I wish I could put into one sentence how I managed to get to (almost) 2 years free from gambling. A sentence that held the key for everyone else on how to do it too.

I wish I could say I made one choice and that's how I got here.

I can't.

The truth is that recovery is personal and multi-layered. It requires struggle. It requires vigilance. It requires luck and timing. It requires both a determination to endure and an understanding that there will be good days and there will be bad ones and you have to adjust your rowing to navigate the waves. I could have failed (God knows I have in the past), but I didn't. I'm going to list the things I did below and hope that maybe in their entirety they will help to uncover what can get someone to 'clean'. No promises, but infinite hope.

1) Go Cold Turkey.
I stopped every kind of gambling (including not for cash, 'fun' gambling on games sites). That was a hard 2 weeks - yes, it really was that fast to get past the 'I absolutely NEED to gamble just one more time!!' phase. Sometimes (at least once a day) I had to lay my head down on my table and just let it wash over me. Just endure the agony I felt as an urge took hold. Now I'm glad I did, because it got less intense each time and it PROVED I could do this. I needed proof. It was like a seat belt for me in a very fast, very scary, out of control car. And then suddenly it was no longer hourly. No longer daily. No longer weekly. (These days it's no longer yearly!)

2) Make it a full out project.
I mapped out strategies to use when an urge hit or when a paycheque arrived. I'm STILL grateful for that. It empowered me. I probably became as obsessive with staying quit as I'd ever been about getting money to gamble. The only difference is that my new obsession saved my life. The old one was killing me.

3) Picture Yourself As Your Own Best Friend.
I decided right from the start to care about myself as much as I care about my friends and family. In a weird way it helped. I rooted for me. I cared about my situation and WANTED me to succeed. I realized later that having my own heartfelt support was like a miracle. It may sound funny, but we are so rarely our own best friend that we don't realize the power of it, especially when we need it most. A weird choice perhaps, but I swear it made a difference - often.

4) Don't Allow Yourself To 'Blank Out', SEE It, And Talk To Yourself.
I faced the demon square on. Even when I had an urge I didn't just shut down my thinking and my hopes so I could gamble. I would say, 'OK, this is a strong urge. God I want to gamble so bad. I hate this. I will NOT stop being honest, so I can just give in. I may give in, but it will be CLEAR that I chose to do so, knowing how badly I want to quit. I will lose my money yet again. Do I want that? Can I seriously make that choice without feeling disgust? REMEMBER all the other times.' and then, more often than not, head down on table. And you know what? It passed. It ALWAYS passed, and I grew stronger.

5) Acknowledge, Then Shut Down That Nagging Voice Fast.
If you're like me, you almost have 2 voices in your head. Yours and the gambling urge. Every time the thought came about why I SHOULD gamble, I actually put up arguments (never did it in the past). They were honest and truthful arguments and that 'voice' couldn't stand up to them. I didn't ignore the voice, I faced it and talked back immediately. That really worked for me - ignoring it, never did. Logic can be your friend, too. Grab any and all tools that work, then use them at your leisure.

6) Look Forward To Who You Are Becoming Again, Not Back On Who You Became Momentarily.
Our lives are decades upon decades long. We are more than just our addictive stage... WAY more. See, and believe in, who you really are and walk back to that guy/gal. Focus on the positive and the possible. You absolutely need to be optimistic - smile from...

[ Continued ]

I have to count backwards to figure out where I am in recovery. I believe it's 1 year and 10 months and some days. On March 4 I will be beginning my THIRD year of being gambling free!!

I COULD say I've got 2 years behind me, but saying 'beginning my THIRD' is just waaaaaay better.

But all joking aside, I'm more thrilled to be simply not gambling TODAY. That's enough.

I'm also secretly happy that I have to stop and count these days. The way I see it, that means I'm no longer enslaved - neither to the addiction OR to the recovery fears that we all go through. I'm no longer counting to inspire myself nor to see how long I can go before a slip. NOW, I'm just living life again, confident that with the proper attitude and determination I won't EVER slip and my attention is no longer focused on gambling (the doing or the quitting).

That's an amazing gift.

According to my budget, I will be out of debt completely this year. It seemed sooooo far away and impossible only 2 short years ago and yet here I am!

(Do me a favor. Reread that last sentence and then KNOW you can say the same thing - insert whatever time frame works for your situation and then BELIEVE you can be saying it too - sooner than you think.)

I won't lie. I've had some urges in the past year, but you know what? They were minuscule. They still really surprised me, because they literally came out of nowhere, but I concentrated on the surprise rather than the weak urge, and moved on easily.

I haven't re-read my blog posts for a long time, but maybe in the next few weeks, when I have some free time, I will travel back to the beginning of my recovery again. It's always strengthening to be reminded how strong the addiction was back then and how I progressed one day at a time to finally get here.

Here.

A place I love, where peace and contentment reign. A place where I feel safe and optimistic again. Yeah, 'here' is pretty damned fine. I really hoped it would be, back when I still called it 'there' and thought of it as impossible. I'm happy to report to any of you, who still call this place 'there', that it's real, it's possible, and it's YOURS for the taking.

Believe it. Believe you deserve it. Believe you can have it.

Because you DO, and by God you CAN. GUARANTEED.

I wish the best 2014 to all of you, and look forward to seeing you 'here' soon!

Today I will not gamble. Never again.

I have not gambled for over 1 year and 9 months.

My Christmas cards are sent, my gifts are bought and just need wrapping. I'm sitting right now as I type this, drinking a big, steaming mug of Hot Chocolate and enjoying my evening. I have money in the bank, and my debt is coming down (slowly but steadily).

I sleep like a baby again. Laughter comes easily and I am thoroughly enjoying life again. Some days I'm overwhelmed by my good fortune of successfully walking away from such a vicious and brutal addiction. God knows it isn't easy but I, as a man, now know that it isn't impossible either.

I have no new insights in this journey to share with you. No ideas about fighting this fight that I haven't already blogged. But I wish to remind anyone reading this of the goal. And that it IS within your reach. How you get here is entirely in your hands, but THAT you can get here is something I can say with confidence.

YOU CAN.

I did, and I'm just an ordinary guy. I was the addict that couldn't stop gambling until I couldn't get my hands on any more money. I had to be flat broke before I could stop. And yet, I'm over 1 year and 9 months from my last bet. Believe the next sentence, because there is no greater truth. If I can do it, you can do it too.

It gets easier with each passing day, if you go cold turkey. And then somewhere down the road it stops getting 'easier' and instead just gets flat out amazing. You find you've finally come home. You're able to live again and gambling becomes just a memory. Something you see OTHER people do. The cravings diminish to almost nothing and are rarely felt.

Success is real. It's attainable. That's why I'm writing today as my Hot Chocolate slowly disappears... okay quickly disappears.

To remind YOU that you can do this. Your success is still waiting for you. It'll be here when you're ready. And when you reach out and grab it, you're going to love it!

Like I'm loving it. Right here. Right now.

Today I will not gamble. Never again.

God I feel good.

I'm coming up to 1 year and 9 months free from gambling. 100% free. It's an amazing feeling. I've been so busy with work and family & friends that I really haven't thought about it much, but tonight I'm sitting at home, enjoying some down time and I thought I should write a little in the blog.

In fact, except for listing it for the record in this blog, I honestly didn't know how long I've been clean. Over a year and a half is good enough for me, but I wanted to be accurate for here.

In recovery (at least for me) you start to realize that it's not the count but the consistency. I don't care how many days or weeks or months or years I'm clean. I just care that I'm STILL clean. And now that I have some substantial time behind me, it's been a very calm and easy road.

That doesn't mean I haven't had 'thoughts' - I have. But they're weightless now and have almost no power over me anymore. As long as I'm consistent in saying 'no', it's power is gone. As long as I'm consistent in saying 'no'. I CAN'T stress that to myself enough.

Anyway, for now, I'm strong and clean. It's the greatest feeling. I can see my debt disappearing and should be debt free this time next year! I've halved it so far and it just keeps going down!

No wise words, just some commentary on where I am and how I feel. I hope it's inspiration for anyone out there who needs it. Freedom from addiction is FANTASTIC! And it belongs to anyone who reaches for it. Good luck to all in the fight.

Today I will not gamble. Never again.

When I started this journey, I promised myself I'd buy a TV if I reached 1 year of not gambling. I thought setting a reward for myself could be helpful as incentive. I've always thought those big TV's were so amazing & for me, that was I'd always wanted - not a vacation to Disneyland, a new car, or anything else. And so I set it as my goal. When I hit hard patches or just felt down, I could turn my focus to how great it would be to succeed AND have a great TV.

Well I DID hit my 1 year goal of absolutely no gambling. But I didn't buy a TV. I invested in the stock market instead. After I did that, I started reading how there are gambling addicts IN the stock market and that scared me. I was worried I might have just set myself up, but I know how my gambling addiction feels and so I thought, 'I'll just put the money in like a savings account and watch myself carefully. If I see I'm just changing my addiction to a new game, I'll pull the money and go.'

I'm happy to report, that I didn't treat it like gambling. I avoided the day playing (easily in fact - I guess it just wasn't my road to destruction) but I definitely can see how it could happen. Anyway, I just sold my stocks after making a fairly good return over a year and a half and bought my TV! A 50" 3D Smart TV that took a month of comparisons to choose (who knew how many kinds of TV's there are to choose from!?) I am loving the one I eventually chose. It's the best picture quality I've ever seen and watching movies in 3D make me wonder if I could ever go back - and DON'T get me started on the voice & motion activated remote! It's been a joy and it cost so much less than I thought it would when I originally set the goal.

So much less, in fact, that after I gave it a week to decide if it WAS great or just the fun of something new, I went out and bought my Mom the exact TV! She's retired and can't really go out and buy things like this, so I checked with her (I never just buy her stuff unless she's really interested in the idea) & we went down and picked it out and set it up for delivery & installation onto her living room wall. We've since prepped her wall so the wires will all be behind the wall for a neat and clean look and she's all excited for this coming week when it arrives.

So I ended up doubling my reward, have halved my debt (that's amazing to this day), have my budget under control and am thoroughly enjoying my life. And all that for LESS than the cost of one of my benders when I gambled.

THIS is how life is supposed to be. Fun. Calm. Enjoyable. Joy filled.

THIS isn't how life was when I was in the throes of gambling. No wonder those sites and the casinos advertise so much. THEY want what we deserve. Our money. Our fun. Our calm. Our Joy. And they know, thanks to the addiction, that they can take it from us in an evening.

My God, I used to give to them in a session, what it ended up taking me a year and a half to decide was worth giving to myself. The big difference is that they PRETENDED to occasionally give it back to me (I'm NOT giving back the TV - pretend or otherwise ) and so I opened up my wallet, my bank account, my credit cards and took out loans so that some strangers who don't care about me could have the life I was supposed to have.

I'm grateful that it's behind me now and intend to keep it that way. It's fantastic to be rid of the agony of this addiction, the fear of not trusting myself, the devastation I always knew was coming, even as I continued to feed the beast. I'm free now. And it feels better than any words I can use.

Well, ALMOST better than any words I can use. The next ones are pretty damned close...

Today I will not gamble. Never again.