Trying to Stop a Habit
I've once written about how I used to gamble in the past and how it almost ruined me due to the huge amount of money I lost to gambling. I was finally able to quit gambling after a while but it turned out that gambling is just like smoking, if you want to quit it then make sure you don't sit around smokers, inhaling all of the smoke and reminiscing about the good old days when you used to have one of those.
Because one day, you will find yourself craving for just a stick of cigarette and then from one stick, it gets to two sticks and then a pack of cigarettes and before you know it, you're back to your old habit.
Well, irrespective of the fact that I no longer gambled, I still found myself posting memes about sport betting on my WhatsApp and also listening to my friends talk about their gambling experiences and about how much they've won and lost. And just like the guy trying to quit smoking, I decided to play one tiny little game today, just to try my luck and see if I would end up being lucky.
Surprisingly, I did win that first game but instead of walking away, I started feeling lucky, too lucky and decided to try again, hoping that I would get lucky for the second time but I wasn't. Then I tried again and again and again, until the money I had in the app was exhausted and like a hopeless addict who hates losing, I immediately opened my bank app and funded the betting app again and continued trying my luck.
By the time I got back to my senses, I had lost some amount of money, it wasn't a crazy sum but it was money I easily could have used for something useful. This whole experience just thought me that when trying to stop a habit, there are various steps to it. The first being you trying to stop yourself from actually doing that thing and the second thing being you making sure you no longer mingle with the people who still do that thing you're trying to stop.
If you can't ask them not to do that thing whenever you're around, then you should do yourself a favour and just stop hanging out with them because if you don't, you will end up coming back to that old habit during the long run.
I think you should blame yourself because you are not stay stick with your decision. That kind of friends will be exist all the time doesn't matter if you try to avoid them also. Does it mean you won't be able to come out from gambling? You are disrespected you decision and you know yourself better and what to do.
Nobody can help you if you can't help yourself.
I actually do blame myself and no one else because I believe that all the change I want has to be done by me but yeah, I absolutely agree with everything you said.