1st Counselling Session

Today was the first day of my counselling and to say I was feeling nervous would be an understatement I was really scared about talking to a complete stranger about my problem. 1445 dawned and it was time to set off for my first counselling session when I arrived the counsellor came and met me at the door we went upstairs to her counselling room where she introduced herself and I had to fill a short questionnaire with such questions as, have you ever thought about killing yourself? Do you feel you have someone that you can talk to? Once I completed the questionnaire we had to go through a few bits of paper work which was all straight forward.

Then she started asking me about my problem what made me start gambling? Have there been any big events in my life that prompted me to start gambling? I found myself answering these answer pretty straight forward but then I started questioning myself is there a reason why I would of started but this was because after every answer you give she would pause hoping that you would give her more information. The truth was I started due to boredom later on in the session she was asking me about the past and what had led me to getting help so I went through the whole story with the counsellor from when I was just 12 years old.

The first question she asked was you managed to stop gambling for over a year and then started again what prompted that and how did you stop yourself the answer was not so simple in some ways I was not completely sure I knew that I was constantly doing things with college friends going out and about so I suppose I never had time. Another reason would be that the gambling had caused so many problems with stealing I had stopped as I knew that one day I would end up in prison if I carried on down this path.

The session ended and my task for the next week is to contact gamcare and see what local support they can offer the counsellor stated as you will know this is not going to be a short term thing it’s going to take month’s possible years. So this is why she assigned me this task as I will require further help after our 4 sessions has ended. The next session is planned for next Wednesday I will update the blog over the weekend on how I am moving forward or not!!