[jansdad]

Nice post Geordie 🙂

Thanks!

[jansdad]

Welcome to the forum. It’s important to understand that you don’t really gamble to fill the emptiness. Gambling creates that emptiness in you and then temporary alleviates the pain and the very feeling of emptiness (it created in the first place) while you gamble.
Also, it doesn’t give you genuine pleasure. It’s an illusion.

Look at me, I’ve been clean for 5 days and I have wisdom coming out of my butt as I walk.

Anyway, before you figure it all out you need to, as sad68 said, block all your accounts, ban yourself where you can and limit your access to money.

And come here, read and post.

[jansdad]

Day #5 today. Just checking in. So far so good. Trying to occupy myself with work.

[jansdad]

Merry Xmas all!

Your story, Kathryn, where you told everyone your purse had been stolen reminds me of a similar story that took place almost quarter of a century ago. Only, I took it a step further.

A friend loaned me money to pay my rent because I had lost everything gambling. He told me if I lost that money there would be no more loans. My rent was 360 fl. (this was in Amsterdam and the currency at the time was dutch guilder), but because of the banknotes structure back then, he gave me 375 fl.
My tram home rode past the casino and I thought what if I parlayed that 15 fl. extra into let’s say 50 fl. Wouldn’t it be nice?

I lost everything and went home, I was desperate. When I got to my room, I’m not sure how or why, but I started beating my face up with a glass roller deodorant.
Soon I had bruises all over my face. The landlord saw me in the morning and I told him what happened – I was mugged and asked him if he could wait a few days for the rent. He said it wouldn’t be a problem. Then I met my friend and told him the same – I was beaten and mugged. He lent me more money and I paid the rent.
It wasn’t until 20 years later that I told him about it, so embarrassed was I.

[jansdad]

Day #4 today. Was busy earlier so no thoughts about gambling. A little different now. Wife and kid visiting friends and am alone now. But don’t feel the urge. Will probably watch this new show I found about yesterday on Netflix “the blacklist”. Kinda amusing.

I can’t rely on my will power. I know that for a fact. Few people can, most can’t. There has to be a way to eliminate cravings.
Obstacles help and have saved me in the past. But every so often I would go back to my old ways. And I want to change that.
Like, I don’t drink. And I don’t have urges to drink even when I am at a bar or surrounded with all kinds of alcohol. It does nothing to me. Where an alcoholic would probably have a hard time resisting temptation. I’d like to get to the same point with gambling. I don’t want to go through life knowing the beast is lurking in the shadows of my subconsciousness and to fear when it will strike again.
I don’t even remember how it was to be a non-gambler, I’ve been gambling too long, since I was a kid. But I know there are people out there who never gambled and are fine with that. They don’t have to leave their credit cards at home, they don’t have to ban themselves from different casinos, they don’t need to play. Just like i don’t need to drink alcohol.
Granted they’re not addicted to gambling and i am, I know that. But I’m sure, or rather I think and i certainly hope, there’s a way to “reprogram” our brain and become a true non-gambler.

[jansdad]

Thanks for your input Charles. I guess you’re right on many levels, but let’s just say I’ve decided to spare my wife the anger (and spare myself having to deal with it of course) for now at least. If I never gamble again I will probably be ok in a couple of months. That (that I will never gamble again) is in no way certain, but I want to give myself a shot at it.
#3 going relatively good. I had some money hit my bank account today, but I immediately paid some January bills in order to get rid of it and not be tempted.

I’d really like to get to the point, as I wrote in my previous post, where I won’t have any cravings to gamble, rather than fight the urges all the time. I did think about gambling for a moment today and I didn’t give in. But I’d love to get to the point where I won’t even have ANY desire to gamble whatsoever. Rather than exercising strong will and not giving in.

[jansdad]

You know, I believe, maybe I am naive, but I believe that as long as we have to fight it – we’re doing something wrong.
I think it is possible to reprogram our brain and see gambling for what it really is and not have the cravings any more.

I recently read a book by Alan Carr – The Easy Way to Stop Gambling and it kind of reinforced what I already thought. If you’re fighting it – you’re doing something wrong.

There’s a lot of pep-talk in the book, but the book has a lot of valid points nevertheless.

[jansdad]

Day #2 so far so good. The night is young though.

My brain tried to trick me that only if I played responsibly and only the limit I can afford and if I only played my A game and only played when I’m well rested I could actually win at poker.
But I quickly discarded these thoughts as it never worked in the past and couldn’t possible work in the future.

[jansdad]

Thanks Velvet. Today is my #1 as I last gambled yesterday around 4am.

It’s way too early in my “recovery” to jump into conclusions. I do know I have to draw a line and I do know that I have to say goodbye to past losses and that I will never win back what I lost gambling. All that money is gone and I cannot win it back gambling. All I can do from this point on is not lose more. And if I manage that – it will be an amazing accomplishment.

I made a deal with myself. If I gamble again I will tell my wife. I will just have to tell her, for if you lose even a small amount of money, there will be no way around it. There will be no way for me to hide it.
Maybe I’m postponing the inevitable or maybe I’m kidding myself, but this time I somehow feel differently than all the other times when I “stopped” gambling.

We’ll see. Too early to say anything and I am a long way from home.

Thank you again Velvet

[jansdad]

Thank you sad68. I know you’re right and that I should tell my wife, but I’m very afraid of the reaction it will no doubt provoke.
I’m not wealthy, far from it. I’ve been earning a good living and we spend most of it. Whatever I managed to stash away I already gambled away and also depleted some of the money we have in her account.
I had a bunch of bank accounts in different countries where I would sporadically send money for “rainy days”. A grand here, a couple of grand there. My wife didn’t know about these.
I depleted them all last couple of months. The money that I hadn’t touched for many years, now gone.
I even cashed in my American Express reward points for 350 euros. How sad is that? I’ve been accumulating these points for like 10 years. All gone on one bad call.

No, come January 1, I don’t have 1500 euros to pay the immediate bills. This is the first time in like 20 years that it happened.
I will get 1500 from someone and then pay it back later, but just that thought that I brought this onto myself…

And the work is very slow. And I mean very slow. I make less than 50% of what I was making last year. Maybe even only 30%. And in face of that I depleted my savings. Good job, i should really tap myself on the shoulder.

[jansdad]

Thanks sad68. Yes, I know I should tell my wife, I just don’t know how to break it to her.

I just woke up, still at day #0. I didn’t even have nightmares as I used to have after bad gambling and bad losing. I hope it doesn’t mean I’m becoming numb.

I’m scared. But yes, stopping can be done and I think I can do it. I think most of or even all of us can. A little hopeful at the moment, but I know better than to have my hopes too high.

[jansdad]

Thanks Charles. I’ve gone on a gambling spree last few days and it has been horrible. My poker accounts are blocked so I did something I didn’t do in years, probably decades – I went ahead and played online casino games. Black Jack to be precise. I bet 3 hands, from 10 total up to $320 total. At one point I was up handsomely, but it all doesn’t matter, it’s so irrelevant. It wasn’t like I would have stopped and never gambled again had I won even more. In the end I lost it all.

Now I am at the point, and again this is something that hasn’t been the case for almost 20 years, where I won’t be able to pay our bills next month and I have to ask my wife for the money in her saving account.
It all goes too quickly – from “it won’t happen to me, not after all these years, I do know better now” to flatout broke and not having money for the bills.

How foolish of me to think I could only have a few bets for fun. One would think one should know better after 30 years of slavery to a gambling addiction
.
And yes, Charles, you’re right, how foolish of me to try and intellectualize an addiction.

It’s 4am now, so tomorrow will be my day #1. I will come here every day to keep you guys posted and to remind myself that I cannot do this on my own.

[jansdad]

I don’t even know why I gamble. I can’t explain that intellectually. I know I’m addicted, that goes without saying, but I don’t know what triggers the action, what makes me gamble.
I know gambling does not give me any genuine pleasure. I know it’s bad for my moods, bad for my health, for my relationship, for my parentship. And I know I cannot win.

I was going 2 weeks strong after the last gambling spree and I was doing alright. Then 3 days ago I had the urge to gamble and I knew all to well that it would be a huge mistake to start. I had a good thing going, I hadn’t gambled in over 2 weeks, I started going to the gym, I was able to concentrate on my work, I read 2 books in the mean time, I was able to watch through a whole movie without fidgeting.
And in spite all that I decided to cancel that deal with my friend, the deal that has been a lifesaver, and to gamble.
And if you asked me why, for the life of me I could not give a reasonable explanation.
The limits I play, on extreme days, fluctuate +/- $3K. On most days I can lose or win $1K.
And I was saying to myself, ok let’s say you get extremely lucky and you win $3K, will that change anything? And the answer was, no it wouldn’t. I mean $3K is nice, but it would not change my life style or anything and I’m jeopardizing too much for a remote chance of winning the amount that won’t matter too much anyway.

So, I know I cannot win long term, I know that even if I did win short term that money that I could win wouldn’t make any difference, I know that by playing I’m opening the door to hell and I know all too well what it means to be in that hell – and yet against my better judgement I go ahead and start gambling again.

How the hell is that possible?

[jansdad]

Hello icandothis and charles. Yes, I was away for a while. I foolishly thought I had things under control and I didn’t need you guys nor this site. I didn’t exactly think I was better than you guys, but it was close to that. I will never make that mistake again.

I’m back now and am here to stay. I have a friend who hasn’t drunk in 10 years and yet visits the AA meeting 2-3 times a week. Now I know why.

I probably won’t have to tell my wife about the money I lost for another 6 months, possibly longer and if I manage not to gamble I think I can save it up and I should be ok.

Should I not be honest with my wife about it? I can’t bear to disappoint her again. And again, if I don’t gamble from now on I should probably be ok. And if I do gamble then the hell will break loose anyway and I will end in it.

[jansdad]

Hey Jack. My story is surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) similar.
I’ve been gambling my entire life (started as a kid, was always fascinated by it) and have been fighting the demons that come with it for decades.
I too earn very handsomely and I too estimate my overall losses at about 200K euros. That’s not counting the time lost, aggravation, the toll it took on my health, and so forth.

The only time when I was successfully able to fight the urge to gamble was when I had a deal with a friend. He would “pay me” one euro not to gamble and if I did gamble I would have to pay him 20K euros. That worked like a charm for months on end. I would go months without even thinking about gambling. But every so often the urge would come back and I would ask him to let me play, I’d tell him there’s a good game and I’ve gone so long without gambling so I can keep my demons at bay. He’d give in and I’d gamble and usually lose, but then would not gamble again for weeks or months. Then January 1st this year when my “ban” expired I didn’t extend it and I went back to my old ways. I would lose constantly, but not to the point where I couldn’t pay my bills or be in debt. Then about 2-3 weeks ago I lost a lot and had to lie to my wife about some saving money we had. And hated myself for that needless to say.
I asked my friend to “ban” me again and he agreed. It all worked fine till 2 days ago when I asked him to “let me play”. He said no and I started nagging him. Then he said ok, but if I do play he won’t cut that deal with me ever again and it’s up to me to decide. I knew I mustn’t agree to that, but my urge brought the worst in me and I succumbed to my addiction and my urge to gamble.
I played poker online, I was only gonna play with $200. I had a good run and won $1400 the day before yesterday. Then yesterday I played again and won another $1500. Started playing again today, of course, and started well off, was up $1200 in matter of minutes. Then I took a bad beat, and lost a $2700 pot to a hand that was far worse than mine. At that point I was about even for the day and I knew I should stop because I knew I would start steaming.
I didn’t stop of course. I lost all the money i had in the account and that brought me to -$200 overall for the last 3 days. That wasn’t enough and I put in another $1700, so now I’m down $1900 for the last 3 days. That’s from being up like $4k, you do the math.
But it’s not only the money. It’s the slavery, the powerlessness, the incapability to stop, the self loathing, the overwhelming feeling of helplessness…

I know I can’t win at poker any more (luckily I don’t play any other games any more and haven’t been for 20 year). I was able to win at poker until about 7 years ago, but the games were far softer than. Nowadays I know I cannot win, I know I’m destined to lose and yet often times I have this urge, this uncontrollable and overwhelming urge.

My wife wants to see Japan and South Korea and has been talking about that for years. I looked it up and a nice 3 week trip for 3 of us would cost about 15K euros. It is a lot of money, but she’s been wanting that for years. But every year I tell her we can’t afford it. And yet every year I lose excess of that. Year in, year out. And it is so much money, I’m sick of myself even thinking about it.

So, obviously, for me “1 days at a time” mantra doesn’t work. I can go weeks without gambling, but then when I do gamble I will just lose all the money that I accumulated in the mean time. I have to stop once and for all. Not refrain from gambling today and tomorrow, but I must never gamble again.

I’ve said this too many times and I’m not kidding myself that this time I really mean it. I meant it every single time I promised myself and everyone willing to listen that I’m stopping.

We need to reprogram our brains, but how, I don’t know how. I do know it’s possible though.

If you want to work out a plan together, chat on skype or whatever, email me

Good luck in the mean time.

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