[I_Maverick]

Hi Maria,

Well done for finding help on this site. It is something I wish I had done last year before I lost everything.

I can only reiterate what they others said. You MUST block yourself from online use using something like K9 which you can set to block ALL gambling sites. Can you get a family member or friend to help you manage the finances. Are you able to get childcare for free for an evening so you could go to GA?

Stay here on this site, it works. Since coming here after 3 years of pretty much non stop gambling, which has resulted in my wife leaving and taking my young child and the loss of my business, I have now been gamble free 25 days today, which is the longest I have ever gone without a bet. If I didn’t have to deal with the fact I only stopped when I broke everything, I would be in a much better place. But that’s how we do it as addicted gamblers – we often don’t stop until there is nothing left. I Hope you don’t do that. Imagine the worst thing that would happen that hasn’t happened. Know that it WILL happen if you don’t stop gambling. That is what I didn’t do. Please, for your children’s sake.

I send you all my love and strength. Say to yourself every morning:

Just for today… I will not Gamble.

You only need to not gamble one day at a time.

[I_Maverick]

I am writing this for my benefit only. I know I could write this privately, but as part of my recovery process I am writing this here as a blog, as I would on any other blog.

My first recollection of gambling is as a child. My aunt in Germany (sister of my mother) had a boyfriend who was a jockey. They lived in Northern Italy near the racetrack where he raced. I remember my step-father (who I will called my dad from now on as he raised me from a young child of 4. My real father died when I was 4 months old) placing a bet for my brother and myself for him to win. He didn’t. I would have been 9 or 10.

My second recollection of gambling is at Scarborough where my dad was from. I can remember going down to the seafront and loving the 2p and 1p sliders as well as the 1 arm bandits. We are the only country in the world I think where children can gamble. I loved those machines and would always pester my mum and dad for pocket money to play on them. I would always walk away when I had a win and buy ice cream.

My third recollection of gambling comes in 2 parts from high school. 1 is playing penny against the wall and the other, when we were 5th years, playing 3 card brag with the science teacher. There were 6 or 7 of us who used to play. I remember loving that. I would have been 15 or 16

I have no more gambling memories until university when we used to play pontoon and poker for pennies. Just fun. In my second year and third year I developed a little bit of a crush on fruit machines, and they caused me a bit of grief, so I stopped that after a few months. They did cause me to miss meeting a mate who was coming from London to visit. He was quite pissed off as I was in the arcade when he got to my house. A quick play turned into hours. IN my 3rd year we played more poker and pontoon with mates and I remember chasing losses. I was starting to play the fruities more as well, losing time when I should have been studying. When we played poker I would get aggresssive if I made a bad call and would often lose my money. I was starting to lose the ability to manage my money by then. I was, and I think I still am, very immature.

My gambling stopped after uni as I stayed on in Leicester. Despite have a good degree I wanted to hang out with mate and because I couldn’t find a job in media (though I didn’t really look very hard) I found work selling double glazing door to door. being outwardly confident (and inwardly full of self -loathing but didn’t realise it) I started to lose myself in a haze of party drugs, raves, free parties which went from Ecstasy, Speed, LCD and Dope to heroin within a year. I always wanted to try heroin, infact I would try anything. I soon lost my way and 3 years later was a wreck. I never sought help for this and eventually after moving back to my mum and dads stopped using. I then got onto an MA for Filmmaking in Sheffield, found heroin again, almost fucked this up, but managed ot get through it. I was now 26 years old. I met my current wife there and after we graduated came to London. I found a job in media sales, where I again developed a thing for a fruit machine in a local pub, and started poker with my uni mates. But the gambling wasn’t a problem.

[I_Maverick]

Brilliant post mate. I’m feeling more clear headed than for a long time, due to me being 25 days clear, but I feel massive regret for what I’ve lost. We were packing the office up today. My head, the addict in denial, still keeps telling me that I can save my company – but it’s too late for that. I have my appointment at GMA and I have to remember the state I have been in this year – absolutely wrecked mentally and physically.

I am starting to realise that I will have to live with this forever, I need some techniques to overcome what I have done and to make sure, should new opportunities arise in the future, that I can stay away from all forms of gambling. I look back to how I was last year, and parts of this year, and I was a complete slave to gambling. I just couldn’t stop, I had no control over it. It did something to my brain chemistry which made me forget about everything else.

Hats off to you Adam, for being able to do it. Day 60 in GA would get you a second keyring. Great work mate.

[I_Maverick]

Here is a link to a talk given my a recovering Compulsive Gambler. It is inspirational. There are amazing clips on YouTube.

I hope this is of help to people. It is to me.

[I_Maverick]

Charlster,

I know everything you are saying. Last year in 2014 when I got caught again by my wife after a long sustaine dperiod of uncrontrolled gambling over christmas, including the days before and after my won was born and my wife was in hospital, I never thought of going to GA and getting help. Even though I knew I had a porblem. I took a week off and then started again, keeping it small. I argued to myself if I only make small bets, control the hours I play etc, what harm is it doing. Surely that is my right? Well, slowly that became more and more time, I started playing on higher sites and no matter when I won I soon lost it – then had to play as quickly as possible, depositing again, to win it back, but making terrible decisions.

It slowly ate more and more of my head until Sept/Oct/Nov/Dev last ear when I was playing almost all of the time while I was mant to be working, really resenting when people were asking me questions. I was so deep into my addiction I could no longer see it, except for a small voice pleading with me to stop. The addiction beat that voice into a pulp. Until my wife caught me this year, when I started using company funds. then, once it was out, my fragile mental state of mind collapsed and I am only now beginning to feel ‘normal’.

You wrote that instead of seeing clients you would sit in the car with you ipad. I got pulled over by the police while playing poker on my iPhone in 2012. 3 points and a fine. How mental. I am totally ashamed of that. And that was April 2012, 3 years ago. I never saw how addicted I was. The addicted prevented me from seeing it, and just now your addiction made you turn down GMA. But it seems you gained a huge amount from your slip. It wasn’t a relapse as you were able to stop – you didn’t fall back into a crazy destructive pattern.

One of the reasons I look up to you is that you have great insight. You are 10 years older than me, but you haven’t given up. I have to accept I lost my business because of this addiction, but by the time I reach retirement age (70) in 28 years it will be 2043. My son will be 29 years old, almost 30. Younger than I am now. Everyone tells me I am young enough to start again, and so are you. 20 years is enough time if you have you health.

That is my focus now.

You take care, have a great day, and well done.

[I_Maverick]

Hi David,

Please let me confirm that what Happy and Charlester and Charles said. If you don’t stop now, it will never stop. Take it from me – a win leads to more bets, which inevitably lead to losses – then chasing – then more bets – then your head goes and depression sinks in when you lose everything. Please don’t do that. I could have stopped so many times in the last 3 years – they were all opportunties i did not take because I did not see where my addiction would lead. If someone had told me it leads here, and I think they did, I wouldn’t believe them. I wish I had. I so wish I had thought about where gambling addiction leads. Only you know if you are addicted to gambling, but if you are thinking about it all the time, if it affects your mood, if it is hard to stop, if you think about past losses, if you see opportunities to gamble, if you chase losses, if you make plans to gamble rinstead of focusing on other things – these all mean you are addicted.

In understand now my addiction was medication. I was using gambling to avoid other important areas of my life. Such as my family, my feelings for myself, the work I had to do on the business. All of these things could be put to one side for a few hours gambling. But what that meant is that I became more and more immune to playing small stakes, and I had to raise them. 1 hour became 2, became 3. I would lose the plot when I lost a hand I should win when my opponent got a miracle hand on the river, like they always did. Or when people played rubbish hands and hit miracle cards. I can look back at so many times I promised myself to quit, but I never did. I didn’t have this site and I wasn’t going to GA. Those 2 things could have prevented the world of hurt I am in. It is not worth it.

I do not want anything more to do with gambling again, it is a total waste of time and money. Let it go. The house always wins. Sure, they let us win a few, but even in a game of ‘skill’ like poker there is a huge element of chance online. eg, I had AA and I raised preflop. Someone else went all in. I called obviously. They turned over Q9 off suit. I thouht – whaey – £200 pot, fantastic start. It was my first hand. The flop came 999 followed by QQ. I simply couldn’t believe it. How could that happen. The odds of that happening are a bit like winning the lottery. The game is rigged. All gambling is rigged. It is rigged against us.

You are only 18. I am 42 and after I come out of Gordon House I have to start again. Hopefully my confidence will be higher, I will have tools to make use I do not gamble again. But more importantly I have to forgive myself this whole world of shit.

Take care and keep posting and listen to wise heads here. You cam here as you think you have a problem – only you know that, but ask yourself the question “do you want to find out how bad your problem is?”

See you soon

Mav

[I_Maverick]

Just a quick update. Packing up the office. Still struggling to accept what I have done – can not believe I let this addiction take so much from me. It’s taken everything, I have allowed it.

I do not know why I could not stop until it was too late. WHy am I a walking cliche. I could have stopped on so many occiasons and got my shit together – paid the company debts, found new staff to help bring in new clients etc etc. It is all so clear to me now – but what I have to do is murky. The closing of the company, my fuiture.

This was my problem last year – the big contract papered over the cracks in my life – it also gave me freedom to gamble, and so slowly, from a few hours here and there, soon became a raging non-stop addiction again. I realise this is how it will be if I ever gamble again. It will start slow – a few wins, a few losses – until I am at it all the time.

I refuse to let this addiction ruin any more of my life. It has taken everyghing.

All I can hope is that I am moving into a new period. A period of growth, learning, prosperity. I will take this on the chin – I have no one to blame but myself. But I must move on.

Still, I know this is all my own fault. There was no need for this to happen. If only I had gone back to GA on 27th jan 2014 and made an effort then to quit gambling and get my life back on track.

Take care all

M

[I_Maverick]

Lovely poem, I like this a lot. Well done Liberty. Thank you.

[I_Maverick]

Lovely poem, I like this a lot. Well done Liberty. Thank you.

[I_Maverick]

Charlester, that is awesome. I so wish i had installed K9 much much earlier. I reliase that although I wanted to give up gambling for years, I didn;t really. Otherwise I would have done so.

It sounds like things are going well for you with GMA. Do you have a date? We won’t meet as I am sure you will go to Beckenham. I am going to Dudley.

Gotta wash my little monkey now, but really proud and inspired by how you have dealt with this. I really need to get a grip of my mind as I am still wallowing 22 days gamble free. I gotta take control of my mind.

Take care and have a great night.

[I_Maverick]

So, struggling today. Struggling with guilt, what I have done. The sadness of closing my office, the fact there is no money left, no work. Everything bad happening is a DIRECT result of 3 years of gambling. I could probably have saved all of this on so many occaisons by taking my illness seriously. I thought I could handle it, and I probably could have done if I had also done work as well. All I had to do we keep working on my business, but the addiction didn’t let me think straight.

I hope EVERYONE on this site who is struggling to give up gambling can do so. It is so not worth it, it is the most ruinious of addictions. It affects so many parts of your life. Mental, emotional, physical, financial. Just placing a bet for me now would be murderous. I cannot imagine doing it.

I honest feel so low again. Just sitting here writing this, looking at the state of my office, packing stuff away, knowing that this part of my life is over. That it is over because I fucked it up. I feel so stupid. So low.

Hey ho, life goes on – I can’t wait for GMA. I need to deal with this in a structured way otherwise I am going to go mad.

[I_Maverick]

Hi Charlster

I feel the same as you, as if my head is exploding. Unlike you I am in the position of everything crumbling around me as I ‘get better’. I keep wanting to try and cancel the closing of the company, keep the office etc. But if I do I simply won’t get better. I have to let this go, and your decision has given me heart. If I do not get help for my addiction, if all I do is simply abstain from gambling, I will return to it. if I address what made me become a CG (access, time, money, hiding from my emotions and feelings etc etc) then i can avoid the next bet and become a better person.

By getting treatment you can address those issues and in 3-6 months you will be stronger to deal with life. Abstaining is not recovery. Abstaining is simply not gambling, but also not dealing with the underlying issues. You lapsed because you convinced yourself this time would be diferent – it would be fun, just a small bet whatever was in your head. But that sent you on a small spiral which you managed to stop. This was the same as my slip 22 days ago. I learned so much from that.

You are such a smart guy, so self aware and yet you are really fragile like me. If you are only 52 that gives you another 15 years of working – and if you are good at what you do then no matter what your age it will be noticed.

I am so glad you have stayed on the site and stayed with us. Please use the helpline, speak with Harry and the others, come to the groups, find a GA. Please put blockers on your computer. K9 is free. Jansdad has a way of setting a password and then chucking it away. Block ALL access to online sites. I made a huge step forward yesterday. I was carrying my wife and my computers home but I was off to GA. I asked her if her computer was protected. She said yes. We checked and it wasn’t. IN the back of my mind I suspected this but didn’t want to be faced with temptation to use her computer. She we protected it and then gave it to her. If I hadn’t have done that I am sure I would have had a look and when I found out I could gamble I probably would have and then would not have gone to GA. WHo knows how much I could have won. Because even if I won a few bets I would soon lose it.

My big problem has been online poker which as well as taking your money slowly, also takes your time. I am done with this. I simply cannot put myself through this any longer.

Please Charlster for your sake get blockers on your laptop and computers so you cannot even access online gambling sites. Protect yourself. Ask you daughter to hold the password maybe.

I am rooting for you mate, really. I am sure you learned something from this slip, we all do.

Take care

Mav

[I_Maverick]

At the moment I am having only slight urges. It is easy to control. I am currently learning how to live with the world I have created for myself – the shame, guilt, the fact that I have ruined my life so far. I am eager for recovery, it is what I desire. But my mind is still clouded by what I did for 3 years, how gambling came before everything else. How only now that I have stopped because I had to (because I got caught and I knew deep down it was a big problem) can I see what I have done.

I look back to last year and see so many opportunities I had to quit, to deal with it and rebuild. Pay the company debts, make plans etc etc. Instead I CHOSE to keep playing, to have it all.

It is so true that this illness is an emotional one. The reasons I gambled were to escape my feelings, my responsibilities – I think I always knew I was heading here and I became wilfully self destructive – until I did it and then I regretted it. I remember just chukcing money away, so low, on rubbish hands, just punishing myself.

I have to learn to forgive myself, to accept I have an illness which I will always have. But not gambling is not enough. There has to be change to recovery, and I know I have to get ruid of the office. Some people just came to have a look at it, and they loved it. Were amazed we were moving out. We are only paying 985 a month – the landlords will rent it for 1700 a month, what a great deal we had here. BUt all things much come to an end, I suppose I have to accept that. It is all myfault.

The WORST thing now would be to gamble again, even buying a scratch card or flipping a coin. I am taking GA seriously. If I gamble thinking I can win, I will lose. If I win, I will play more. If I lose I will play more. There is no end to the gambling misery if I slip.

I need to refocus my mind and focus on closing the office.

[I_Maverick]

I agree with that wholeheartedly. I have decided that my last slip 22 days ago was my final slip, the final piece of the gambling jigsaw. In 1.5 hours I managed to compress ALL my gambling into 1 small session. The loss was quite small, but emotionally it was hard. Today would have been day 40. But I learned from that that I cannot gamble again. Why? Because I can’t win so what is the point of that? I turned 30 in 200. Then lost it. Turned another 50 in 250. Lost that. Then lost 220 really quickly before stopping. And that was my last bet. It had everything – up, down, try to stop, then chase etc etc.

Slips are important, but everyone has to decide when their last slip was. I cannot fool myself that I will win on the next bet, because I won’t. And anyway, I need recovery as it is the resrearch for my film. I cannot make a film exploring recovery unless I have some of it for myself, hence the new thread here.

Also, I found out on the day of my last slip that I had a date at GMA – so the two things tie together nicely.

I am enjoying recovery – every day I do not gamble is a good day. Every day I make today good, I can make together better.

Thanks for your time Harry.

[I_Maverick]

Hey Geordie

Thanks for your post. I am calling this the honeymoon period as that is what someone with 29 years of recovery in GA called it. The first moment when you realise you have been gamble free. This is what I need to be careful off.

Gotta go to wash my little monkey

[Author]

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