My wife I am in the process of trying to figure out our finances and carry out an inventory of the damage I have done over a lifetime of insanity. I was printing out my current account statement and noticed my last transaction with Betfair was May 1st. That means I have not had a bet in over a month.
Have I missed it ? No.
Have I thought about it? Hell yeah.
I still cannot figure out how I got myself into this mess, or rather how I allowed it to get so bad. Every time I go back and try to analyse the various steps I cannot seem to identify any paradigm shifts. It was a gradual deterioration that culminated in my recent rock bottom. I use the term recent because I thought I had reached rock bottom on May 16th 2012, leading to my first post 3 weeks later.
Tomorrow, I return to MABS, and effectively allow them to represent me in trying to reach settlement with my creditors. It's going to be a long road, I figure 8 or 9 years, but I will pay back what I owe. I'm not comfortable mentioning the sums involved, but to some they are huge, and to others they are trifling, to me they are the cost of a wasted 25 years.
I use the term cost rather than price, I am lucky in that I can still pay the price and attain a proper life with my family. I often used the excuse that I would be alone if I faced the truth about my addiction, I would lose my family, my sanity and perhaps more. I had considered the nuclear option, but needed the outcome to appear accidental to guarantee financial benefits, these ideations came at me in waves, always at the end of a betting binge. They were short term but I obviously managed to get past them.
It's impossible to explain the onset of despair, a cold shroud of fear slowly descends, in my case it starts with the temple throbbing, pulses of sweating followed by a cold shiver as the reaper touches me on the shoulder. As the pressure increases my pulse intensifies 'till my heart feels like it's about to explode, and all the time like I'm shrinking, and I'm going foetal, back to where I began, and hopefully before that. I want to rewind the tape, to when I didn't exist.
I have not had that experience in over a month now, I do not want it again, I have debts to pay, financially and emotionally, I have to learn to be a husband, parent, brother and son again. I'm trying, and it's not that difficult, the rules are easy, implementing them is not quite so easy. I have 25 years of shit to clear, I still think in the same way I always did. I have spent longer being an addict then not, I am still the same person, but I am more aware of him, I watch his behaviour for the signs, the mental loafing, the selfishness, the same sense of superiority, the intolerance, the sharpness, the nastiness, I watch for him, I fear for me.
Right now, the sun is shining, I'm taking my hairy, sunburned,chicken legs to the beach with my kin. I'm going to lie back, close my eyes, soak in the sun and count my blessings, and just for today, I will not gamble.
My name is Paddy, I'm a compulsive gambler, I have not had a bet today or since my last post.
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