[jansdad]

Hello jasmine and welcome to the forum. I’ve been gambling away my “extra” money for years, actually decades and I know exactly what you’re saying.
It often seemed as ‘no big deal’, I thought I could afford it, my bills were paid and my family and I led a fairly good life.
But it catches up with you when things turn sour. And the money you could have saved is gone.
In addition it is such a waste. Waste of money, waste of time, loss of opportunity.

What video poker machines do you play? Do you at least know how to play? Some of these machines have a payout of almost 100% if played perfectly.

[jansdad]

Hi Vera. No, she does not. Just like she doesn’t know about my last month’s gambling spree… 🙁
I mean it is what it is. I’ve decided to spare her the bad news (actually spare myself the aggravation).
And yes, you’re right, I too have lost a lot having secret stashes…

Day #14 today.

[jansdad]

Thanks Lizbeth. Happy New Year to you too.
Day #13 today. Was traveling today, so not too many gambling thoughts. Some though.

I know it takes one lapse and all the effort is for nothing and all the money gone.
I mustn’t let that happen.

[jansdad]

Day #12 today. Was ready to give in last night after we came from the city center and my wife and my kid went to bed. Would have been a hell of a way to start a new year.
Then I stopped to think and I realized it would never be “only this one time”. I would almost certainly start gambling every day, or until I lost everything I have available.
I had a friend wire me 3K euros at 2% a month so I can pay coming bills.
Anyway, I didn’t play, I came here instead, then watched a show on Netflix and went to bed.

[jansdad]

Day #11

I noticed that the cravings only happen in the evening and late at night nowadays. I had to fight my urge to gamble last night (actually a few last nights) and then in the morning I would wake up and not understand why I wanted to gamble.
Maybe it’s because I’m more busy during the day. Not sure.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year. Wish you all a lot of health and happiness!

[jansdad]

I just watched 2 hours worth of netflix shows, hoping I would get tired and ready to sleep. But I still have a fairly big urge. I better shut down the computer down before I do something stupid.
Coming to this forum helps. For now.

[jansdad]

Just checking in, day #10 today. I wish I was confident as I was first couple of days, but I’m hanging in there. Coming here and reading posts helps.
I can’t win gambling/playing poker etc, I have to keep repeating that to myself.

[jansdad]

Yes, I know I should do that. I actually did it in the past and they honored it. I asked this one guy not to loan me money till the end of the year and he would not budge on December 20 when I asked him.
It’s not that I’m embarrassed to ask again, I’m not. I just want to see how far I get on my own.

I really wish I could get to the point where I would have the same feelings towards gambling as I have towards alcohol. I never drank and I have no desire to drink no matter the circumstances. My wife drinks wine and sometimes, maybe once a week, I sip half of her glass, but I absolutely have no desire to drink more. You could lock me up in a liqueur store and I would not drink. I just don’t like alcohol. And for the life of me I don’t know why I like gambling so much.

[jansdad]

Thanks for your input Geordie. The problem is that “typical” barriers don’t really do it for me. I’m fairly computer savvy and we have at least half a dozen computers and other devices I could play on if I really wanted to. I can also get money online from one of the many professional gamblers I know.

There was a time, a few years actually when I was making handsome money playing poker and my wife knows that. Just like I know that I have no business playing nowadays because I can no longer win. But yes, the urge is still there from time to time. And yes, today I thought about playing the low limits again, but I won’t (at least I’m fairly confident that I won’t, but the night is still young). I will do some work instead.

I don’t know why I want to gamble. I know fully well that I cannot win and I know it’s a tremendous waste of money and time. I know it takes toll on my health, my relationships, my parenthood and my life in general.

And you’re right there’s no reason for me to gamble. You’re also right that I didn’t really think about how my wife felt when I lost that car-money. I was only concerned with the unpleasantness I was faced with. Even now I feel more sorry about me than about her when it comes to that particular event.

Day #9 today

[jansdad]

You’re right jen. We always want to stop, but very soon we forget all the horror we went through once the misery clears. For some reason that horrible feeling doesn’t linger in our mind.

Day #8 today. I came close to giving in today at one point. I reasoned that I will only play $0.25 – $0.50 PLO game (a low limit poker game), a game I can no doubt beat if I play my A game.
And I would have given in, no doubt, but then I realized that even if I did play my A game and stick to that limit I would only be making a couple of dollars per hour. So what’s the point? And most likely I would get bored and go to much higher limits and lose thousands or tens of thousands if I continued.
So, I didn’t play today. But the fact that I seriously considered it is very upsetting.

[jansdad]

Hey sshort and welcome to the forum. I’m fairly new here myself.
I know I shouldn’t be the one telling you this, as I’m currently hiding things from my wife just like you are from your husband, but it is probably better to come clean and tell your husband.
I have reasons other than fear (although it is because of the fear for the most part) for not telling my wife. Unless you have too, you should probably go ahead and tell your husband.

[jansdad]

Fingers crossed Rob. Coming here helps a great deal, you will see.

[jansdad]

Jen, I dug out another story that you may find “funny”. I emailed this to a friend a couple of years ago. Here it goes:

Did I tell you how we were gonna buy a car before our kid got born. We thought we would need a car with a baby coming and we decided to buy a nice 2nd hand car. We wanted something for up to 250K czk, but my wife gave me 300K just in case – the money was in her account (we had already kept money in her account for obvious reasons). She gave me the money a few days before we went to the hospital. I stayed with her at the hospital, we had a private room where I could sleep too, special care, dedicated doctor etc. It was nice and quite inexpensive. Anyway, my wife spent 4 days at the hospital before the doctor finally decided on caesarian. In the mean time, I would go home every day for a few hours to take care of things. And when I was done ‘taking care of things’ I would inevitably start playing a little. Short and dreadful story even shorter, I lost it all, ok. I mean the car money. It was all gone. I think I lost 50K the first day which was bad, but not terrible cos we were gonna buy something for up to 250K czk anyway. I lost another 50K the second day which was terrible, but not horrible, since I could still get a decent car for 200K. And the 3rd day I lost the rest.
I went back to the hospital and my wife gave birth the next day. It wasn’t until 2 days later that they brought her back to our room from intensive care. So, we’re sitting there, 3 of us, my wife, our new born baby boy and my good self. And for no apparent reason and something that struck me as out of the blue question, and one I was totally unprepared for, my wife asked me where’re we at as far as buying a car goes.
And maybe because she looked so weak and fragile after the operation or maybe because she had just given birth to my boy, I decided not to lie through my teeth as I usually would and deal with the problem later, but to tell her the truth. I told her I had lost the money gambling and that she should give me more money should we still want a car. Big mistake. Then, stupidly, I added, adding salt to the open injury, that I was running really bad, blaming it on bad luck thus. Even a bigger mistake.
She started crying bitterly clinging our baby to her chest. My wife laughs now when she tells that story to people, but I still shiver when I think of that. Right at that moment this fucking nurse walks in and sees my wife sobbing. She started comforting my wife throwing nasty looks at me. She must have thought I was mean or rude to my wife or something. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. And we stayed at that hospital for another 7 days till my wife healed and I had to face that nurse and her disapproving looks almost every day. Boy, was that unpleasant.

[jansdad]

Thanks jen. On day #7 now. A scary thing happened last night. I was tucked in my bed and all of a sudden I had cravings to gamble. They were not really intense (I mean God knows I had worse), but they were there. I didn’t give in to the temptation but I was scared of what had transpired. I tried to rationalize with myself, first of all I don’t have money online, the most I could get online is $200. Second, I lost so much last couple of months and it’s extremely unlikely if not impossible to win back even a portion of the money I lost, with $200.
And not only that, but I would almost certainly lose the $200

But then I had this scary thought: it doesn’t matter if you lose the $200, you’ll still have a blast. It is worth paying $200 for that.

I was frighten big time by that thought.
In other words this is how bad it has gotten with me. I want to gamble even if I’m 100% sure I will lose. I no longer want to gamble hoping (albeit irrationally and against all odds) to win money, but I want to gamble just for the sake of it and I am ‘ready’ to pay a price for it.

Shocking!

[jansdad]

Day #6 today.

Yeah, you’re right. “reprogramming” and other “high-level” stuff is fine, but keep your barriers in place in the mean time 🙂

God, I’ve lost so much, it makes me sick to even think about it.
I’m in Ukraine now, people work here for 200 euros a month. I had a bad run here (after a good run) a couple of weeks ago where I lost 5K in 2 hours. That’s like 2 years worth of work for a lot of the people here.
I feel so bad and so very guilty, I’d like to beat myself up.

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