My diaries + what´s next ?

Thankyou for sharing your stories this reminds me of my younger self even at school I remember getting so in to 10 P up  and was gutted if I lost and the bell had gone so couldnt carry on playing it's mental how you could tell so early on but not stop it thanks again 

100 % the feeling after loosing a deposit is wrenching. Although winning triple your deposit, than setting a bottom line and losing it all anyway, you just feel like the biggest piece of garbage that made a breakthrough in the garbage science but it proceeded to throw itself into the bin.

But on the bright sight hopefully I won´t experience it again... please

Hope you get yourself freed Tommy, rooting for you

I am on 9 days right now, to be honest feels way longer than that.  Had some annoying thoughts/urges yesterday. Hoping to see  day 14 and than maybee 30.

Day 19. Keeping myself busy, urges are a little weaker. Reading all of your stories helps me keep things in perspective, thank you. To be honest reading the stories of loved ones and their families affected by their partners gambling addiction breaks my heart, all the unnecessary pain for all the parties involved... it also scares me because i know it can easily happen to me too, never intended to hurt anyone. 

Stay strong, you can do it.

30 days let´s goo. Feels good to not have constant thoughts and worries about gambling. 

Hope you have an awesome rest of the day.

60 days, feels great... all of the anxiety from gambling, after gambling and from failing to stop is gone, i just feel lighter. Reading your stories almost daily and not watching gambling content or anything related to gambling has helped a lot. As well as going crazy in the gym and focusing on work. Also I might even be ready for a relationship again, I didn´t want to bring someone into my mess before fulling grasping it, maybe I need a little more time, I will see how I feel at day 90.

@mark7 

Hi

It is nice to be free from the anxiety during and fears after the unhealthy gambling.

For me I understood that my healing was important before new relationships or to finish relationships.

It was not healthy because high levels of my pains and my fears made my thinking still unstable. 

Yes maybe every one need a little more time to heal.

That is healthy progress getting 90 days of clean under your belt.

It is great making healthy choices.

Dave L

Hi

I am a non religious person and have found a very healthy recovery and healing being in the recovery program.

I questioned could I find and have for myself a healthy recovery been non religious, the answer is yes.

Being in the recovery program Learned that by talking about being in actions was not healthy for my recovery, talking about money lost did not help me heal, living in the pains was not the answer for me either.

The text in the recovery program helped get the ball rolling.

The biggest impact for me was therapies and finding resolve and start to understand myself and how emotionally vulnerable I was.

Sticking in the recovery program with healthy peoples therapies helped me see and feel myself in other people, both the healthy and unhealthy.

I being so emotionally vulnerable I was not able to articulate what my feelings and emotions were or how to deal with very testing events in my life.

One time I was going to see my unhealthy father in Canada, A persona sked me if I had heard the lyrics in the living years, I said yes, have you listened to the lyrics being relaxed and focused.

I went in to a record store in Calgary and sat and listened to the lyrics and I started to cry.

Whose pain was I feeling, how much pain was deeply hidden in my subconscious. 

On the same visit I was able to set a boundary with my father, I was so scared, I explained if he was unhealthy with me again I would see him any more.

That was not the adult talking or setting the boundary, that was the hurt child coming out with less fear than any other time in his life.

My dad did not know how unhealthy he was, he did know he had a conscience and did not like hurting other people.

Some people will exchange to another addiction or obsession being unhealthy and still living in their fears.

By attending meetings we reduce self abuse. Being emotionally vulnerable. I did not live a healthy life. Recovery helped heal. Understand my emotional triggers, become healthy, reduce fears and become self sufficient.

From my early child hood the pains and trauma were so great that I would avoid escape and not be able to live my life with out my fears.

Later on my life the pains use to be so great that I use to lash out in my anger, so anger was my pains fears and my frustrations that I did not know how to deal with in a healthy way.

I went to a convention in America and later went to a second one in Henderson, while I was staying in a hotel I Met a troubled men in the early hours of the morning.

We chatted for some time about lots of things, I was saying good bye to this man and said you know what I am going to do today, I said please tell.

He told me that he was going to tell his son that he loved him.

For me that is recovery program working when you least expect it.

That man to me had become a very healthy powerful father and his life was going to change.

The most important things in my life today is my healthy relationships and time.

I knew in myself that I had wasted far to much of my life my time and relationships and did not know how much I was missing.

Yet it took me over 20 years to get healthy.

it took me over 20 years to get healthy habits in my life.

it took me over 20 years to give up smoking and getting drunk.

The recovery program was never going to stop me gambling, that had to be my own choice.

The recovery program was never going to stop me from living in pain and fear.

How committed am I to being the healthiest person I can be today.

In measuring my unhealthy habits my anger is in single numbers, my fear is in single numbers, my frustrations is in single numbers, my loneliness is in single numbers, my boredom is in single numbers, my motive is in 4 - 5 numbers, how much more I can do today is all up to me.

Love and peace to every one.

Dave L

AKA Dave Of Beckenham UK

Day 91, feels no different from day 60. A little harder to manage weird urges to just gamble a little to pass some boredom or uneasiness, but to be honest i feel appalled even nauseaus at the thought of gambling again, like even my body tells me not to do it. I feel like my brain is forgetting all the negative memories and is trying to keep only the positives about gambling which is an amazing thing for everything else in life other than addiction, I wish to only remember the terrible things that came with gambling...

Hi

Good for you day 91.

Just because we are abstaining triggers and boredom feeling uncomfortable will reduce once we do more healthy things.

I now know that being idle was very unhealthy for me.

I do not think about ever gambling again, I just stay focused on the simple step, Just for today I will not gamble.

I will deal with tomorrow when I get there.

During our self destructive days being unhealthy would not cope with the feelings and emotions we were going through.

In recovery and during therapies that is when my feelings emotions pains fears and frustrations come out.

For me my pains and trauma comes out when I am ready to face the past.

In staying focused on healthy habits I am moving forward.

Nothing healthy is achieved by us living in guilt shame or remorse.

Learn from the past do not live in it.

Love and peace to every one

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham UK

Hi 

Once I was abale to abstain it was important to get motivated in healthy ways.

To write down my needs my wants and my goals.

To each day have plans my day planned out.

Also to undrstand if things do not work out to have a plan B.

I am at the moment repairing our front porch, I have not done this work before in my life.

To have a plan and understand the sequences of doing such a job.

At one time in my life I would have not even thought about doing it or other things.

Sadly I felt such a failure and was frozen by my fears.

I do not plan my life around a telvision program, I will record it and watch when I want to relax.

Television was a way of me escaping when I could not cope with life and peope.

The most important things in my life today is relationships and time.

I use to waste so much of my life and did not see there was so much more I could do once I set my mind to it.

By my healthy actions and my healthy words I am a succesful person today.

Having money did not mean I was a successful person.

I use to be such aloner and wasted time and relationships.

How much more can I achieve with my life today.

The last thing I want to do today is gamble, gambling is self destruction to me.

Love and peacer to every one.

Dave L

AKADave Of Beckenham UK 

Day 130, I am overwhelmed with work and thoughts but atleast they are not gambling related. I am feeling free although feeling anxious every time I read your stories and realize that i can be in a way worse position, which can still happen, I can ruin my family, relationships, my mental and waste my life potential.  Maybe the respect is what I needed to help me stop. I was always super egoed up, not respecting the power of this addiction, feeling like I have it under control, until I didn't and caught myself not only lying to people close to me but also to myself. I couldn't trust my own brain, is what ultimately led to my realisation. And no the lies didn't happen once or twice, I lied to myself multiple years and look back at it with disgust. I am weak, my obsessive side i can not control. I have to be extremely careful what I decide to invest my time into. One bad decision and I am so out of control, it's crazy.

Take care everybody.

Hi

That is very healthy being 130 gambling free.

I found that being obsessive was not being healthy.

So that is when balance became a way of living for me.

For me feeling anxious was very much fear based, over time I learned to face my fears and reduce them.

It was an important part of my recovery to learn to respect myself.

Yet learning to love myself was much harder.

I found reducing my ego was important yet seeing myself as an equal seemed hard for some time.

That sounds like a conflict.

In becoming more aware was healthy for me, understanding my unhealthy reactions was helpful.

I lied to myself even before I was an adult.

I look back at my past not with disgust but sadness.

How could it take me so long to learn that I was an unhealthy person who could not heal from the pains of my past.

For me weakness was not a correct or healthy word.

I started to understand that I was emotionally vulnerable.

Because of the pains in my life, I was already a survivor, not weak at all.

For me investing my time into healthy activities was important and no longer be obsessive in the things I do.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

Day 171, feeling hopeful. Even tho I had many opportunities and was right next to gambling i was able to obstain and even felt disgust from looking at it. But it still feels as skating on thin ice. Thoughts like "Just a little bit to relax" or "It wont hurt you" kept entering my head, luckily i caught myself and was able to push them away. Lots of pressure on me lately and it comes so natural to escape into the gambling world and because there are almost no other ways for me to have a quick escape.. no drinking no smoking no drugs, I guess I just have to push through and it gets easier. And it does, I feel my brain is slowly healing its torn paths of dopamine release, I f**d my brain up a lot tho, might take much longer.

Take care!