hi losingitslowly,
don’t beat yourself up for this relapse, it really something from the past and you just need to learn from it, we can’t change the past.
frankly, I was afraid you will relapse, after reading your post few days a ago, you wrote that your daughter is going on a trip for a few days and you were expecting some hard time fighting the urges during her absence. this is the point that you need to focus on what you could have done to prevent yourself from gambling knowing that you are going to face a situation that will trigger a lot of gambling urges.
a few days ago I find some patterns in my records when I write something like “thankfully today I had a huge urge to gamble but I overcome them” I found myself relapsing the next day or maximum within a week period.
relapse is not coming out of the blue, there are some signs that we can detect before the relapse happened,
it is like we have a certain threshold after which we break, a period between having the money+ the access to the gambling sites+ and the free time to gamble once all these 3 prerequisites are there it is just a matter of time, it is a question for how long we can withstand the urges pressure, from reading my records some times one day some times one week, the inevitable relapse will happen.
once this resisting period starts I think there is no way back, “at least for me” so this time I am taking extra measures to avoid reaching this high urges pre-relapse period.
I wrote this in reply to Don a few days ago and I feel it is worth repeating it here:
“I am quite convinced now with what I am reading about gambling and our brain, it is like we have two distinct ways of thinking. System 1 is automatic, quick, and involuntary. System 2 is effortful, slower, and deliberate.
gambling comes from system 1 and trying to stop gambling comes from system 2. both are in there in my brain, both are me”
it is like having two persons inside your head, one of them convinced that gambling is wrong and trying to prevent you from doing it, and the other convinced gambling is a way to make money.
and you have to help the rational part in you in his fight against the irrational part.
regarding CBT, I read a book discussing the current treatments for compulsive gamblers, and it looks like MI is the best Motivational interviewing therapy,
below is a link to the type of therapy that mixes both CBT and MI. which looks like the best approach for the gambler, unfortunately in my case I have ruined myself financially so I can’t afford the cost of therapy, but if you can, why not. it will help.