The last week or so has been pretty rough for me. Maybe because my quit rarely gets into the 30 day mark. Maybe because I have some extra time on my hands as of late, or maybe because my addictive mind is trying to convince me to place a wager. I know I don’t want to gamble and I definitely do not want the baggage that comes with gambling but to say I have been in a rut as of late would be an understatement.
As my mind wanders, quite often as of late, I’ve been thinking; I’ve been addicted to something for nearly all my life, and because of my addictions I’m not where I would like to be in my life. I spent from age 16 to age 32 being addicted to chewing tobacco. This addiction kept me from being my best self and pursuing my goals simply because I just wanted to isolate myself and dip for hours. I was a closet chewer. I didn’t let many people know of my addiction because I was embarrassed. So, I would avoid a lot of things just to dip. I didn’t prolong my educational career because that would take away isolation time. When I finally gave up dipping, I started to accomplish some of my life goals. However, not long after my dip addiction ended, I became fully engaged with my gambling addiction. When I chewed tobacco, I also gambled but it was on a much smaller scale. I would bet a game or two a day and call it a night. That lasted for about 7 years, and right around the same time I quit dipping, I went full fledged into gambling. Those two or three bets a day were now 8 to 10 hours a day. Completely out of control. I have lived the last 5 years with my sports gambling completely out of control and it has cost me so much. It has cost me money, it has cost me time, it has cost me relationships and it has cost me an opportunity of fulfilling my life goals. I understand I’m still alive and I still have an opportunity to capture my goals; however, I become very disappointed in myself because I expected to be further along in my life than I am at this point. It seems everything in my life has happened late due to my addictions. I had kids late (mid 30’s), I got married late (mid 30’s), I still rent, I still don’t have a solid career that I enjoy. It’s tough. I know things will get better but gosh, addictions have definitely impacted my life in a negative way.
I spent so much time over the last 5 years working multiple jobs just to support my gambling addiction. I would work nearly 75/80 hours a week (easily). Working all those hours caused me to miss many of my family functions, celebrations and events. It caused me to start living an unhealthy lifestyle. I stopped exercising, I put on a lot of weight over the course of these 5 years. The craziest part is even with working 3 jobs at once, I was still falling behind on my bills because of my excessive gambling. A few months before my last quit, I called my online sports book, who I used for a little over a year, and I asked them how much money I had lost to them since I opened an account with them and they told me 30,000. In just a little over a year, I gave them 30k. That might not seem like a lot to most folks but to me, that’s an enormous amount and that was just for ONE year!
I guess you could say its been a struggle for me recently. Making a sports wager will not help, it will only make it worse. I will continue to fight for my life because I know gambling takes everything away from me. It changes who I am.
Have a great day all!
ONE DAY AT A TIME
