Thanks for your posts (((Vera))) and (((peacegirl))) I played the free slots a few weeks ago and I stopped as all it did was make me want the real thing. I know that I am not cured and there are days when I would love to play those machines, but I am a compulsive gambler and once I start I can’t stop. Do I like the fact that I am a compulsive gambler, NO, do I wish I could be a normal gambler, YES, but no amount of wishing and dreaming will ever make me a normal gambler where those machines are concerned. It is what it is and I have no choice, but to accept it, the other consequences don’t even bear thinking about. I continue to have a fear of ending up playing those slots again, which is helping to keep me away. I know as someone who quit smoking for over 14 years and started again that you are never cured from an addiction. I now have to work on quitting smoking again. I wish I could get addicted to healthy eating and exercising LOL Although, I should not laugh as for some people that is a real addiction. It is just when you are overweight and don’t exercise you think it would be wonderful.
I am proud to say that I started on my boxes in the basement on the weekend and have been busy discarding and organizing them. I have still lots more to do, but I feel as if I have got some interest in doing it. I am focusing on my home just now and it is helping me have a more positive outlook with the boxes. I am also seeing progress in the renovations we are doing in the basement, so one step at a time. I find that I do need to have a focus as it does help to keep the mind away from my “friend the slots” NOT my friend, but the mind plays tricks on us. When the thoughts and urges come to gamble it is difficult to get our mind onto other things. We just want to go one more time, but alas it is never ever one more time. How do I know this, because for me I have gone back one more time again and again and again, and the results never changed as I ended back in a gambling binge fighting to stay away. I have to write that down so that I continue to remember that part of this addiction. It is just like an alcoholic taking one drink, a smoker taking one puff it never ever stops there. I am a compulsive gambler and I am powerless over those machines once I put one dollar in. I do not plan on gambling today!!!
