In November I wrote a blog about my determination to quit gambling. That was 153 day ago which breaks my old record (set last summer) for abstinence by one day! Economically I have benefitted immensely from putting my money into my checking accounts instead of into the bottomless pit of my habit.
But it would be dishonest of me to say I'm out of the woods. In fact breaking this record may be the single most motivating factor to my achievement. I know at any given moment that I can set a new mark. The first very successful effort was when I was dating my last girlfriend. When she found out how serious my addiction is, she cried, and because I so much wanted to make her happy, I managed to stay away from casinos for 86 days and could possibly have extended that quite a lot if our relationship had not imploded and subsequently launched me into escape mode. Then the next year, much more for myself and in an effort to improve my life (with the help of some incredible encouragement from my friend Alyssa) I set the mark at 142 days.
So my best efforts at breaking the habit look like this:
2006 86 days
2007 142 days
2008 152 days
2009 153 days
Which to look at, causes me a great deal of pride because I know so many people that suffer from the same affliction and they can't really go a week without it, nor do they very often bother to try.
It's not the same as breaking the habit. Let me not fool myself on that point, but what makes me happy is to see an indication here of something quite like self~discipline.
I believe a person's character has to change in order to really conquer gambling and I'm not much closer to this than I was 153 days ago. But I am richer.
