[ANewDay]

Hi everybody, I used to post here a fair bit a year or two ago (under a different username). This is my new journal which I hope to maintain as a way of being accountable for my own recovery and also documenting my progress.

I’m 28 years old and I’ve been gambling since around the age of 19 (when my dad first introduced me to online poker). I work in financial services so naturally I deal with numbers and money all the time.

Here’s a brief timeline of my gambling addiction so far:

2009-2010: my first taste of gambling – started with my dad showing my how to play poker online and I also ended up playing quite a bit of poker at the casino. My brain was also susceptible to this as I found the possibility of winning/risk factor involved very addictive. Only lost a few grand at this time because I was just a uni student with some casual jobs.

February-September 2015: the peak of my addiction – about 1 year after I start my first serious full time job and I have some decent savings. Started off playing online poker, which turned into Blackjack (both online and offline). Also briefly dabbled in sports betting. Won’t go into too much detail for now but it was one of the most difficult periods of my life (losing $40k+ in about 20 minutes of Blackjack actually made me feel nauseous in real life; I went into a state of shock). I finally ended up self-excluding myself from most online websites I was using (installing betfilter) and self-excluding from my local casino. Miraculously I ended up getting “lucky” and was a few grand up despite all the times I was at rock bottom. Went through about 3-4 cycles of losing $20,000-$45,000 and winning it back each time. Whilst I thought I had got out “ahead”, alas, I was wrong. The addiction is a lot harder to beat then I imagined.

September-October 2016: I lost $2000 playing Blackjack (in a different city); this triggered my addiction again and I ended up losing $9000 on a sportsbetting website. Self-excluded after this.

September-October 2017: Started playing sportsbetting again at the local bookies – have lost close to $9000 again so far.

Lifetime losses I’d guess would hover around the 20k mark at this stage. Definitely not insignificant but also not enough to destroy me…yet. If I keep going down the path of the addiction, I can definitely lose it all. I definitely cannot afford to be blowing 10s of thousands on gambling each year. I’ve decided enough is enough and I’d like to live a life free from gambling once and for all.

A few things I’ve learned:

-Whilst chasing losses is a big part of relapsing/the addiction, it is definitely not the sole cause. I actually ended up initial gambling binge “up” (got incredibly lucky), thought I’d never gamble again, yet still ended up doing it again (and again).
-For me many things seem to trigger my gambling: boredom, an escape from a stressful life situation, feeling dissatisfied or down about certain areas of my life (whether it be career/relationships/health), my natural tendency to engage in risky activities.

Anyways, apologies for the long introductory post…here’s to a new beginning. I’ll try to post here as often as I can initially and at least once a week moving forwards. Hopefully we can all get through this together.

21 October 2017 – Day one of freedom from gambling.

[Jonny123987]

Sounds like it’s time to stop brotha. Read my posts and see where you will end up if you continue. All you have to do is stop and forgive yourself. You will make the money back by working hard. If you continue to gamble you will most likely loss more including yourself.

[Author]

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