Thank you, and it is nice to see that we’re not alone in this mess. This addiction does not only take your money, it takes your pride, self-confidence and for me personally it makes me numb. I realised about 2 years ago, when I had professional addiction therapy that I didn’t like the person I became. A workaholic, trying to get acknowledged for his achievements, isolated and forgetting about the things that are most important in life: sharing moments with people you love.
I still am proud of my achievements, I should be, it keeps me going, but I tried to listen more to myself: what do I actually want in this life? I still haven’t found the answer, but atleast I learned what I do not want to be.
Looking back on this, I realise that I have lost my focus (again), the gambling doesn’t bring me joy, doesn’t bring me closer to people, it just puts me back to my old habits, the me that I already realised I don’t want to be.
My biggest barriers are the people I love, I don’t want to hurt them, I don’t want to lie to them. But also for myself, I don’t want to be in this rollercoaster of stress and uncertainty anymore. Thank you for making me think of this, I should think about this more to see what I can do to help myself.
It is nice to be able to relate to someone, did you find some good barriers for yourself? And how is it going so far, are the urges strong? For me I usually don’t have that much urges, I have been able to fill up my life already with more positive events and activities outside of gambling. Around paydays I get a lot of urges usually, thinking about what I can do with the money, and I am not able to use my barriers properly.
Thanks again for your time and interest. It feels really good to have someone out there that can relate – it is very hard to talk to people in my surroundings – not that they are not open to talk about it but because they don’t seem to understand what a gambling addiction is and it usually just makes me feel more sick and insecure talking about it.