I have kept a journal off and on over the years.
nI am currently in the process of moving my stuff from one storage unit to another and have brought some of it to my flat to sort. One item I found was a journal from 1994!
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nI was amazed at how much I was doing then. Not gambling, but working full-time, doing a post-grad counselling course for which I got day release but still had to put in 2 evenings a week, I was going to GA meetings regularly AND to regional and even national meetings around the country. On top of this I seemed to have a much more active social life than I have now. Later in the year I started teaching evening classes.
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nPart- way through the journal I am writing about how I am finding hard to resist gambling – but keeping so busy has kept me from it so far. Then the entries stop.
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nI know the story though. I crashed. I gambled again, not much, but of course I had to give up my “position” in GA and soon after I decided to leave. I had to cut my hours down at work and I was taking medication for depression. I completed my counselling course but was unable to practice for a while, until I was in a better place. I found the counselling I received invaluable.
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nMost importantly – I began to see myself as a human being, not a human doing. It took a long time to learn to pace myself and to take time out and just be and maybe I am not fully there yet. The learning is to watch that I don’t take too much on and that as soon as I have thoughts that I might gamble – to talk to someone and not just write in a private journal. Just for today I will not gamble!
