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ik ben joegoslaaf oorspronkelijk maar woonde een tijdje in NL.
I started gambling at early age and gambling is big part of my identity. Everyone I know I know through gambling. Even my wife who worked there at the time. And yes gambling is fun and even beneficial (good contacts, nice people, a lot of fun) if you’re able to contain it.
I was able to for many years. But then the addiction progressed and the losses far outweighed the benefits I was getting from gambling. Why don’t you go and play video games and hang out with kids who are playing games or do sports or whatever. Once you get hooked onto gambling it only gets worse if you continue to gamble it never gets better.Hey lauwtjee. Nederlander, toch?
I remember myself at your age, a quarter of a century ago I was in Amsterdam all by myself with a nasty gambling addiction. Back then slots (fruit kasten) were everywhere, I played those for a couple of months but then somehow got over it. I used to work as a waiter and I got paid daily. And of course I would gamble my daily wages on those slots every day. Then one day I was walking home and i wanted to go to a pub where they had these slots, but instead, without thinking I started running away from that place and towards my home like a mad man.
I never play slots after that.
But you know how it goes, altijd verrasing maar zelden een leuke, I upgraded to better and bigger things and started going to the Holland Casino. This was before they had poker and I played first roulette and then black jack. I was losing more than i could afford. It was horrible. I even banned myself but then used a friend’s ID to get in. He didn’t even look like me, that’s how desperate and addicted I was.25 years later I’m still fighting the same demons. Sometimes with more sometimes with less success.
You don’t want to play even with play money, believe me. You want to stay away from anything gambling related. Don’t let another 25 years pass before you realize it.
Success jongen!
I love this site, there’s a lot of wisdom here. I’m not a very optimistic person either. As a matter of fact I often imagine very bad scenarios and I often have nightmares.
I think there’s even a term in psychology for this condition it’s like we think that if we “predict” all bad things that could happen, they actually won’t happen. Which is crazy of course. God doesn’t play dice. Or rather dice don’t have memory. Or something along those lines 🙂
But yes, being positive is important. My wife is a very positive person and I love her for that among many other things I love her for. I have learned and am still learning a lot from her.
Kudos on day 9 Fritz. Jansdad = SQR(Fritz) today 😀
“For me, once I have a plan to gamble, it’s almost like I feel as though I have already committed the act, and I begin telling myself there is no turning back now.”
Yep, the same here. It was crazy how often and how fast a simple single thought of gambling would snowball into major major financial losses.
Hey Adam, thanks for sharing and welcome to the forum. I was never able to hold onto the money I had available neither. I could never leave a loser. I would either be up for the session and quit or gamble, stepping up if necessary, to the bitter end.
I was well aware of this and I made a good portion of my money unavailable / not easily accessible to me. It was in an account in a different country where it would take 2 or 3 days for it to clear into my current account and only then I could use it for gambling. In addition to that the amount I was able to transfer on any single day was limited.
So whenever I was steaming out of my ears (which was often) I could only lose the money I had available and never the money that was put aside. By the time I transferred the money back to my current account and it cleared I wouldn’t be steaming so badly. Also, whenever I won anything meaningful I would wire it to the account I didn’t have an easy access to.Anyway that money you had is gone and you can’t have it back. It is no longer yours. What you can do is make sure you don’t lose more. Actually you can make sure you never lose another penny. Easier said than done, I know. I’ve been fighting my demons for decades and I gambled as recently as yesterday. Go figure.
I would recommend that you read “the easy way to stop gambling” by allen carr. It is quite a good book.
Out of curiosity, you mentioned in your post that you’re waiting for a bonus / cashback money from BetFred and if you got it you weren’t sure whether you would gamble with it or cash it out. Were you serious? Did you honestly think there was a slightest chance you would not gamble with it? I’m not trying to rub it in or anything, I just think it’s highly unlikely you honestly thought you would not gamble the money readily available in your betting account. Not to mention the fact that you probably can’t cash out bonus money till you meet their betting requirements (i. e. betting 8x the bonus amount).
Good luck. And make sure you come here often and post often. you will find it helpfull I’m sure.
Instead of making resolutions when this year began I decided it would be a year of convalescence for me. I would get into good habits, I would try and exercises more, eat better, sleep better, spend more quality time with my boy and my wife, be more careful with money, learn new things, work on old business ideas…
And I’m not doing to badly, other than the horrible relapse… I’ve gone 14 times to the gym this year which is more than I’ve gone over the past 5 years, I try not to go to the bed too late, I try to spend more time with my boy and talk more to my wife. I’ve always eaten relatively healthy, but now I try not to eat after 8pm. And like that.
The Easy Way by Allen Carr is a great book. I read it 3 times and am in the process of reading it for the 4th time now.
I mean I don’t like the pep talk and that solemn promise crap, but other than that the book reveals gambling for what it really is.
It also let’s you get a different perspective on the whole thing, a different mindset.But the book in itself doesn’t work magic. No book does I think. At least not for the vast majority of gamblers.
I thought I had it down so cool after not gambling for 60 days only to relapse big on the 63rd day. I wasn’t getting complacent or anything, I knew the danger is out there, I didn’t lower my guard, i was still coming here almost every day and visited support groups a couple of times a week, but it still hit me. I went onto a gambling spree and lost what I would normally have lost had I been gambling for 2 months.
In other words, the book is great, but it’s not enough. It’s probably like ‘helping others’ that you mentioned. No doubt great in the beginning, but after a while, chance are it no longer does the trick .
One other thing, I felt dozens, maybe even hundreds of times in my life absolutely, positively certain, no doubt whatsoever, that I WILL NEVER GAMBLE again. Sometimes I would gamble in matter of minutes. I’m not exaggerating. After a huge loss i would solemnly promise myself I would not gamble again and I would be absolutely certain I wouldn’t. Then I’d get a notification that a friend logged online, I would ask him for money, he would send me the money and off i went.
You have to find out what works for you. I know coming here helps me. Helping others, coming here, exercising, growing flowers, teaching your kids chess etc might work for you.
But as p said it probably takes years to fine-tune it…
Also, you should take everything I say with a grain of salt. I’m the asshole at day #0
I really like your “I can’t fix my life in one day”. I’ve been so impatient at times. I wanted it all and I wanted it now. Not just gambling (that too), but everything else as well.
Time to calm down, to reassess, re-evaluate…
It’s the small steps towards a bigger goal that count.And it’s the little things that matter. I have often ignored them. There’s nothing bigger than the little things in life.