Welcome Jared.
Man, you are in that scary and (unfortunately) familiar place at the moment – and I’m right there with ya, buddy. Don’t dismiss it or wish for it to disappear, seize it! Your mind and your body are telling you one thing right now – gambling is detrimental to your well-being, not just financially, but just as importantly, emotionally.
If today can be the first day of not gambling ever again, isn’t what you’re we’re feeling at the moment one of the best gifts you we’ve have ever received? The priceless gift of self-preservation? Up to this point, I’ve always told myself that given a few days or a few weeks of not gambling that I’ll feel better. And I do…until the inevitable next time. But what if this feeling is precisely the prescription that we need and is supposed to be harnessed and used? What if -same as adrenaline – there’s a powerful, potential purpose for this depression and financial hardship, and we simply don’t interpret it as such, so we try to flee from and bury it instead of embrace it as we should?
Right now, I’m depressed, I’m scared, I feel very alone and I feel so much guilt that I can barely see straight or function, but I’m **** glad I do, since the only thing worse at this moment would be feeling nothing or holding fast to the ridiculous belief that I can win it all back. For then, I would truly have lost the war against my addiction and nothing would change.
