Hello all, thanks for the comments.
Well week 2 came and went. Joined the uni gym (although I haven’t been yet), went to the local table tennis club which proved to be a little (a lot) above my standard and went to the Mature Student’s Association which wasn’t really what I thought it would be. Did a few extra shifts at work as I had a lot of spare time that week and then went along to an open day for the university rifle club but, again didn’t feel it was for me but at least I made the effort to go along and see. That was really it for week 2. No gambling urges at all.
First half of week 3 was great went to my lectures on Mon/Tue/Wed and then had my half sister up to my flat on Wednesday afternoon when she finished school and I cooked her her dinner. It all went downhill after that though.
I was restless in my flat, I’d had a good ten days, a day off coming up and I was lonely. I decided to go to the pub to watch the football. 5 pints later and I was craving company so I texted a friend who came to meet me. We ended up on a 30hour binge which left me physically and mentally hurt. I spent a load of money, called in sick for work on Friday. Managed to drag myself in for a couple of small shifts Sat/Sun but have spent the last three days totally depressed and missed my lectures this morning. There are still positives to take though. Over the weekend and today I have found myself feeling very upset to the point where I have been in tears. When I was gambling I would have buried these feelings and gone out gambling to make myself feel better but, although it’s still not nice, I’ve been able to sit with my feelings and just accept being upset. I now feel extremely isolated, afraid to come out of my room and a shadow of the person that came out of residential treatment 3 weeks ago. Vera…..I should’ve taken your advice and will now.
I think I thought the reason I felt so good coming out of therapy was simply because I hadn’t gambled and didn’t feel that I wanted to any more. There’s no point in me replacing gambling with other destructive behaviors and expecting the end result to be any different. I am choked with the cold at the moment, probably because of what I put my body through over the past week but, once I am better, I will go back to living as I did in therapy. A tight weekly budget, no alcohol, meetings every day (uni classes) and a positive outlook. The way I felt coming out of therapy is still fresh in my mind and I am keen to return to that asap. The last few days have really shown me how fragile my recovery is and I’ll do everything I can to assess my wrong choices and get back onto the right path I deserve to be on and am capable of navigating.
123rd day gamble free 🙂