Hey guys. Sorry it’s been a while. I’ve always tried to tell you all a little about me in the hope that it’ll help you connect to me and my story; so let me continue in that vein. I always wanted to keep this blog up; partly to help myself in my journey, but moreso because I’m so inspired by some of the messages I’ve got from you – that you really can connect to my story and, for some of you, it’s helping you in your own journey to recovery. Some bad news. I’m effectively back at day 1. Or at least there abouts. In some of my previous blogs I talked about being convinced I was an action gambler, and not an escapist gambler. My view on this may have changed somewhat in the last few months. Me and my girlfriend broke up a few months ago. We’d been together for a few years and she was, and still is, incredibly special and important to me. So us breaking up came as a massive shock to me, and my gambling no doubt has a part to play. This may not resonate with you all, but sometimes you can get so caught up in gambling, or so caught up in your own feelings, that you forget to see the signs that are right in front of you. Because of my gambling I go through days where I hate myself, where I feel guilty for letting people down, where I’m disappointed in myself, angry that I started gambling, relapsed or let it get out of control. There’s a mixture of feelings, but they seem to centre around MY thoughts. I got so caught in feeling sorry for myself that I became distant – from most things. I still go on with life as if everything was normal – the same activities, the same routines. But being wrapped up in my own thoughts led to me being distant or disconnected from everything else – less ambition, less dedication at work, and less love and affection for my girlfriend. I’m generally not good at opening up about things or talking about things. Something I’ll probably never feel comfortable with, no matter how much or how hard I try. This, coupled with my distance, was a contributing factor in our break up. I also found out my father has cancer – which came as a shock. Much like me, he would prefer to keep things to himself rather than scare or worry others. So, me and my brother only found out about him having cancer after he’d already had surgery and was going through the final recovery from skin grafts and use of chemotherapy gel. I ALWAYS want the money I’d lost back. I’d do something sensible with it. Fix the leaking gutter I have outside my house. Maybe for the first time paint the house. Pay for a language course or a computer course. Something useful. If ONLY I had that money back. This, coupled with the few things that have gone on recently in my life, turned me back to gambling and I’m back at day zero. I guess you were all hoping to see a gambler with a blog finally get the better of his addiction, so it could give you strength and so you could know it can be done. So you too can recover and let go of your gambling demons. Well, you can. I can. And we can – together. I have exams in less than 2 weeks, which I’m not at all prepared for, but I’m sat in bed at 1:30am, writing this blog entry rather than revising (or sleeping!), because I genuinely believe we can take strength from each other – and also learn from each other. Me being back at day zero may look bad. Or disappointing. But you can learn from relapsed. I talked about this in a previous blog post, and from every relapse I’ve learned something. From this one, it opened my eyes. I was slowly ticking along in life. Getting the day job done. Doing things I was comfortable with. Not really pushing myself to do too much – it was hard to find the motivation. But a gambling addiction doesn’t have to hold you back, or hold you down. I’m going to use it to inspire me to do things I may otherwise not have. So, I’m going to: - start running or going to the gym at least three times a week - start playing a new sport weekly – probably badminton (if I can get a badminton racket for Christmas!) - get my drive, determination and ambition for work back and try my best everyday to excel – rather than just ‘getting by’ - possibly start to learn something new – maybe a language – there are plenty of free online courses or libraries around, so it doesn’t have to cost the world Some of these things I’ve wanted to do, but I probably never would have done if I’m not in this situation. Why? Because with my annual holiday I’d probably be holiday with my friends. But I can’t afford that now, not for a while, so how about I use my time to do something useful. Turn what looks like, on a surface, a negative event (relapse), into something which can be so positive. If I’m super fit, or I can speak a language or learned something new in the next 2 or 3 years, then surely this is a good thing? And has it by inspired by something ‘bad’? I didn’t just gamble. But relapsed for what seems like the millionth time. How could anything good come from that? Well, the learning something or being fit isn’t what matters. Sure it’s a great side benefit – but the true benefit is that you would have been able to pick yourself up. To inspire yourself. To push yourself to do something great. All from a situation that could have gone in another direction entirely – like my initial reaction of losing my drive, ambition and then watching those closest to me walk out my life. And, if I can make something good happen from a relapse, imagine how good things can be in the future? Having a positive attitude will help me get through some tough times, but it should stay with me and shape part of who I am. It’s all a question of do we want to shape ourselves for the better, or for the worse. And even if it never seems like it, there are some positives that can come from this, even if there are times where it’s incredibly difficult to see. But, baby steps. One step at a time. And certainly one day at a time. I made the mistake of thinking too far ahead, and I’ll visit why in my next blog – most likely near the end of the month after exams. In the mean time – please do send me an e-mail to let me know how you’re getting on. I will read and respond to all e-mails; if some got lost in the last few months please do send me a chaser and lets reconnect. All the best, AGJ I received an e-mail yesterday from a young man in a similar situation to myself, and he mirrored lots of my own thoughts. For example, that sometimes it's very easy to feel like you're alone when you're in trouble through gambling, and that blogs or forums are a great way of being able to connect with people who are in a similar situation.
For me, these blogs or forums are great because they do two things: 1. they allow you to see you're not alone in this; lot's of people are in a similar position and we've all made mistakes. The forums/blogs allow us to talk to other like-minded people who can understand what we're going through; and 2. posting something on the forum is an achievement in itself; it's important that we're able to put down on paper that we have made a mistake and want to avoid making that same mistake in the future. Point 2 is especially interesting because I have gone through several stages in my recovery. I would summarise them as follows. Stage 1 - Annoyed about my losses, wanted to win my money back, thought I could do this on next pay day Stage 2 - Even more annoyed about my combined losses. Driven by chasing losses. Thought in the back of my mind that I could lose money with next month's pay, but past wins gave me confidence I could win it back. Stage 3 - Lost all my money again. Lots of debt. Knew I needed to stop, but thought I could deal with this on my own. No one else needed to know. I thought I could handle it on my own and be okay. Stage 4 - Relapsed once much. Once I lost my last bet I was disappointed, upset and scared because of debt levels. Looked for online help. Spoke to an advisor on GamCare for one day. After that, went back to the thought that I could deal with it on my own. Stage 5 - Relapsed again. One day of talking about my losses clearly wasn't enough and I couldn't deal with it completely on my own. Told my close friends about my problems. Started a diary in Excel of days I was gamble free. Stopped updating it daily. Stage 6 - Another relapse. Decided I needed further help. Spoke to more friends but realised I needed to keep some kind of diary to capture my thoughts to really remind me of the feelings at the low point, and that I needed to take it a day at a time. Turned to the gambling help forums, and also set up this blog. Hopefully there will be no stage 7 if I can stay gamble free!! But as you can see, I've been through a number of relapses. Whilst I haven't been able to stop completely, I have learned something from each relapse and tried to do something different as a result. I spoke about this in my last blog entry - whilst a relapse on the face of it isn't the best thing, as long as you learn something from it you'll become stronger and take a positive step towards achieving your goal. A relapse is not always the end. Hopefully you've seen that many of us are in the same position with our gambling. Whilst our personal lives or debt levels will not be identical, we share the problem of having made mistakes with gambling, mistakes we want to avoid making in the future. So if one person can become gamble free, can't we all? Let me share some words with you from someone who has managed to turn their life around with a lot of hard work and focus "I have many new interests and pastimes and my life is richer, more rewarding and challenging because of them. In return I have given up one thing that only ever stole from me. I thought gambling gave me the thrill and excitement that everyday life lacked...I certainly got that round the wrong way". In 5 years I hope to be able to share a similar story. It'll take time, and honestly at the moment I feel like I'm in too much debt and too much trouble to ever get there. But take the above as inspiration. Take it a day at a time, and we'll be closer to our common goal. It has been estimated that 50 to 75 percent of gamblers resume gambling after attempting to quit (N. M. Petry et al., 2006). In my last blog I talked about ‘trigger cues’ being a key cause of us relapsing. I haven’t found any research that gives a definitive list of ‘trigger cues’. They appear to be personal to all of us. One of the reasons I asked about what type of gambler you are in the previous blog, is because this can affect what type of ‘trigger cues’ affect you. It’s likely that if you’re an escape gambler, you’ll be most affected by emotional trigger cues. Something that reminds you of what you were trying to escape from by gambling in the first place is likely to be a key trigger cue. If you’re an action gambler, you’re more likely to be affected by thought cues. For example, by thinking about what you could have done with your money, when you’ll be out of debt, or maybe what the next big win WOULD be IF you decided to gamble again. As an action gambler, and because I’ve relapsed a number of times, I’ve started to see a pattern in my trigger cues. I used to bet a lot on tennis, and whenever there’s a major championship, I find myself with an urge to gamble again. This urge comes about because I THINK I know what bets will come in. Because I’ve placed some ‘fake bets’ in my head already by saying who I think will win a match. When it then comes true, I’m more compelled to put some money in a betting account and start gambling again. Once that happens we know the rest! Another trigger cue can simply be time. If the day I get paid I have a few hours to spare, being on my own, sometimes I then get an urge to bet. Not necessarily through boredom. Bu because I think it gives me more time to think about and realise the debt I’m in. Once you start thinking and focussing on debt, you then want to get out of that debt ASAP. Or at least I do. And getting myself debt free should naturally be a long-term thing. Paying off cards bit by bit as I get paid. But the more I think about the debt, the more I want to take a short-cut and try to ‘gamble’ my way out of the problem that gambling got me into! So for me, whenever a major tennis championship is on, I know I need to do a number of things. Stop watching the tennis – which I won’t be able to do. Stop thinking about who is going to win – again I probably can’t do this. So, I know to keep busy, I know to use my money to pay off debts on the day I’m paid so I have no floating cash to play with, and now I’ve documented my main urge, I know how to recognise it and hopefully increase my chances of stopping the relapse! Some other tips to avoid relapses are: - to find other things to do, other interests that will take your mind off gambling - to concentrate on the consequences, for example the feeling of letting yourself and other down and the lost money that results from gambling. See my post ‘that sinking feeling…’ for a visual representation of how I feel following gambling. I’ll use this going forward as my visual guide / reminder - to find strength in others – which is what I’m doing through this blog, through others, and through support groups Remember that if you relapse, don't beat yourself up over it. Think about why you relapsed, and think about what you'll do differently next time. Learn something from your relapse. Very often we all relapse a number of times, but as long as you take or learn something from it, it can be an important step in your recovery! Let me amplify the above thoughts with a quote: "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts". I will also include this, for now, on my quote of the day page. Let's take strength from it and never give up. So, what are your trigger cues? And what are you going to do to prevent relapses in the future? Let me know in the comments section or send me an e-mail! |
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