Hi Fonthill,
Thank you for sharing. I am new to the site and have been struggling with trying to break this gambling addiction for the last several months. I have been gambling for just over a year now and I can’t believe the hold it has got on me just in this short period. I didn’t realize how strong it was until a couple of weeks ago when I tried to make an honest stop at it and have been struggling. I know the negative consequences that gambling has had on my family and I want to stop, but I just can’t shake these thoughts.
I too like you started with sports betting and it has progressed to online blackjack. I only used to do sports betting and was making money off of it until one bad day with some bad breaks and I found myself in a whole that i didn’t think i could pull myself out of with sports bets. So I turned to blackjack to win back what i lost and i did. Over the next couple of months after that I started playing blackjack to cover any sports bets that i lost. If i placed a sports bet and then lost, I would go right to blackjack to win back the lost bet. And it worked for a while until I hit a bad stretch and spiralled in blackjack. These spirals would cost me almost all my winnings. Long story short the last couple of months I’ve “fought hard” to win back almost all that I had lost about until last week when I lost a large percentage again of my positive bankroll. The worst part is that this happened at a family gathering and everyone saw my spiral. I felt so ashamed and vowed that I would stop. However in the last couple of days I have been dealing with some serious demons to continue to resist the urge and I just don’t know what to do. I don’t feel happy and I want to go back to the days of just placing some sports bet for entertainment without blackjack in my life. No one seems to think this is possible or a good idea to try and that the sports bets will just lead me back as a gateway to the online blackjack tables. Any advice or help would be appreciated