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will try and post my story again...
#1
Hi readers....
I have wanted to post a story for some time about being a compulsive gambler in action and one that is recovering. If your a general visitor to this site, person who feels they may have an issue or the wife/husband/gf/bf of someone you suspect to have a serious gambling issue I urge you to read....

For the sake of this story being meaningful I have gambled once now in nearly four and a half years and I will explain how my life is steadily improving and how I managed this:

I cannot recollect the homeless and generally stupid period of my life between 18-23so I will fast forward onto a time when I had what we call "settled down".

Phone rings, damn run outside leave the bandit "Hi love" "will be back in a few hours love just chatting to friends", back inside down to last note, its ok got money in the bank, quick withdrawal, not small, all. Back inside, must pay soon, damn, is that two hours, leave with just enough for a takeaway in my pocket. Jump in the car, damn why, why, why!! head spinning I drive like Micheal Schumacher on steroids...must get back...must get back...which excuse this time runs through my mind...

Walk in happy "hey Baby" oh i have a had a nightmare...lost my wallet!! think thats only the fourth wallet since we have been together....along with numerous "car wont start" "got a flat tyre"...this went on for a year or more.....

Then Bang came the day: can you give me the rent?? erm well...erm...bearing in mind I had been a compulsive gambler as long as I can remember till this point in life....baby I have a problem with gambling...im skint.....i will find help....I scoured through and found a GA meeting...

Unfortunately after six months of constant meeting i slipped up and went on to slip up again later in that year before the now ex left with what she could.

My life then took some drastic turns and eventually once the family had distanced themselves from me I found myself hiding in a prison of gambling, needing escape.

I like to draw comparisons ie life to something else so please forgive my vivid imagination:

I like to think of life as like building a house, if you find the land you should build carefully what we do when we are compulsive gamblers in action we find the land, gather a shovel and start to dig a hole, this hole gets deeper and deeper until all we can see is the dark around us, its now so deep that we cant get out and our answer is to dig deeper. Our voice of reason says get out, start again, but guilt coupled with voices in our head says dig.

What i did was unprecidented, i needed to be reprogrammed totally from start to finish such was the depth of my desease or "lack of education" as my Gf would like to call it, i could see no way out of the hole I had dug, not even the ropes of friendship that the at the time GA meetings tried to send to me.

So One day I broke free, not just easily but I needed to be somewhere I could focus on being me without gambling no matter what happened.

So at that day that I said "whats gone is gone" only the things I learnt in GA can start me to build a new building and so without money and without gambling I started to dig some foundations, I made them wide so I could see clearly and this meant waking up at 6 going to work and believeing there was a end result...it was what i now know as the "hard road" i also each day said those words "just for today I will not gamble".

I had gone from a nice car and a business to a bike...but the foundations although a struggle were slowly being laid well. I continued to work hard and bought a car, not on HP but cash, call this some bricks, I continued to strive but all the time my strength became stronger, the voices in that dark, miserable tunnel started to go away, occasionally I would wake to think I was trapped in that hole but I would wake to realise it was in fact just a horrible dream of past reflection. So now my building has the foundations, my life has foundations, I live in a small but comfortable place, im still building, but with the changes in my character and personality I know that my building will not fall over.

The things I had lost forever slowly returned, such as family love, not loathe, the ex who took everything stays in touch and respects me, the past is now truly past.

When I think about all those lives stuck in that hole dug by themselves thinking about escape its only truly the words we say after every meeting that will forever be tattood in my mind "god grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference"

"courage" and "wisdom" mean that although I didnt see the passing of my nan, my guardian angel, she can look down and see that I have changed, I am truly a man, a man who hurts no other, thinks and see's all things wonderfull clearly and certainly no matter how my life will take me I will never return to that hole we all know as gambling.

I owe my life, my future to GA, I owe my gratitude to sincere respectable people who respect where it is due and i hope all others find the courage to see what GA has given to me and my life.

I want to leave this post with one last sentiment. In my dark days I would often hate gambling, i would hate the people who push it upon my weakened character, i would succumb to its temptation. Now I just see it as a small obsticle I will never allow to become big enough to rule, control or influence my life, we cannot change the fact its there but we can rebuild our lives.

I post to others often on this site as it is my "therapy" your stories, your issues, your situations all stimulate that feeling in my mind of when "I was in that hole" my words come from my heart to others because I have done it all, done worse and only through the programme am I able to rebuild what was a shattered life.

I dont borrow, I dont steal, I dont lie (try not to), I am honest, Im doing my best and most important to me is this morning I woke up and said "just for today I will not gamble". I will never be normal I will never change others but as long as I changed me that to me is all that counts.

Best wishes there truly is a better path.

My name is Barrie and I am a compulisve gambler.
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#2
Great story that gives us all hope and inspiration.i like the comparison of building foundations.well done for all you have achieved.x
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#3
Dizzy, No fun, Cleo,
Sounds like a start to seven Dwarfs...Hehe. I noted you said "well done for all you have acheived" and I want to just say nothing has been acheived, acheivement will be judged at the pearly gates that I hope are some way off. Until that day I hope "God Continues to Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot Change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference"

I will not rest on my laurels and say "wow look what I was and what I am now" I want to remain grounded in the belief that just simply by being "normal" and living "just for today" then I will succeed.

As a further update and I hope "all wish me good luck" I this weekend spent more money than I have ever spent before on a diamond ring (its quite beautiful) to get on one knee and ask the girl I love the most to become my wife.

We had a row on Friday and she slapped me round the face, it wa because some of the character traits of gambling still remain one of which is (selfishness) and I know this.

If anyone wishes to succeed then its a life long battle and one that must be done "one day at a time".

My name is Barrie and I am a compulsive gambler.
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