I wrote about my life at that time.
I was single, not coping with life very well. I bought a small cottage and filled it with the stuff I had from the house with my wife + the stuff I had accumulated whilst I had been living in digs in the Midlands + stuff from my mother’s place. I couldn’t move – and it stopped me from having anyone else round. I remember once having a bad dose of flu and not speaking to anyone for about 3 weeks – I felt like I was turning into my mother!
Work was getting difficult as people were noticing that I wasn’t looking after myself and couldn’t understand why (I told no-one about my gambling) I was passed over for promotion several times – and as someone who had previous management experience – that hurt. So I gambled more and more … I guess to take the pain away. Even after joining GA and admitting I had a problem – I was still gambling because I wasn’t dealing with anything else.
After all this stop / start gambling (which was “better” in that I was slowing down, but painful because I could see how I was still hurting myself,) I came to the decision to take my recovery as seriously as I took my gambling. I decided to change my life.
The biggest decision was to change my job to another part of the country. Once I had done that I had to move … I put my “stuff” in storage and became a lodger again – but this time it was a much better experience. I chose where to move to based on there being no arcades or casinos in the town and a pub nearby without a fruit machine. I also decided to pay for one-way counselling specifically addressing my gambling addiction. I kept up with GA – perhaps too much as I got involved in the running of the organisation which led to a relapse after 3 years without gambling. I’ll write more later.