Well, here we go again. Of course the radio silence of the last 3 months could have only meant one thing, I was back ‘at it’. Depsite having signed up to Gamstop I found a small private bookie who still hadn’t signed up, so I could $punk all my money away. What’s that 3 months cost me? In more financial terms the thick end of £10k, but it’s much more than that when I consider what I have done to myself and my feelings towards myself and then to my family. Once again I have essentially stolen from them to ‘have fun’. Some kind of masochist or what? It wasn’t all bad news though I did ensure my wife (yes, she’s still putting up with me) got a suitable wedding anniversary present and I paid for a holiday too, I actually felt really good about myself having been a ‘grown up’ and sorted those things out. Trouble was having been a grown up and spent money on goods and services, I couldn’t leave it at that, I had to use what was left to win it back. As it happens, initially at least, I did. I appreciate that a lot of people will say, why have you got control of your finances, and I would say, because as a compulsive gambler, it doesn’t matter whether I have or not, I will ALWAYS find a way to get the money and actually, taking it from my own earned funds is less damaging than paying payday loan rates of interest or selling family heirlooms. Suffice to say, today is Day 2 having excluded manually from the private bookies. Feeling good to not have that draw, feeling downright awful at the state I have got myself in again. I’m worn down, I can’t even bring myself to say ‘never again’ because if I did, I wouldn’t believe it. I have to put in some serious effort now to start to turn things around, I managed 51 days once, that’s only 7 weeks away, I could get double that in by Christmas. That would be a proper Christmas present. Who knows what the future will hold? For now I think I will try and be honest with myself and this forum and come back each day. Thanks for reading!
