forward anyway near enough.

You are right. There are things I can do in the future. It isn't all over. I suppose I am guilty of focusing on all the things I did wrong in the past, not all the things that I could do right in the future. I had written myself off lately and the discontentment and regret led to yet more gambling.

Another valuable lesson learned with your help. Spend more time looking ahead and less time looking back. 

After all, that's not the direction we are going.

Thank you for that little morale boost. Means a lot.