[Gbabyh]

Life is great at the moment – I’m so thankful for that.

I’ve been getting more involved in my GA meetings/community and taking on more responsibilities. However, the number of people attending the meetings have been declining lately – presumably because it’s not as good as it used to be or compared to other anonymous meetings like AA. So, if anyone has any tips etc. on how to improve the GA meetings I would be very thankful.

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t had as good a time in Rouen as you had hoped…

I too have been very aware of the shame factor in my recovery. When I was reflecting on myself and taking inventory of my life, I had so many things that I was ashamed of and that I had kept a secret from everyone else. However, I’ve been slowly coming clean to the people involved and to whoever might care. That was very discomforting, but a huge step for me in my recovery. 

I hope you enjoy a few days in the UK and I look forward to your next update.

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

the nf song and the oxygen song, thanks

[Gbabyh]

Good job man. Like you, I too am triggered by financial duress, and just reading how you coped with your first obstacle and realized it only set you back by 10 days was awesome! Keep it coming my friend 🙂

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

Jesus Christ! Just got through two days with two exams – one being my oral defense of my bachelor’s thesis. The last few days have been so extremely stressful and anxious, and I’m really just becoming sick of this feeling – had enough at this point! I need to figure my shit out. Stop postponing and procrastinating (which is just me running from my fears) so I don’t have to go through the same stressful process every exam. Luckily my degree is more or less done now – just waiting for two grades more. Hopefully, I can capitalize on this fresh beginning of my masters next semester, which I have been wanting for over a year now.

I haven’t gambled and I haven’t thought about it, even with all the stress, fear and anxiety I’ve been going through this summer. However, it’s not like I tackled my addictive personality perfectly. Instead, I’ve been eating quite unhealthy and I haven’t been able to maintain my body, which has resulted in the gain of a few pounds.

I think my main take away from this is: I should be proud of getting through my degree, which is considered very prestigious and one of the harder degrees in Denmark, in spite of my gambling addiction. Especially, I should be proud of getting through these last 3 months with exams whilst in the early recovery of a relapse. I should be grateful for the support I have received from this forum, my GA community and the people around me. It’s time for a new beginning in one of the most stressful aspects of my life – this time I will stay ahead of things and not put myself in bad situations.

I feel that I can finally go out and achieve the life balance between my studies, self-care, relationships, work and eventually hobbies.

I’m deeply grateful to be where I am today. Thank you to all of you!

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

That’s the first thing you must realize, Kolberg. Nothing good will come from beating yourself up, so let us try and look at some positive things:

1. You admitted to yourself and this forum that you had a relapse. I know some people wouldn’t have the courage to do so, so well done to you.

2. A relapse can always teach you something new, or at the very least remind you of something crucial that you had forgotten. So try to dig inside and find whatever wisdom you can extract from this. And then use it to set up further barriers.

3. You have put limits to your casino accounts. The positive way is to say that at least you had put limits on them – although I would suggest completely excluding yourself. Maybe this relapse is for you to realize that you need to exclude yourself, rather than put limits. And maybe the fact that you “only” put limits rather than exclusion from casinos is a sign that you are not ready yet to give this addiction up COMPLETELY. I hope you get what I mean.

I wish you the best of luck on your “journey” with the new job and city!

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

Good to hear from a lad that’s managing a gambling free life, and congratulations on getting married! I’m sure you will remain happy through life if you keep having a vigilant watch and awareness of compulsive gambling 🙂

I did seek help and advice, and for the first time I have confided in my friends so maybe I’m headed in the same direction as you – one can hope!

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

due to the emotional state, I found myself in, and even so, I try to refrain from details as much as possible, so that probably explains why the causation of the problem was a bit confusing. 

Nevertheless, you made a very meaningful comment about my post, Steev. Thank you. Worrying is a weird thing. In fact, so are many emotions. Realizing that nothing good from worrying will come at this point, I still found it hard to let go of it, and so I look to escape it somehow. Thankfully I didn’t escape by gambling but instead opted to meet my girlfriend at our local ice cream shop. We talked about the whole situation and eventually, I managed to wrap my head around the fact that, it is what it is. The outcomes I was worrying about may not necessarily happen, and if it does, there are several options for me to take in order for me to continue my master’s degree at the same university. And I did come to terms with the fact that I should accept a lower grade as long as I pass the exam because I’m desperate for a clean slate, which I will get when I’m studying my masters (my bachelor have been a long grind due to gambling).

I’m a bit worried about my mindfulness of the situation. Looking back and evaluating my thoughts and responses to this ‘predicament’ I wasn’t being mindful of my thoughts. I feel it was more luck than anything that I chose the healthy action of eating ice cream with my girlfriend as an escape of this worrying. For all I know, I could have been unlucky and chosen the unhealthy action of old and bad behavioral patterns which leads to gambling or just the straight route of gambling. And so, I wish I had more awareness in the situation because these types of situations are likely to happen again.

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

The last few days have been anxious for me because I today was my final attempt in a course, which I followed about 2 years ago, so it was very rusty for me. Spend more or less all my available time to study on from the 8th to the 15th of August, and I got pretty decent towards the end of it, so I was getting hopes up for a good grade. Keep in mind, I was still quite anxious because it was my last attempt … I went to the exam and the assignment was NOTHING alike any of the previous 7 years of exams in this subject, and the topic of the assignment is perhaps 5% of the entire subject, whereas the last 95% involves the same topic and its variations. So, naturally, I hadn’t solved any assignments in this topic before (there isn’t even any available even if I had thought of it). So I’m sitting at the exam and thinking “shit! WTF is this”. Needless to say, It didn’t go too well, I’m not even sure I will pass.

I feel a lot of things right now. I feel a sense of waste because I have spent so much time studying for a subject the last week or so, only to be tested in something completely unexpected topic, which is almost neglectable in the big picture of the subject. And so, I kind of feel it’s unfair. To spend so much time studying, to get your hopes up for a good grade, to feel that I understand and manage the core of the subject, only to get blindsided like that at such a crucial moment as my final attempt…

At the end of it all, I can only take full responsibilities. It has been my own previous actions. which have put me in this situation, where I face my exam as a final attempt. I guess actions do come full circle after all… I am sooooo close to finishing my bachelor’s degree. I just need to pass this course and defend my bachelor’s thesis and then I’m done! And now I’m at risk of being ejected from my education because I might fail this exam. Honestly, the feeling sucks, and all I can do is wait for the test results, but I can’t seem to stop worrying and let go of this, which is out of my hands now. This is a bad and risky state for me – I just hope I won’t do anything stupid, such as convincing myself to gamble. Hell no!!

[Gbabyh]

Looking forward to your post about chasing losses in the Recovery Tools section, and of course, to future updates in this journal.

I wish you a happy and safe travel onwards 🙂

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

Just got home after celebrating my birthday with my family and girlfriend. Boy was I spoiled today! I had a great day and I’m positive that I’m stepping into my 26th year with hope and determination. I did as Steev asked of me, I treated myself today and it was gooood. So grateful for this day. Tomorrow is going to be a great day aswell. Have a good one!

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

And that you usually fall off the wagon after your brain has forgotten about the last fallout of gambling. This is something I can very much relate to. I tend to follow a pattern as well. Whether that pattern takes 2 months, 6 months or a year to repeat itself is hard to predict but usually, it will repeat itself eventually. So I say based upon my past experiences. I used the early steps of the 12-step program to analyze myself and figure out this pattern. I found that I gamble when I feel bad about myself, when I’m stressed about school, when I value money too much, when life has become stale and I’m bored. Generally when I feel life is giving me a too hard of a time. These are things I’m pretty sure I knew already before my analysis, but I think it raised my awareness to a further level and it made my thinking less cluttered and more organized. Because I wrote all of these things down I could very easily begin to understand why each of my problems occurred, and then figure out a solution for each of them. A lot of the problems are connected, but somehow I found that there is at least one thing I could do to decrease the likelihood of those problems growing so big that they would lead me to gamble. For example:

I feel bad about myself
– Take care of my body and my mind. The way to do this and to what extent is different for everybody. I like to exercise in the morning and I try to think of food as fuel rather than pleasure, which helps me to be aware of what I’m eating.

I’m stressed about school
– Usually comes from expectations of my academic performance. I realized that my self-created expectations are based upon what I think my family, friends, and society expects of me, rather than what I actually want to achieve for myself, silly… So I try to remind myself that everyone walks their own path and that I shouldn’t care about others expectations, only my own. This is a lot less stressful for me when I manage to do it.

I value money too much
– This is apparent when I let the amount of money I have determine my happiness. Sometimes I thought “if I have X amount then I’ll be happy” or “if I fall below this amount then I’m unhappy”. This has previously lead me to believe that gambling could lead me to a quick influx of money, or an unexpected bill has made me so unhappy that I needed the money back somehow (obviously by gambling). Today, I try to not worry about money. I don’t rely on materialistic things to make me happy, I try not to pay attention to money after my bills have been paid (including my monthly debt payments).

Life is stale and I’m bored
– Due to my last 10 years of gambling, I think part of me has become used to live life in a state of panic and constant crisis. When gambling I’m in this state, and when I’m dealing with the immediate fallout I’m in this state. And when everything is not on fire and I can finally rest a moment in life, I’m not used to that, I’m in new territory and I’m not sure what to do of myself and with my time. This usually leads me to boredom and, perhaps even unconsciously, towards old behavior patterns that enables the compulsive gambler back in my life. I try to remind myself of this fact through rigorous reflection and self-awareness. Now this can be done in so many different ways, and at the moment I’m going to weekly GA meetings where I took over the keys to open the meeting location and brew the coffee so it’s ready for the meeting (this gives me more commitment and forces me to come to meetings). I visit this website and read journals and update my own once in a while. On Sunday I’m gonna take up meditation which I will be trying out with my GA group before our Sunday-meeting. I also listen to a gambling podcast on Youtube which has 56 episodes, but the point is that many things can be done, and I’m just experimented to see what works for me.

This is just my approach to how I try to stay gambling free, this is by no means me telling you how to do it and that this is the only way, but maybe this sparks some ideas or motivation in you, which can help you in your recovery.

No doubt about it, my self-help work has limitations in regards to stop my gambling, since it’s a work in progress, and when it fails I rely heavily on my barriers. So I try to add as many as I can. Recently I added Bet Blocker (I’m an online gambler) and I came clean to my friends about my compulsive gambling, which makes it harder to return to gambling in so many ways.

Anyways, rant over – Jen I wish you the best of luck in your recovery, stay aware!

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

Holy fricking #¤% I’m a nervous right now…

I spend a good hour on wording the confession to my friends, and when it came to hit enter and send it I almost couldn’t do it! I almost deleted it all, but in the end, I managed to send it. 

I immediately logged off of  Facebook and deleted the app on my phone because I’m too nervous and scared of the reactions I’m gonna get. I’m tripping right now and heart is pounding fast. I’m gonna need a quick workout session on my way home tonight…

[Gbabyh]

For too long I have been of the opinion that I must do this on my own and keep it a secret to my friends, but that’s just another trait of my flawed addictive personality. The saying that addiction is the opposite of connection is something I can really resonate with because a huge element in my gambling has been isolation from people around me. And I’m just reaching a point where I feel the need of reconnecting to people and form relationships that are loving and encouraging. And this secrecy I carry with me will not allow that…

I thank you for your support and your well wishes, Steev 🙂

– Chris

[Gbabyh]

I thank you for your comment. I’m sitting in a quiet place and thinking, and yes, it does feel good and I should be proud of the progress I’ve made. I’m grateful for having come this far – I can thank the people at my GA meetings and those around me a lot for this. Let’s march on together!

– Chris

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