Thanks for the encouragement, Razabelle.
I have to be motivated about this. Anything less would have me chasing lost money that will never, ever be in my account again via gambling.
Honestly though, it’s exhausting just trying to keep positive while staring down the deceptive compulsion inside myself. Heck, I don’t feel like a compulsive gambler, regardless of the proof. I don’t get the shakes, get physically ill or have withdrawal seizures like most addictions provide when one decides to stop. But I do have a compulsion, that’s for **** sure. But ONLY when I give myself even the slightest nod of approval to gamble, then I’m a stark-raving mad stranger to myself. Maybe not at first, but eventually, I get there. That’s my old friend.
The thing that scares me the most right now is that this isn’t even the most sure I’ve been about not gambling again. I sure hope this is an entire war, because I’ve lost a few battles. But at least now I’m prepared for a trigger that before I wasn’t aware of before – this being that given time (two years this last time), I get lazy in my recovery (all ancient history now!) and allow myself to be***ve that I can just gamble a little and KEEP IT THIS TIME! ****** for that bull****!
This is the *** that lives in far too many of us compulsive gamblers: that we can be cured and it will all be like it was in the beginning – just a fun time at the casino. No way, no how. I’m afraid our recovery doesn’t end until the day we die and we cannot allow our guard down for even an instant, because this is precisely when the beckoning viper strikes (again) to deprive our lives of guiltless peace. And when I say "guiltless peace", I can even do without the peace, just give me the ‘guiltless’ (regarding gambling) and I’ll manage just fine.
As a side note: I’d like to thank the operator(s) of this site for affording myself (and others) the opportunity to write these feelings down while I’m in this current state to read again at a later date when I think all’s well with having beaten my long-ago gambling addiction. If you could keep it in operation for the duration of my life, that’d be perfect, because I need the man I am at the moment to remind the man coming later about just how dangerous he is.
