It's almost 11am on Friday morning. I'm not heading home from the casino. I'm not feeling sick to my stomach. I'm not scared that checks will bounce. I was not a zombie today. I was present all morning, at Barnes and Nobles, having coffee and laughing with a friend. I passed a video billboard on my way home, with a shot of a happy jackpot winner from our local casino and I actually felt sorry for him. This could be the beginning of a downward spiral for the "lucky" guy.
There are so many things to do other than gamble. I play Jungle Gin and Spades on Club Pogo and Words With Friends on my iphone whenever I want to play something. And I am playing with people, not a machine. I am not risking anything but my pride when I bid in Spades!
A friend called me last night to tell me about the new machines they have put in the casinos in Oklahoma. I told her I wasn't going to go there anymore, because I had lost control of my ability to gamble responsibly. That was the first time I had verbalized this except on this forum. She totally understood and we started talking about going to a comedy club this weekend. Of course, she hasn't had to cope with the financial fallout of my bad choices, but it was a start.
My husband doesn't have a gambling issue, just bets on the Derby once a year. I have started the process of coming clean to him. Just a baby step, but I told him I could not go to the casinos anymore because I was a degenerative gambler, would lose everything I had won. He still has no idea of the extent of my losses, but I have set up a budget that will pay off the debts that will only really affect my disposable income and increase my work hours. I feel so grateful that I was able to, as someone else on the forum put it "put the ice axe into the lake to stop the slide".
This was a rapid descent into madness. I just began gambling 2 years ago, and got out of control 6 months ago. I went to GA last week, but I was the only woman there and I felt really uncomfortable because of that. I didn't really like the format of the meeting either, but there are other general recovery support groups that I can attend with more women. I know I truly believed at the height of my gambling that there was the big jackpot just waiting for me to win it, but now I know that was really sick thinking, not just optimism .I'll figure out why I went mad with a counselor, but right now I'm just reveling in my new-found sanity.
I hope and pray that this resolve stays strong, right now I feel like I'm just DONE with the madness, The same thing happened when I quit smoking, I was just DONE, realized how sick it could make me, how gross it made me smell, how expensive it was etc. Would see someone with a cigarette hanging out of their mouth and think "My God! That used to be me!!!" I had smoked for 20 years, and for the first time I really SAW the insanity of putting a burning piece of paper filled with tobacco in my mouth and breathing in the smoke! Now I think of the "zombies" at the casino and think the same thing. I know, just 2 weeks out it seems like I'm painting a rosy unrealistic picture, but I KNOW me! Once I'm repulsed, I stay that way.
I will check in occasionally, and if I start to feel crazy again I'm sure I will come back for more of the brilliant insights and reminders of how devastating this addiction is.Aversion therapy is effective for me.There have been many posts that have made perfect sense to me that have helped put things in perspective, but I think this is probably not the right place for me to come for help. And I don't think I can help anyone here. When I just laid my cigarettes down and never picked them up again (over 10 years ago) I was quitting with my best friend. She had a much more difficult time quitting, obsessed about it all the time, and relapsed several times. She accused me of being in denial about quitting. The friendship didn't survive. I saw her 3 weeks ago at the casino, with a cigarette in her hand. She turned away.

I wish all of you luck and peace,and that you find the strength to overcome your compulsions, addictions, demons. And thank you to the folks who reached out to me, I am very grateful to you.