Living with the monster

TwoUpTwoDown

Good afternoon everyone

It's been nearly a year since i last posted and I'm happy to say that I have continued to avoid the fall back in to gambling

Life continues as normal with kids, house, job etc... and at times feels quite dull and at other times quite exhilarating. And when things seems dull; when the clock ticks by a little slower than you'd like, this is when the urges can occur. They are certainly nowhere near as frequent as before and truth be told, I quite like feeling bored and just staring at the wall for a while now whereas before I would be looking for that 'mental fidget-spinner'. I do believe that this inability to sit in silence was what made the addiction worse and in turn the activity in itself, made the idea of silence more difficult to deal with.

Quite a significant event happened a few months back where i was invited to an evening event which featured a play money casino. We were all given our tokens and I was thinking to myself, 'what's the harm. I could have a spin. There's no money involved.' but I walked away and just grabbed another drink. I enjoyed watching others take part but i still recognise the fragility of taking part in that behaviour because I really don't even want to risk waking up the old monsters.

To be at a point where i recognise potential triggers is a good place to be but I'm more proud of the fact that i don't hold on to the  feeling of resentment about it because that is where my mind can tend to trick me. It tries to tell me that I've missed out and that I should be angry about not being able to gamble anymore and I feel those emotions but i let them come and go and then i move on.

I still want to give my thanks to those here who spent the time to discuss things with me. I didn't ever seek any other help which is not perhaps the recommended route but it's what I chose to do. The positive feedback helped give me the energy and belief that I could succeed as well as the constructive thoughts and suggestions. having read back the thread, I can see that even the more negative responses helped me to reinforce the ambitions that I had in my head.