Hi Diary
Well I believe that I have been in recovery just over a year now and I have to say it feels great. When I look back at the utter despair I was in. I thought there was NO CHANCE whatsoever of any semblance of recovery. Life is much better. I still have debts to repay, but with the money I gambled, that was always inevitable. I see money in a different light these days. Don’t get me wrong, I still need it, but it is not my first and last thought of each day and how will I get some to fund my gambling. As you know, lost my job and did a bit of travelling with my wife. At one stage we were at the abyss, thought she would never forgive me, but she is a great lady and the love of my life. Still argue at times, but just the normal stuff !!!
I try and access the website as often as possible at it helps keep me stable. This is such a fantastic forum. Sometimes I stay away from it too, as I found near the start of my abstinence that I seemed to want to search out stories as dire as mine, as if that would make me in some way feel better about my predicament and the stories kept me too close to the thoughts of this evil. Its funny how the brain works. I watched a programme on gambling a few days ago and it was actually showing some frontal cortex of the brain being stimulated when shown FOBT spinning or gambling related activities, and crtain people were more affected than others. I am definitely one of them !!! the programme was trying to demonstrate the evil of gambling and that industry to keep us addicted. You cannot avoid the advertising, its eveywhere and a multibillion empire.
Anyway I must confess that I was very close a few time over the last year, but thankfully, I would come back to this forum and re-read the mess my brain was in and the sheer pain of the after effects of a super-binge (which in my case, was epic !)
God bless you all. Stay well and fight the good fight. Hopefully I will keep recovering just ODAAT. I wish you all peace from this evil in however recovery works for each of you. x