Day one is fully underway and definitely feeling some mixed emotions. Didn't sleep a wink last night. That used to be a common occurrence for me when my gambling first started to spiral out of control around this time last year and it isn't something I can be dealing with again.
So felt pretty miserable all night, felt the same at 7am when I finally gave up on sleep and pulled a sickie at work. It's strange how being a compulsive gambler effects literally every single aspect of your day to day life. Work is another thing that has suffered over the year and it's about time I really got back on top of it and started to push my career forwards.
Had a small victory this afternoon. To cut a long story short, the one site that was still available for me to play at hadn't honored my previous self exclusion. I thought I may as well try and argue that I should have my deposits refunded and the Manager I poke with on live chat was possibly the most pompous, arrogant and unprofessional prick I have ever come across in my life. So I sent an email to the actual license holder directly stating my complaints and received an extremely apologetic phone call from a lady from the license holder who was very unimpressed with the casino when I presented the evidence to her and promptly processed the money back to my account, assuring me that they were taking this matter very seriously and the representatives involved would be strongly reprimanded (Fuck you David you smarmy Git!)
Phew, now I have that out my system, it's time to focus on how I am moving on from this blip, and more importantly how I am going to break the news to the missus. I have some plans to put in place that I didn't have before to prevent this from happening again. Really thought I had reached my rock bottom a month ago and turns out I wasn't as on it as I thought. You really can't afford to get complacent in fighting this, it really requires full hands on deck at all times. Kinda a scary thought. Do we have to battle every day against this for the rest of our lives?
I have been questioning the wisdom of getting obsessed with the number of days we stay GF for. It seems to knock you back really hard when you fail and almost makes the relapses worse. Kinda difficult not to think about it though, it does give you some measure of progress which I think we are all dying for.
Main focus now is just to not fuck up Christmas like I did last year. Just want a nice day without having the guilt of gambling between now and then hanging over me and to have a few quid in my pocket to get something for those I love to show them how much I appreciate them supporting me through all my shit when I wouldn't blame them one little bit for telling me i'm on my own with this one.
Onwards and upwards!
Thursday 7 December 2017
Wednesday 6 December 2017
Back to day one
Yep, as the title says, I have spectacularly failed. After 30 days of staying strong, being gamble free and feeling good, I've been sucked in once again. The blocks I thought I had in place didn't work and that feeling of hopelessness has once again reared its ugly head.
So I've done what I need to. The missus is away tonight, gonna have to tell her tomorrow and hope that we're able to stick together. I really think she'd be better off without me at this point, but I'm gonna do everything I can do to make it better again.
I feel I have learnt something about my triggers though. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had an argument with my girlfriend at the weekend. We have a great relationship and have only ever argued about the fact I'm pretty crappy at helping out around the house (hands up I don't do enough) and that's what this argument was basically about. But it was different this time. She was angrier, more aggressive than she has been with me before. I picked up on the resentment she has towards me because of the secrecy and the debt I have gotten myself into, and to be honest I don't blame her at all. But it reminded me of my previous relationship, which was a bad time in my life and was around the time I started gambling and first experienced gambling at levels I knew I was uncomfortable with. She would scream at me, call me every name you can imagine. And I'm starting to think that this was why I started to gamble the way I have been. To be clear this isn't what my current relationship is like now. My girlfriend is caring, supportive and genuinely the best friend I've ever had. But when she screamed at me the way she did, I was taken back to the way I used to be made to feel on a regular basis. And from the next day, my urges to gamble had come back and I foolishly gave in to it.
This isn't a boo hoo story, far from it. One of the things I've always said is that I'm responsible for the actions I've taken. It isn't her fault at all that I've done what I've done, but I think now I understand why I've done it. I hope that will help in the future in recognising when I'm at risk of relapsing again and to be more proactive about it.
But now, it's back to day one. I'll tell her what happened tomorrow, hopefully she'll be able to forgive me. I've had so many times where I've said "never again" but my most recent abstinence had felt different and I don't think I've ever been so disappointed in myself for what I've done. This is a lesson I really need to learn from.
So I've done what I need to. The missus is away tonight, gonna have to tell her tomorrow and hope that we're able to stick together. I really think she'd be better off without me at this point, but I'm gonna do everything I can do to make it better again.
I feel I have learnt something about my triggers though. As I mentioned in my previous post, I had an argument with my girlfriend at the weekend. We have a great relationship and have only ever argued about the fact I'm pretty crappy at helping out around the house (hands up I don't do enough) and that's what this argument was basically about. But it was different this time. She was angrier, more aggressive than she has been with me before. I picked up on the resentment she has towards me because of the secrecy and the debt I have gotten myself into, and to be honest I don't blame her at all. But it reminded me of my previous relationship, which was a bad time in my life and was around the time I started gambling and first experienced gambling at levels I knew I was uncomfortable with. She would scream at me, call me every name you can imagine. And I'm starting to think that this was why I started to gamble the way I have been. To be clear this isn't what my current relationship is like now. My girlfriend is caring, supportive and genuinely the best friend I've ever had. But when she screamed at me the way she did, I was taken back to the way I used to be made to feel on a regular basis. And from the next day, my urges to gamble had come back and I foolishly gave in to it.
This isn't a boo hoo story, far from it. One of the things I've always said is that I'm responsible for the actions I've taken. It isn't her fault at all that I've done what I've done, but I think now I understand why I've done it. I hope that will help in the future in recognising when I'm at risk of relapsing again and to be more proactive about it.
But now, it's back to day one. I'll tell her what happened tomorrow, hopefully she'll be able to forgive me. I've had so many times where I've said "never again" but my most recent abstinence had felt different and I don't think I've ever been so disappointed in myself for what I've done. This is a lesson I really need to learn from.
Monday 4 December 2017
28 Days Down
So today marks my 4 week mark of not gambling, happy days! This weekend marked the first real challenge though. I'm so busy with work during the week that it's only really the weekend where I get the urges to gamble. Just goes to show how important it is to have blocks in place, as despite the urges there was no physical way I would be able to gamble no matter how strong the urges got.
Had a pretty big argument with the missus and noticed she has some real resentment towards me for all the damage I have done with my gambling over the last year. It's fair enough and expected really, although it made me feel more depressed than I have in some time. Seeing such a huge part of my paycheck go out to pay off debts straight after it hit my bank was pretty depressing as well and just goes to serve as a reminder about how bad things had become. That would normally serve as a trigger for me, seeing all that money going out of my account would just make me want to try and recoup those losses, inevitably ending with me losing most of my money and going back to those dreaded payday loans. Good feeling to break that cycle, even if it's only been one weekend.
Here's to another week!
Had a pretty big argument with the missus and noticed she has some real resentment towards me for all the damage I have done with my gambling over the last year. It's fair enough and expected really, although it made me feel more depressed than I have in some time. Seeing such a huge part of my paycheck go out to pay off debts straight after it hit my bank was pretty depressing as well and just goes to serve as a reminder about how bad things had become. That would normally serve as a trigger for me, seeing all that money going out of my account would just make me want to try and recoup those losses, inevitably ending with me losing most of my money and going back to those dreaded payday loans. Good feeling to break that cycle, even if it's only been one weekend.
Here's to another week!
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