I hear you. I feel like I need a strategy just to walk out the door and get back without making a pit stop that turns into one big mess. Had to make a little plan in my head yesterday as I left the house because that 'thought' ran through my brain before I even hit the road. Made it through yesterday and feel good about that.

Funny how this addiction will allow us to think we can gamble and burn thru money when we owe money. So weird. What stops me from blowing it so far is looking at all of my bills and bank account on line. each day. Seeing how much money I owe and having my money allotted for certain things. Then I get on this web site and read new postings or read old posts and journal. So now I have made it to 27 days with this ritual I have created for myself. Hope you find something that will work for you too.

I think of it more as a surrender than a fight. There is a saying "what you resist will persist", and when I was "fighting" gambling I was still giving the subject too much rent in my head. This is just me...but what I had to do was surrender to the idea that I was powerless over gambling and would always spend my last dime in a casino, self-ban from the casinos so I couldn't enter, and then move on to making another life. It took months and years to find substitutes. Some are very close substitutes, like playing spider solitaire on the computer when I want to escape into mindlessness. Some are better substitutes, more productive. It is counter-intuitive to come back on this website and read about gambling when it shouldn't take space in my head any more, and for quite awhile I couldn't stop by here or another gambling site. Now it is good as a reminder of the destructive nature of gambling or to offer support. Anyway, just wanted to offer the thought about not "fighting" per se.

Building the different life was critical for me to make it less of a white knuckle fight and more of an acceptance. Having better things to do with my time and a better class of people around me has been key.

Thank you for your replies and suggestions. Input is invaluable and offer much needed and welcomed insight from other viewpoints. More than that, your taking the time to share validates to my bruised psyche that I I have worth...

I agree with Qwit4Good. Rather than hunker down and play defense with the urges, it helps to go on the offense and fill your time with productive and healthy activities. If you can, begin by self-excluding yourself from the casinos.

One of the tactics I employed was to build incredibly negative associations with gambling in my mind. I remembered in great detail how I felt putting my last 20 in the machine, knowing I was going to bounce several checks the next morning. It was horrible. For the next few weeks, every time gambling entered my mind, I would invoke that awful, awful feeling I had sitting in front of that machine, spending my last pennies.

Sear those bad memories into your brain, and every time you think about giving it another go, fill your head with those bad feelings. It really works.

Boy oh boy... I know that feeling....sinking with each spin...knowing I had just enough gas to get home and not enough to get to work the next day....and yes...the bounced cks....and who could I borrow $20 from .....and coming home to disconnected power or water....geeez...I never want to go thru that again