Relapse after venting through this forum

[quote="NewSunRising"]``I think about our past members too , GB . I hope with all my heart that they are Gamble-free and doing well . If that is not so , I would hope that they felt that they could come back here for support .

This forum is not a place where only the successful are welcome . So many of us have been through the pain and shame of relapse . We know what it's like to feel helpless and hopeless , to feel like we will never beat this addiction and get our lives back.``

Jeez is it really 7 years ago?,
So i did quite well after i was last here, then gradually (very gradually) slipped back into it.
I changed my friends circle, blocked and all the rest. But ultimately relapsed (not failed). Being here helped a lot, it humbled me and made me see my real self.

After my last relapse (wake up call) i wrote this in my diary.

``Hi i`am a compulsive gambler, and have been for many years. My story is very similar to most , started young and had a few decent days (that only fueled the bad days), and so i was sucked in.

I will condense the next 35 years

Gambled- regretted-vowed to stop-got bored -low self esteem because of the gambling-stressed-depressed- bored- gambled. Throw 3 deaths of very good friends in around my 20s.

Repeat the above for the next 35 years and you get the idea, i vowed to stop many times including every new years eve and birthday in that time.

Just to add the last decade id actively go out and gamble on new years day just to get the elephant in the room out of the way for another year.

There were tears , arguments lies oh yes there was lots of lies,deceit and lots of occasions i did things i would never believe i was capable of.
I had a few limited attempts to stop in the last decade, which although ultimately failed proved to me that i did have it in me to stop for long periods (90 days being my best)

My last decision to stop was back in January of this year, in the midst of a poker session (it wasn't going especially badly and i wasn't at rock bottom) i just decided that was enough, turned the laptop(mid tournament) off and sat for the next hour contemplating my life, i can say i wasn't especially depressed and wasn't particularly unhappy.

I then made the decision to quit, i had done this many times previously, but my thought process this time was very different, it just felt right not desperation or inevitability just i want to stop this nonsense.

I contemplated things further and came to the realization that previous attempts were solely desperation, and attempts to show my partner that i was serious and to go easy on me.

But not this time, this time was for me, and i was going to do this as the title suggests from a position of strength.

How could i do things differently?, well firstly is take advice and actually listen, some of you reading this will have been the ones offering the advice and for this i will be eternally grateful. Secondly get professional help , which was in the form of a Councillor, they were so good but subtle, they don`t tell you what to think but steered my thought process to realize that i had issues of low self esteem and worthlessness, but also steered me to realize that other than gambling there was no basis for these thoughts.

Thirdly seeing that others had genuine and probably more extreme problems helped me to realize if others could be so strong in adversity, then i certainly should be able to have a decent crack at going gamble free, again thank you, you all know who you are.

My partner knows nothing of any of this, but has been ultra supportive and understanding in the past(after the initial shock and arguments of course).

I am not and never will be cured, this has depressed me in the past, but it is me, i will and am doing my absolute all to keep this at bay.

Its not just about the gambling(or none gambling), lifestyle, mental well being, relaxation and peace are all words to sit down and consider in ourselves, along with boredom and depression.``

I have been gamble free for almost 2 years now. My life is quite good. I am very relaxed and at peace now.
It can be i wont say beaten but definitely lived with.

I hope everyone i used to chat with here are winning their own battles or at the very least finding periods of peace and abstinence.

It can be done.

Very encouraging Peacefulcrew - thanks for you post.

It's all about supporting each other - being able to share your own experiences and learnings with others. What strikes me is how long I tolerated gambling in my own life - it's still dumbfounds me how blind I was, but I guess that's the nature of any addiction.

I try to switch the way I view myself and my past when the addiction was at it's strongest. I used to be ashamed, but now I'm proud. Proud enough that I was able to wake up, see the carnage that was caused and make myself better in order to try and clean up the mess. Find purpose in the suffering I think that is the key.

Welcome back PeacefulCrew , it's wonderful to hear from you and big congratulations on your years of recovery ! Updates like yours are inspiring and uplifting .

peacefulcrew wrote:I am not and never will be cured, this has depressed me in the past, but it is me, i will and am doing my absolute all to keep this at bay.

That realization depressed me too , in my early years of recovery . Today , I understand that this was because my addiction insisted that gambling was "fun" and something I enjoyed . I honestly cannot look back now and find one moment of gambling that I considered fun . I certainly did not enjoy being broke , in debt , stressed out and depressed .

Those are the lies of my addiction - that I will not be happy without it , that there will be something valuable missing from my life if I stop gambling . The reality is , my life was fine before addiction got its claws into me and infinitely worse afterwards .

movingon2014 wrote:I try to switch the way I view myself and my past when the addiction was at it's strongest. I used to be ashamed, but now I'm proud. Proud enough that I was able to wake up, see the carnage that was caused and make myself better in order to try and clean up the mess. Find purpose in the suffering I think that is the key.

Well said , Movingon . We are not our addiction . I am far more than a gambling addict in recovery . It's actually a quite small part of who I am these days when I consider myself as a whole . There is much to learn on the recovery road .

I made it 11 days, I was quite proud of myself. I relapsed last Wed (lost my initial sportsbook deposit within an hour) and Friday. The Friday deposit lasted until I lost it all on Sunday so now I'm 2 days GF. I am ashamed and didn't want to post on here but after reading this thread decided to.

A recent night, my wife fell asleep on the couch, our 7 year old comes into bed most nights in the middle of the night. It was just me and my son this night in mine and my wife's bed. I was laying in bed next to him at 3AM, I was thinking of how much of a waste my life has been and how I have basically destroyed it. This is a constant "reel in my head" that replays numerous times each day. My 7 year old son woke up and asked me why I was crying, I told him I wasn't and to go back to sleep. I was actually weeping uncontrollably as he woke up. You know the kind of crying where you can't take breaths and you feel like there's no tears left inside of you.

This is just a snippet of a moment of what gambling does to me. There is no good in it. Even if I win, I never actually win, I always lose in the end. How do I lose sight of this? How could a sane person continue to do this? I feel defeated.

I hope I can keep going. One day at a time...actually it feels more like one minute at a time to me. I wish I felt like normal people do and that this didn't ever enter my life.

Hey wrconle,

Hang in there. I know that it can feel like an endless cycle which you can't get out of, but use this feeling to self-exclude yourself from all your sportsbook accounts. It is an excellent way to put a barrier between you and the gambling. It isn't a permanent solution, but it will at least make it harder to bet on games and hopefully in that delay, you will think "This just isn't worth it.... I don't want to continue this cycle anymore"

wrconle wrote:One day at a time...actually it feels more like one minute at a time to me. I wish I felt like normal people do and that this didn't ever enter my life.

In the beginning it can feel like one minute at a time and in these times, you will need lots of distractions. Movies, exercise, take your son out! The good thing is that you CAN feel like a normal person again, but that will take months of gamble free time (I say 6 months to 12 months) . It is OK to fail over and over again, but hopefully you learn sometime more about yourself or the addiction. That way, we can try to be better prepared for our path to recovery. I can't remember how many times that I REALLY tried to stop gambling (changing passwords, doing readings, self-exclusion, making vows and promises) and then relapsed 3 or 4 days later, but I am guessing it is around 30 - 50 times.

Don't be ashamed wrconle. We ALL know how down we feel when we are in the cycle. I applaud your courage to post while you don't want others to know Keep it up!!

I can relate to your struggle wrconle, as I have a son slightly older to yours, and I had been in that same situation, crying while my son was sleeping.

The battle to quit is not easy, but achievable. The days will pass by, one by one.
There is a lot of strategies being posted in this forum. Find the ones that works best for you.

Life can get better and it will be better. Just that it is better without this one problem, the gambling problem.

Do read up more here, and also post. I wish you success and I believe you can attain it.

Man I can't believe it's been 8 years since this thread started.

At the time of the writing I believe I was over a year gamble free (maybe two). Sure enough, as the title says - I relapsed again after I wrote it. This was written in late 2016, and I believe I had 2-3 relapses in 2017 before I finally stopped around 20th September of that year.
Needless to say, I was ashamed to come back and admit it. It took me 1,5 years to come back and spit it out.

Please don't be discouraged if you relapse. Forgive yourself, get up and move on into your gamble free life. You'll do better the next time I promise you. We all think that once we have stopped gambling for an extended period of time, we have beaten the compulsion and we are in charge. That is not how the recovery works in my experience.
The reality is that for most people (and I really hope that you are the exception) once you start having extended gamble free periods, the initial relapses are very strong, painful and damaging. Than you pick yourself up and start another GF period only to relapse again.
My recovery process was along these lines:
- 10+ years gambling from mid 20s to mid 30s
- a painful realization that I'm a compulsive gambler followed by cathartic relief and about a month of gamble free period
- followed by hard and painful relapse
- pick my s**** up start over again
- less than a month gamble free period
- relapse
- more pain, shame, anger, financial damage, start over
- another short gamble free period
- relapse
- pain, shame, anger, financial damage. start over
- gamble free for about 6 months
- relapse with less damage and for a shorter period of time
- less pain, shame and anger. start over
- stay gamble free for about 3 months
- relapse again with even less damage and even shorter period of time
- even less pain, shame or anger. start all over again
- GF for about a year or two
- relapse
- start over
- gamble free for over 7 years to this day

It took me 10 years and 15+ relapses for my brain to rewire and finally get a grip of it.
I don't want to scare you with how hard this is. I want to encourage you to think of this as a back and forth process. It might seem long and scary, but thrust me, it goes by very fast and it's a very rewarding process.
In the beginning it's a 2 step forward and 3 steps back. Don't give up. Over time you will notice that it becomes 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. Continue going and it turns into 4 to 1, before you finally start walking forward free.
As you move along the process, the initially very strong negative emotions and the financial damage caused by the relapses, start to subside. You will be more and more in charge of your feelings and reactions even when you are in the middle of the gambling relapse.

You got this. You are strong, you are worthy and you deserve to take care of yourself.
Stay strong everybody and have a Happy Holiday Season!

peacefulcrew wrote:

NewSunRising wrote:``I think about our past members too , GB . I hope with all my heart that they are Gamble-free and doing well . If that is not so , I would hope that they felt that they could come back here for support .

This forum is not a place where only the successful are welcome . So many of us have been through the pain and shame of relapse . We know what it's like to feel helpless and hopeless , to feel like we will never beat this addiction and get our lives back.``

Jeez is it really 7 years ago?,
So i did quite well after i was last here, then gradually (very gradually) slipped back into it.
I changed my friends circle, blocked and all the rest. But ultimately relapsed (not failed). Being here helped a lot, it humbled me and made me see my real self.

After my last relapse (wake up call) i wrote this in my diary.

``Hi i`am a compulsive gambler, and have been for many years. My story is very similar to most , started young and had a few decent days (that only fueled the bad days), and so i was sucked in.

I will condense the next 35 years

Gambled- regretted-vowed to stop-got bored -low self esteem because of the gambling-stressed-depressed- bored- gambled. Throw 3 deaths of very good friends in around my 20s.

Repeat the above for the next 35 years and you get the idea, i vowed to stop many times including every new years eve and birthday in that time.

Just to add the last decade id actively go out and gamble on new years day just to get the elephant in the room out of the way for another year.

There were tears , arguments lies oh yes there was lots of lies,deceit and lots of occasions i did things i would never believe i was capable of.
I had a few limited attempts to stop in the last decade, which although ultimately failed proved to me that i did have it in me to stop for long periods (90 days being my best)

My last decision to stop was back in January of this year, in the midst of a poker session (it wasn't going especially badly and i wasn't at rock bottom) i just decided that was enough, turned the laptop(mid tournament) off and sat for the next hour contemplating my life, i can say i wasn't especially depressed and wasn't particularly unhappy.

I then made the decision to quit, i had done this many times previously, but my thought process this time was very different, it just felt right not desperation or inevitability just i want to stop this nonsense.

I contemplated things further and came to the realization that previous attempts were solely desperation, and attempts to show my partner that i was serious and to go easy on me.

But not this time, this time was for me, and i was going to do this as the title suggests from a position of strength.

How could i do things differently?, well firstly is take advice and actually listen, some of you reading this will have been the ones offering the advice and for this i will be eternally grateful. Secondly get professional help , which was in the form of a Councillor, they were so good but subtle, they don`t tell you what to think but steered my thought process to realize that i had issues of low self esteem and worthlessness, but also steered me to realize that other than gambling there was no basis for these thoughts.

Thirdly seeing that others had genuine and probably more extreme problems helped me to realize if others could be so strong in adversity, then i certainly should be able to have a decent crack at going gamble free, again thank you, you all know who you are.

My partner knows nothing of any of this, but has been ultra supportive and understanding in the past(after the initial shock and arguments of course).

I am not and never will be cured, this has depressed me in the past, but it is me, i will and am doing my absolute all to keep this at bay.

Its not just about the gambling(or none gambling), lifestyle, mental well being, relaxation and peace are all words to sit down and consider in ourselves, along with boredom and depression.``

I have been gamble free for almost 2 years now. My life is quite good. I am very relaxed and at peace now.
It can be i wont say beaten but definitely lived with.

I hope everyone i used to chat with here are winning their own battles or at the very least finding periods of peace and abstinence.

It can be done.

Thank you for the nicely written update. I love this part:

"My last decision to stop was back in January of this year, in the midst of a poker session (it wasn't going especially badly and i wasn't at rock bottom) i just decided that was enough, turned the laptop(mid tournament) off and sat for the next hour contemplating my life, i can say i wasn't especially depressed and wasn't particularly unhappy.

I then made the decision to quit, i had done this many times previously, but my thought process this time was very different, it just felt right not desperation or inevitability just i want to stop this nonsense."

It's such a beautiful random wake-up moment. I have been doing a lot of contemplating lately, as part of my daily meditations. I strongly suggest to everybody to start meditating. It's a very powerful tool of connecting with yourself and the universe.