I have been reading your journal and wanted to say that I think that you have done an amazing thing by telling your son about the true extent of your gambling problem, you should feel very proud of yourself, I think it is even harder to tell our children simply because we feel we must stay high on the pedestal of parenthood, and the worry about the burden that we feel we can not pass to them since we are ‘the parent’ and not the child. You say you been playing some panda game, I used to spend hours playing candy crush until I realised that when I was not gambling I was using that as a replacement so it kind of kept the compulsive gambling alive, so I no longer play any games since I become compulsive on those too, just my experience. 🙂
I know all about the piles of unopened letters, it took me four months to get the courage to open mine and have recently got debt help from step change. Gambling for me at this stage frightens the life out of me as I know I can’t stop once started so I have no access to online gambling, the urges are there at times, sometimes extremely strong but due to the blocking of access I am safe for me at the moment it is the only way.
I am glad that you are going on the residential next week, I attended that too you will get a lot of help and learn new strategies and reasons as to why you gamble, I will be praying and thinking of you all next week its a beautiful place I wish I could gate crash.
You are doing well Andrea, to not gamble with all that happened yesterday is fantastic, you can have a better life, life is not about money, we born with none we leave with none its the love and life we lead that counts and we can all live a good moral life without gambling, it’s not easy but anything worth having never is. Take good care of yourself Andrea
