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. Leave a Reply. |
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