[Dark Energy]

it will be better Gustav, the 1st week is the toughest week and you just completed it, the next days will be better.
regarding the depression and focus, I still have those from time to time.
there is something that will help, I new about it long ago but never try it, I think I will give it a test in the next week.
search for dopamine fasting, and I recommend you reading the book “dopamine nation”.

it seams addiction will cause a dopamine depletion so we can’t enjoy the small things and be motivated to do it, but if we do dopamine fasting we will back to enjoy the small stuff and be motivated to do it.

[Dark Energy]

hi Curising\Gustav.
wish you all the best, if you are prepared I am sure you will pass it.
not to scare you but the riskiest paydays for me is the one that followed with a weekend or a long holyday, unfortunately like tomorrow.
if I didn’t distribute the money before i leave the office I will be very tempted to gamble. be more carful with such days.
the combination of money + free time + access to gambling site is very dangerous for us.

wish you all the best

just a small tip:
after paying all your payments and keeping money for your other expenses, if you don’t have a plan or a way to protect the extra money, you can buy gold coin or gold bars there are bars from 5g and up. it will give you a time buffer because you need to sell it to get the cash compared with the cash that you can directly lose it to gambling if you slip. i know if we relapse some time nothing can stop us from ruining every thing but, i found this useful for me because in addition to the money that i save in a protected account “protected from me” i need some extra money for any emergency, keeping cash was very tempting to me, but keeping gold was much better. i failed on the first time i used this method but after that and for almost 2 years now i am having my emergency fund as gold. I had multiple relapses during the last two years but I didn’t use my gold emergency fund to gamble I used it once to cover the rest of my expenses after a relapse.
also i have a maximum limit for this emergency fund ( my monthly expenses x 2), I can’t trust myself to keep an easy excess for a bigger amount even if it is gold not cash. if you need to use this method i suggest to build it gradually to test this method and to gain trust.

[Dark Energy]

good job, this is really a very good step.
wish you all the best in your recovery

[Dark Energy]

Hi Gustav,
sorry to hear about your relapse, but it happened and there is nothing you can do about it, focus on the future.
after all my relapses I concluded that I should work on 3 parts to address this addiction :

part#1: prevention and immediate action ( the usual stuff)
barriers, cutting credit card, website blockers, reduce access to money, ask some one to handle your money, attend meetings SMART or GA .. .etc the forum is full of these tips and tools. the first part will give you a buffer to focus on the real causes that keeps you relapsing.

part#2: the real stuff:
if you can afford a therapist then work with one, if you can’t (like me) then you have to do it on your own.
you need to figure out what trading gives you and find a real and realistic alternatives.
for me trading was an escape, a hope of better future.. a wrong answer for the question how I can live a better life, how I can reach to a financial freedom, how I can be more self-confident, how I can have my own business, …….etc because it is an easy answer I kept going back to trading, i didn’t have an alternative answers. the solution is to find a better answers and realistic alternatives to fill your needs ( all your needs : personal, financial, emotional …etc ) .
we both know we are addict we both know once we place this first trade it is a matter of time before we blow the account up. so why we still do it, we do it because it serves a need, we have to find what it serves and find an alternative solution to that need.

trading is an easy answer but it is the wrong answer, you need to search for the correct answers.

part#3: the psychological part.
frankly I can’t afford to work with specialist because the financial disaster that I am in, but if you can you need to check for the underlaying causes for example : if you have ADHD you are more prone to addiction, if you have depression you are prone to addiction, if you are introvert you are prone to addiction… this needs a specialist to work with you, if you can’t afford it, read about, watch youtube see what can be done to help you in this regards,
fore example there is some supplement like omega 3 and NAC are very helpful, walking and life style changes can help as well. do your best in this part don’t ignore it.

as a summery you need a holistic approach to deal with this addiction and the root causes of it.

I could be a more severe case, I am in recovery for the last 5 or 6 years with ton of relapses, I may not be the right person to give you an advice but this is my personal conclusion and this is what I am currently trying to apply to defeat this addiction .

wish you all the best

• This reply was modified 1 month, 4 weeks ago by Dark Energy.
• This reply was modified 1 month, 4 weeks ago by Dark Energy.

[Dark Energy]

Hi Gustav,
thanks for checking on me. still gambling free since my last post, I guess today is the 97th or 98th day. in general every thing fine, my mood is better, I am working on my self, it is almost 6 weeks of following a keto diet and the result is very good so far, financially I am a bet better nut still I have long way to go, also I have some Ideas and projects that keeps me busy. this is the positive side.

the negative side
I am still very fragile, every now and then a small things triggers my depression. some time it last for hours other times it last for 3 or 4 days, eventually I get over it and back on track.

also I still have a deep sadness that does not leave, I hide it when I am around my friends or at work, and I really tray to be busy all the time to not let this sadness turns in to depression.

in addition to that, I still have this fear of relapse, I know I am one slip a way from destroying every thing that I built in the last 3 months, a one slip could cost me my life. I am really scared from relapses.

years of gambling and years of recovery and relapses left me completely destroyed and defeated.

that’s it, there is progress but there is a lot to be done.

wish you all the best

[Dark Energy]

here we go again, today is the 7th Day free of gambling, this time I reached 80+ days and then relapsed…
the golden words that come to my mind these days are ( abstinence is not recovery ) I guess no one could value these words more than I do especially in the last few days, when you relapse that many times like I did you start doubting your self you start to doubt everything.
but I think these words are the answer (abstinence is not recovery) it seems all I was doing was abstinence without a real recovery.

[Dark Energy]

hell no…my friend Forex caused all my suffering.
it is gambling but with cover.
let me give you an example, you can have leverage up to 1:500. what this means is if you have 1000$ you can trade with 500,000, if the market goes as low as 1% against you you will lose the 1000$. and if it goes 1% in your favor you will win 1000$. it is pure gambling.
and don’t believe all this technical analysis, indicators ..etc I have tried it all, but it didn’t work.
keep away my friend it is not worth it at all.

at least with gambling, you know that you are doing something wrong, you know that you should not gamble, but with forex.. you think you are doing something professionally, you think you are going to learn to improve your skills to be able to do it full-time as a professional trader. but no.. you are gambling in the market.

plz stay away from it, or any kind of day trading, the only relation with the market that we can have as gambling addicts is long-term investing with special measures to protect us.

you can read my first journal (Forex Addiction) to see how Forex ruined my life.

forex addiction

[Dark Energy]

Day#44,
my gambling addiction is under control, no urges.
my diet is going well I have reduced 3 kg in 14 days, not good but at least I am changing my eating habits, I had a setback a week ago but now I am on track. i need to lose another 13 kg to reach my acceptable level.
I am trying to rebuild my life one day at a time, a lot of things need to be fixed but I am trying to do what I can slowly without overwhelming myself.

life throws a lot of shit on us every day we have to deal with that and deal with our own issues that have been compounding over years off addiction.

[Dark Energy]

Day#38,
battling my other issues put the trading addiction in autopilot mode, I am not thinking about my gambling addiction these days, I have no urges at all.
now all that I am focused on is solving the other issues \ addictions in my life.

my diet plan didn’t go well, I have “relapsed” on the 5th day and am back to my old bad eating habits, I will start over tomorrow.

• This reply was modified 7 months ago by Dark Energy.

[Dark Energy]

Day#31,
One month has passed, and as I mentioned in the previous post I need to make one good change each month, I have decided to work on my weight, Smoking is difficult to stop this month and I need a positive momentum so I picked to focus on my weight loss.
I have started a diet plan today, and within 30 days I hope I will adapt to this new diet.

[Dark Energy]

hi Craig,
Charles gives you really good advice, barriers are really helpful.
you can’t depend on your willpower alone to stop this addiction, It may help 99% of the time but this 1% when our willpower lets us down will put us back to square zero.
in many addiction recovery books, they use the myth of Udysios and the siren as an analogy for how to defeat addiction, he knows that he can’t resist the sirens so he ties himself and asks his sailors to put wax on their ears. and by doing that his ship passed safely from the sirens area.
For us, it is all about
1. Access to money.
2. Access to gambling sites or casinos.
3. Free time ( where the gambling thoughts will start).

find a way to keep the extra money protected for you and away from you.
to find a way to ban yourself and block gambling sites.
and to keep yourself busy by doing anything even if it is not that productive.

wish you all the best.

[Dark Energy]

Hi Marcus,

I am like you wasted a lot of time on this addiction and I will not lose any additional minutes gambling. Remembering lost time and opportunities in my life over years of addictions is much more painful than remembering the lost money.

whish you all the best in your recovery.

[Dark Energy]

Day#28,
2 days more to reach the 1-month mark, my mind is clear, and my mode is not bad.

I am planning to make a good change every 30 days and give it 30 days so this change will become a new habit.
The 1st 30 days were to put my gambling recovery back on track, and now I can say I am back on track and ready to take another step.
There are a lot of things in my life that need to be fixed, Now I am taking this new approach, and I will not overwhelm myself like I used to do, I used to start multiple things at the same time.

my next step is following a diet plan to tackle my weight problem or to stop smoking. Both are very difficult for me at this stage, because I use both of them to reduce stress and I have a very stressful period at work that will last for another 3 months.

I have 2 more days to decide, but I need to select the easiest option to commit to and focus on for the next 30 days to keep this snowball of good changes rolling and getting bigger and bigger.

[Dark Energy]

Hi Jvr,
I think in a physical meeting this could work for me, going to the meeting and seeing the other people face to face, there will be some kind of connection and that would have a lot of positive impact on me regardless of the higher power subject.
but there is no GA meeting in my country, I will search for AA meetings here.

the online meeting really didn’t help me, after your comment I think I should give it another trial this week.

[Dark Energy]

Day#22,
crossed my first relapsing schedule, The 21 days were one of the main days in the past, I relapsed many times at that mark, it is related to receiving my salary, so the typical month will be receiving the salary on the 1st day, then relapse for few days, and by the 8th to 10th day from the month I will be left with no more money to gamble with and then the recovery starts, and in many times once I hit the 21st day of recovery it will be the time when my next month salary arrived. so it is a huge trigger to gamble and I fall for it many times.
this time I passed, I had one urge that didn’t last long, I used the “Have the color of your eyes changed?” question and it worked again and the urge was gone.

this month I used a small amount of 350$ to buy a home office desk & chair, and an additional closet for storage, and I searched a lot to find the best model and best quality with the best price, and all of that for just a less than 350$ dollar, it is so strange how I used to through hundreds and thousands of dollars to this addiction without thinking twice. the money lost its value it was just a matter of keeping that false hope going.

[Author]

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