Day 359

One week from today will be one year. Will I be celebrating? How can one truly celebrate such a feat? It's not like I'm going to the bar to celebrate (I'm also 282 days sober from alcohol). I'll probably just write more blogs and work out. Thats it, thats my celebration. The grind don't stop for milestones. The grind stops when I'm six feet under.

One of the apps I use allows you to see how much money was saved since I stopped gambling. $54,000 has been saved in the last 51 weeks. To break it down further, thats $1,058/ week. It's crazy to think what us compulsive gamblers do to come up with that kind of money. Did I have that kind of money? No. I roughly make that much in 1 year. Thats gross (no taxes taken out, but also gross as in disgusting). Of course I did not have that money to begin with. I was stupid enough to take out loans (which is stupid easy to do. I'll have a separate blog about that). I used credit cards with stupid high interest rates to fund my addiction. I would pay barely the minimum, then use the card to fund the addiction, and pay interest with that and would go over. I would recommend NOT doing that. If this is you, this is your sign to stop. Stop the ever losing cycle of horrible debt management and using credit cards to fund your gambling addiction. 

If I was smart like I thought I was, this is where that money should've gone:

- Save for a wedding

- down payment on a house

- future child fund

- payoff student loans

- save for dream vacation 

- travel the world

But thats all in the past now. Just like when we try chasing our losses. All that money we lost is gone. No matter how bad we want to try and get it back, we can not and will never get it back. If we keep trying, we'll just keep digging our grave deeper and deeper before it's too hard to get out. Accept what's in front of you. Don't look back. Move forward to a better tomorrow by stepping out of the cycle. If you're in a similar situation, talk to someone. Tell someone you can confide in, someone who's willing to lend a helping hand or ears to listen. We don't need to keep living in this losing cycle forever. 

If you’re currently feeling a similar way, please know you are not alone. There are many other people out there going through similar issues and want to help you. One of those places is right in the “Compulsive Gamblers in Recovery'' discord server. Currently at 85 members and growing daily. I (u/geoffwinningdaily, naturalscholar (discord)) created this server as a supportive environment to help others with their gambling problems. If this seems of interest to you, join here: https://discord.gg/VR9HSfmg

Stay grinding, stop gambling. Life gets better. One day at a time.