For those of you thay have seen the comments on the last entry, Joe has a point. Sometimes we need to do things differently if the resutls aren't working - else we're entering the realms of insanity!
It's different for all of us. Sometimes we gamble to win money back. Sometimes to pass time. Sometimes because we feel we need to - how else do we pay all those overdue bills? But I've now started a diary of days I haven't gambled for, it' my new years resolution, and I'm determined to stick to it. In essence nothing drastic is changing, but a slight mindset change. Taking things one day at a time, ticking off those days, and trying to forget about all those money problems. In the long run gambling won't help, so I need to get myself playing the long game - as much as I don't want to admit that. I've not been on holiday for a number of years and, in all honestly, if you add up the amount I've lost each week, I could've put that to good use to actually go somewhere (in reality, to pay off bills!). However, I've two tentative holidays booked this year. One in March, one in May/June. Neither are going to be massively expensive, just for 5 days to a week, but if I can keep gamble free between now and those dates, I'll reward myself with a holiday. If not, I won't be able to afford to go anyway and I'll have to not go. Let's see how far I get. I'm counting the 31/12/16 as the official 1st day of this challenge - it'll take me a good few years to pay off the debts, but step 1 is March, step 2 is May, and step 3 is July. I've promised myself this year, in 2017, I won't let gambling defeat me. Who's with me?! It's weird to read back on my own posts, but it's great it's here. It's a reminder that life isn't always as straight forward as you may think.
Over the past 12 months, I've stayed single, I haven't been promoted at work, and I'm still in as much trouble as I was 12 months ago. I guess a very different me to 2 years ago, where I had a nice, loving girlfriend and where I was super ambitious about work and progressing. It's so hard to find the motivation when everything else seems to be going against you. Over the past 12 months I've written down plans to stop, how I'll get myself out of it, what I'll do for it to be different this time - but none of them have worked. I've just got off a site where I stayed up to 12:30am as my paycheck comes in at that time for the month, just so I can use the money before all the credit card companies and everyone else starts trying to collect my money. I haven't paid my parents the monthly loan amount back for the money the leant me for my house, I missed my mortgage payment, and I missed a whole load of card payments (again!) and I'm over all of my credit limits. 10 missed calls a day from various credit card / mortgage companies and various letters with demands coming through the door... But you know what, I think we've all been in this place. It's tough, it's easy to be down, easy to be disheartened. But if we can come back from this, what a strength of character that would be. That would be truly special and would say a lot about us - and the almightly struggle that it will be - will feel ever sweeter when we get there. I'm another year on, I'm not gamble free, I'm in more trouble than ever. But tomorrow is day 0. Christmas Eve. I need to take it one step at a time and not focus on the long run - that'll come - by day-by-day building blocks are essential. I'm reading a new book around changing habits - how our brain works, what habits it picks up, and how we can start to overwrite those old, learned habits and replace them with new ones. I'll share a few stories here in due course (when I'm not up at 4am because I've been gambling again all night...). Out of interest, if you're still reading this blog or any of this resonates with you, please do leave me a comment or drop me an e-mail. It's been a while since I've updated this - I'd like to get back to it - and share some of our journies and challenges together. |
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