Hi P,
It is good that you are expressing your feelings and getting them out of your system. I do believe this is a huge part in getting what bothers us out so we can move on. This part in your recovery you have mastered.
Also, you are not in denial about your gambling addiction; you know the hold it has over you, and you are not underestimating the destruction it has and the further destruction it may do. You are afraid it will get worst and you are right to be scared as it will.
Yet, you have your slips and each time afterwards you regret them. Yet you still have them. I think you have been slapped enough times by the addiction to know it is not your friend, nor will it bring anything good in your life, the big win it is fooling you to think is just around the corner or next bet will never happened. The few times my father was forthcoming about this addiction, I remember when he said along the lines, “When I needed to win money the most, I never did. I only kept losing.”
Somehow you have to remember this, and usually in desperation we are not the most levelheaded.
From what I have read, you have a job, a family and you have not lost everything. What you have are the consequences of your gambling, debts. The addiction knows this and uses it to get you to gamble more. So stop, stop listening to it. You have a better chance paying it off and getting on with your life, than if you were to gamble today.
We all have free will, the mess you are in was not just created, and it will take time for it to seem like it is getting smaller, but you are in a much better situation than you if you continue to gamble.
Don’t place unnecessary pressure on yourself. You have a lot of good things in your life, start focusing on them and remember no amount of gambling will ever truly make you happy.
Take care,
Twilight