Have a long weekend with 4 days off (Monday public holiday and I have Tuesdays off work currently) – first few days went pretty well, very productive got a lot of things around the house done which I’ve been putting off.
A couple of stress triggers and boredom gave me my strongest urge to gamble since my last relapse 34 days ago. I actually searched for which websites I could play on outside of my country which I had not self-excluded from. I even went as far as creating an account thinking “well I will just self-exclude or I might have a small bet before I do it.” Luckily I self-excluded immediately. I also created an account with another international betting site which I came across during my search and self-excluded proactively from there too. Feels great to follow what I said I’d do – immediate self-exclusion following any urges whatsoever.
The funny thing is after doing this I actually felt a lot better overall about my day (the boredom went away even). Just goes to show that even contemplating gambling and the process of “will I or won’t I” is in itself very scary and stress-inducing. Once I got that out of the way, once I knew that I was strong enough to overcome the urge, all my other stresses disappeared as well. This addiction really does lurk in the shadows and attaches itself (often subconsciously) to everything we do, like a dormant parasite. We must always be on high alert.
The temptations will always be there but with every win I have against the urges, I feel more and more confident in my ability to get through this.