4th Counselling Session

The 4th and last Counselling session went very well…..

We discussed first of all how my week had gone and how payday weekend had gone the first thing the counsellor said was you seem to have a glow about yourself I did for the first time in several years I felt a sense of accomplishment I had got through the hardest week of the month without fault. I explained how my week had gone leading up to payday and the emotions I was feeling I explained how I felt. Scared and alone, these were just two of the feelings I was going through. The more time I spent alone the more I felt pushed towards wanting that buzz from gambling throughout that week I kept on trying to think about other stuff. I therefore whipped into action and started packing my stuff up ready for moving on the Friday. It was helping a lot at times. I felt isolated and worried about the coming weekend.

I just kept thinking about the positives of not gambling and the possible consequences of continuing down this path. I was explaining how my actions could end up costing me my job, my partner and my future happiness and this was helping very much. We then started to discuss that dreaded payday I explained how I had made sure that the entire day was mapped out so my day was occupied. I also explained how anxious I was and how I was getting that feeling of despair about losing lots of money I knew at this point to keep on at what I had planned through that day the best thing about the Friday was I was always with someone so had them there to ensure I made it through the day which I did do.

At the end of the day I just remember feeling ecstatic that I had made it through the toughest part of my journey so far I just thought to myself I can do this and I will do this. Unfortunately it does not stop me thinking about gambling which throughout a day must cross my mind about 75-100 times a day.

We then went back to the last session and discussed my feelings about losing the baby. The counsellor believes that this could have caused further problems later on in my life I could not see this myself and was very cautious about this area. The more I talked about the more I felt upset about it I had tears in my eyes just thinking about the past. I was thinking where would I be now, what I would currently be doing with my life maybe this would of helped me with my direction and choices in my life. Maybe I would have had something else to concentrate on.

All these choices and thoughts going through my mind and the only thing I thought about was it was my choice to gamble it was my direction that made me go this way and it’s my chance to correct everything wrong in my life. The problem with being a compulsive gambler is that once you have the mechanism in built it’s very hard to just turn it off. Its like a smoker that wants to quit it takes several months sometimes years, compulsive gambling has to be removed from the brain brick by brick and this will takes years not months.

The main thing I have learned from my 1 to 1 counselling sessions is that you have to do it brick by brick because if you try to remove it straight away without thought you will never truly have removed the mechanism that is compulsive gambling.