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Soooo many Day Ones and I am getting tired, really tired. I’ll have a rock bottom, try hard to stop then once I get ahold of some money, I gamble it away and then back to another rock bottom. These rock bottoms should help motivate me to stop but I easily forget the pain from the last one. This is not the me I wanted to be. I am a different person from who I was before gambling. I turned to God, GA meetings, a therapist, nothing seems to help. It seems like my mind is broken. I am broken. It’s not about money anymore, it has changed me to a totally different person. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself anymore. The lies, the stealing, the guilt, the shame. I feel like an impostor. I smile and look happy, tell everyone around me I am not gambling anymore, but I am. I am getting lots of support from people who love me but I am lying to them. I really realIy want to stop gambling but I am discouraged. How will I turn back this life around when I destroyed it completely?
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Hi Yolip,
I’m on Day 3 myself. I found this site and had hit rock bottom. After 22 years of non stop gambling with loses projected at roughly 3-4 million I finally had to do something about it. The high is what we look for but we are unfortunatly addicted to the numbness of when we lose also. I myself feel like I have wasted my life up to now but have to think of it as not what I have lost because we can’t get the time back, we have to look at how we salvage what we can and move forward. The holidays are hard for me and I’m here saying I picked the worst time to do it because I could use that buzz but that’s the addict speaking. The right time to work hard at going day by day is today. I wish you the best
Thank you Flavorman. Whew, 3-4 million ! I’m about half of that. I agree with you, we are addicted to the numbness. We forget all pain and worries while we’re actively gambling. But then, after the high specially when losing a lot of money all the pain and worries comes back a hundredfold. The guilt and the shame in addition to that. I know a lot of things get better day to day during recovery, but right now I still in that state of regret, of thinking back of the many times I relapsed. Holidays are bad for me too but yes today is always the right time. I wish you the best too.
I can so identify how you’re feeling about yourself… that’s exactly how I felt. Not knowing who I really was… feeling like I was living a lie. You said that turning to God and GA didn’t work. I would say that likely nothing can work unless somehow you do it for yourself… Find the real you again.. When tempted take just a couple of minutes to choose between going on and feeling like you do… or who you want to be… Try to find an alternative to do… I don’t know what it would be for you… but for me I do painting .. I’m an amateur but watching online videos I really got interested.. Perhaps there is something you have an interest in doing… Just a thought … take care! Lindy
I agree, that’s been the hardest when trying to stop. I love watching sports but my addiction went from slots and BJ to sports betting in recent years. I ruined it as I can no longer watch as a fan. The boredom is real because we need to learn to enjoy anything else and that’s the hardest part. I’m still in the get through the day phase of recovery. Once I get a bit more confident it will be enjoying again. I’ve been coming here alot the last few days for me my goal now is get the numbers up as per days so I can try and help others something soothing about that. So thank you for helping me down this road. What is also working is the betting blocking applications. I’m not sure what your specific vice was but it’s putting buffers in place I think. We can’t be trusted to simply say I won’t do it because clearly that doesn’t work
Flavorman, true, gambling takes away your interest in doing anything else, even the one you love doing before it. I’ll also try to be more consistent here and give support as much as I can. I self excluded from casinos last month and today from online sites, but the thing it is so easy to lift the ban after the first year. I guess I will take advantage of that time to work on my recovery, this time work on it a lot harder.
Thank you Lindy. I have been looking for that something I will have the same “passion” as gambling. I tried furniture painting (which I used to love doing before) , yoga, zumba, and other things. Hoping that I will find one soon :). Kenl made me understand a bit about GA so I might try it soon. I’m going to work harder this time to resist temptation. Take care…..
I understand completely. You pretty much described my life right now.