Hi Stuart
Firstly it’s never about the amount of money. Your life savings objectively might amount to a considerable amount of money but the gambler who lives in a homeless hostel and does his benefit check in an hour is in exactly the same position as you. Skint, angry, bewilderd, and eager to recoup their losses.
I wonder from reading your account if in fact you have done enough damage to be feeling enough pain to really turn this round. Most of us tend to be well past the last chance saloon before we are ready to accept the reality of being defeated and being losers.
I share the dual addiction too except mine operated the opposite way. I never drank when I gambled but did so afterwards normally to console myself but occasionally because I won some money, the crueleest part of gambling if like me you are a compulsive gambler. The reason for not drinking and gambling is in retrospect hilarious – I thought alcohol would affect my judgement when I was in action!!!!! This really serves to underline for me that I suffered from some sort of mental illness!
On considering your predicament surely the solution is therefore to quit drinking because you only gamble if you are boozed up. The booze may well be your primary addiction and it may be best to address this as the priority if you are confident that this is how it works for you. This would be my suggestion right now.
I have come across a fair few sober drunks who found a very destructive outlet in gambling mainly on the basis that they consider it to be non-chemical and therefore ‘harmless’. These guys were hammering themselves in the bookies. A wise man put it to me that I was doubly blessed by virtue of my dual addiction. The point for me is I would never have quit drinking if I hadn’t quit gambling, my primary addiction, and in the event that I did quit drinking I would never have been able to stop gambling as I would have clung to the idea that having given up drink I was entitled to a bit of fun!
I want to assure you that you can get out from under both these addictions and that you have amade a good start by coming on here and getting to meetings. keep coming back! Good luck