I can NEVER get there

There was a time when, if I had found myself reading a blog like this, I would have thought...I can not do it.

I can not stop...and even if I can stop...I can never be OK again.

To think that I could never gamble again made my future appear so bleak and boring and...well I simply couldn't do it anyway.


It's a lie.


There is a part of us...that 'addictive voice' that wants us to remain active in our addiction at all costs....it will tell us all sorts of things....it might say:


it's ok because we aren't hurting anyone (other than ourselves)

we DESERVE it (because of greif or loneliness or boredom or or or or)

we can win money...and pay down some of this debt

or...we can win money....to buy food...or pay the house note

or...if we can never gamble again...we will be miserable....

we simply can not stop.

Hello?

Call that voice what it is...a LIAR.


Even if the only person we are hurting is ourself...is that OK??? if you think it is...you are hearing your addictive voice...trying, once again to justify the unjustifiable.

deserve it? as if it's a REWARD???

that is an illusion.

we can get money? to do something productive with? many of us have done this...a few times...but seriously....if we are in desperate need of money....we probably are beyond that point that we can stop gambling when we are ahead...if someone is reading this blog..and is thinking...i can not be happy if i can not gamble....then...the likelihood of gambling in order to get money (and stopping when one has it) is slim.

if we can never gamble again..we will be miserable.


i have been through considerable pain in my life.

The heights of my misery...was when I was gambling.

The depths of my misery were fathomless.

so

back in those days... when I came across people who are compulsive gamblers, who had broken free and were living 'regular' lives....a part of me said 'I can never be like that' but then...another part of me....had hope...I would listen to their stories..and....wow...some of them sounded just like me...some of them sounded like their misery had even been worse than mine...and...they were smiling? seemed normal?

back then...i pretty much cried most of the time.

but I had hope....these people broke free...and so...I started..counting days...and whenever I would tell people how many days I had, they would congratulate me.

it's weird how...not gambling can seem like a huge feat and a small one at the same time?????

just getting through one day without gambling can be so HUGE...GIGANTIC...we feel like yelling it from the mountain tops GUESS WHAT I DID EVERYONE....CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?

but then....to be congratulated on a few days clean...or a few weeks made me feel silly...there were people with months and years...now THAT is something to celebrate....

but I thought I could never get there

it was too far off....the 30 days...90 days...six month mark....so far away

it would be FOREVER before my couple of days...or weeks even..would be a six month milestone.....FOREVER.

ya know...i don't exercise because I know that it'll take me a couple of months to look the way I want to look.

did you hear that?

what sort of sense does that make?

The fact is....a couple of months is going to be here.

a couple of months is going to pass whether I exercise or not.

so the question is....when a couple of months gets here...am I gonna look the way I want to or not?

and all i have to do to look the way I want...is to exercise today?

I can do just one day.

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You may also be interested in Counting Days

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Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.--Stephen A. Brennan

*Make one day your goal.--Peg