Hello Everyone:
Allow me to introduce myself, I am a Compulsive Gambler for 16 years and have been battled on the recovery road for 5 years. For the past 16 years ever since the river boat casino started at Shreveport, Louisiana, I had lost one condo and one 2500 sqft house plus all my savings. 5 years ago, I started to attend GA meetings and tried everything I could to quit gambling but all in vain. Relapse after relapse, I was emotionally and financially drowned. Last year I got laidoff in January from a company I had worked for 16 years and that was a final wakeup call for my gambling addiction.  I knew that I have to take a new approach towad quitting gambling so I have decided to turn over my fainance totally for a trusted partner for more than 20 years.
I moved from Dallas to a small town in Louisiana to live with my longtime partner. Before I was always live alone, I had losts of freedom and time to gamble any time I want to as long as I had money. If I don’t have the money to gamble I will apply for a loan, a credit card and by January last year I had aquired 9 PAYDAY LOAN[local and online] which was killing me financially.
After my partner started to handle my bank account, the first thing we do is to get rid of the Payday loans, fortuately we found a debt solution company can help me reduce the payment and stop the interest[40% a month in most case]. And I started my freelance job at home, the income is half of what I used to make but by the end of the year I was able to pay off all my debts and still have $10K in the bank.
From my experienc, it is extremely difficult to quit gambling while you live alone, if the success rate for GA is 10%, I wil cut down another 50% for the chance to quit all by yourself.
Turn over my finance is not the only way to help me quit gambling, I also participate on Gambling forums so I will never forget what I had gone through during the gambling years and I also had learnt that" Helping yourself by helping others" is so true.
I am a very frankly and straight forward guy, I don’t BS a lot or try to please anyone by using the "right word". I believe that I have to be honest and truth with myself at this point of my life, I just can fake or lie anymore.
Coming here to share my esperience and learn from others will be my daily event. If anyone feel my comment is not correct or debatable, please don’t hesitate to point out.
Thank you so much.