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Maintaining wellness after 60 would be something I would be interested in … so let me know about your blog when you have got it off the ground.
Good to hear about your life and your healing!
Mark wrote: “All of our problems can be fixed with time if we just stop gambling.”
Well as someone who struggled to stop gambling for over 10 years but now has 10+ years gambling free – I wish I was so certain.
I only managed to stop when I put as much time and effort into my recovery as I did into my gambling. That not only meant going to GA on a regular basis, but getting counselling and being involved in self-help groups as well.
Gambling is a form of wearing blinkers. When we gamble we see nothing further than the next bet. We hide away from the past and don’t look out to the future. Once we stop – the reality of where we are hits us and that can be painful.
It is true that most counsellors are not former gamblers. I am and I know of one or two others, but we are all trained in helping people to look at their lives with honesty and giving them support when that becomes difficult (which it usually does.) Also, counselling and psychiatry are totally different ways of working – so someone who has only seen a psychiatrist has no experience of counselling.
Mark is right – the important thing is to stop gambling, that is the first step. But then you need to stay stopped. You need to work through why gambling is trying to pull you back into your old life and not allowing you to be free – to live the life you want and deserve. That is where counselling helped me. I now lead a totally different life in which gambling has no place. I want to be able to show it can be done and to give hope to others who are struggling with this behavior.
Keep posting and letting us know where you are on your journey. People here will support when we can. I wish you well.
Such an difficult story and one that people should read to see what gambling can do to a life. Sellsatt – I don’t know which country you are in, but I would try and get advice locally as soon as possible. Unless you had somehow used your parent’s house to obtain credit – it shouldn’t be taken away from them.
I also think that you should be the one to tell your parents what is happening. It is not right that they should find this out when the debtors or bailiffs come knocking at the door.
Please get help and support for yourself and your parents as soon as you can. I wish you well.
I feel for you. You say you don’t know what to do. What you NEED to do is to stop gambling. If you read the posts on this thread you will see what the steps are – but I think the best thing you can do is to contact Gamblers’ Anonymous. There are 4 meets a week in SD – 1 in Spanish … more details here: http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/ga/locations/state/table/CA/San%20Diego/na/na/na/10?#gmap-nodemap-gmap0
Local people are more likely to be able to help in your situation. If you have had access to $250,000 then I would assume you have been in a good job in the past and maybe able to pull yourself up there again. I hope so. You will need good support and I hope that GA will help. I wish you well.
You wrote: “I am battling the urge just to drive out to a casino this weekend in another town and take £5000 with me to see whether I can win some of my savings back.
I lost a total of £28,000 in savings that I had. Even if I could recoupe £15,000 I could convince myself that I simply had the most expensive life experience to date. And I can preach to others to never gamble.”
If you did this you would lose £5000 – then you would be in debt and paying interest – so losing more. Even if you were to win it wouldn’t be £15K – so you would keep playing to win that amount and lose it all. I know. I have been there.
If you don’t need the credit cards for anything else cut them up – or speak to the bank about lowering the credit limit to what you need for day to day living. If you can, hand them over to a trusted loved one to handle until you feel strong enough to take control again.
I know writing off £28K is a big ask – but believe me, it is what you need to do if you are going to be gamble free for any length of time. Think of it as a bad investment decision. Put your energy into your work and other (non-gambling) pastimes. Now you know you cannot gamble “normally” – think of yourself as a non-gambler and that you can’t gamble because it isn’t your thing. I wish you well.
My advice was to find something else to do which is NOT gambling related – so yes – please give up the gambling youtube videos.
When I was looking for something else to do with my relaxation time, I tried a number of things. Some I abandoned quite quickly. Others I quite liked, but found that I lacked motivation. Then it struck me that I started gambling infrequently at first – and then as I got more into it (addicted I suppose) it became a regular habit. So I used my experience of gambling in some of my new hobbies. I started dancing. I was completely hopeless – but I didn’t give up and went more and more regularly, until I became okay and it became second nature. At one time I was out virtually every night. Addicted, maybe? But it was a positive addiction.
I haven’t gambled for 10 years or so – but I still check out this site virtually every day. Addicted?
Recently I have started to learn new languages – as I am travelling full-time. One language app I use tells me how many consecutive days I have been on the site. I have just checked and today is number 164! I might not be any better at French but at least I am consistent.
So, please find new things to do. Have fun trying things out and when you enjoy a new hobby or activity, keep at it. Thoughts of gambling will then happen less often, crowded out by other things. Enjoy your life.
This was a really positive post and it is great that you have told your husband what is going on … BUT – ” I told him I would still like to do the casino night outs because it is my only leisure and he said it is okey. ”
It is NOT okay. When I admitted to myself that I had a problem with gambling – I knew that I could not put myself in a position where I might be tempted to gamble. My “poison” was slots and if I even saw a slot in a food hall or similar – I walked away and went somewhere else.
If casinos are your only leisure – you need to find something else. There are many, many hobbies and interests in the world – so please find something else to relax with!
One thing you can do is talk to others who are dealing with this behaviour. There are support groups on here (check the times on that section) and in other places … talking to people helps us to stay strong and away from a bet. Please get as much support as you can.
I know it is a heavy price to pay to find out that you cannot gamble again – but please learn this lesson and don’t go chasing your losses, (that urge will come and it is hard to resist.) I agree with what I-did-it says and in addition I would suggest that you get good support – either through counseling (if you are in the UK – you can access this via Gamcare) or from a self-help group like Gamblers’ Anonymous.
Great that you are not in debt – now is the time to stop completely. I wish you well.
You are the same age as I was when I first looked for help for my gambling problem. What I first learnt was that I was one of those people who could not gamble normally. Even when I won I would just keep gambling until I lost it all.
What advice can I give you? First – read some of the posts on here … the same advice is given to all new quitters – block or ban yourself from places you gamble, limit your access to money, find other things to do and get good support. Can you go back to the psychiatrist who was helpful or access counseling or a support group?
Things only started to change for me when I took my recovery as seriously as I took my gambling. I put all my energy into it and although it wasn’t a straight forward ride (I had a few “slips”) gradually things got better.
If you are feeling depressed and / or suicidal – please talk to someone. There will be specialist helplines in your country for this – please make use of them and get as much support as you can. I wish you well.
If I could have advised myself several years ago – it would be to re-invent myself.
I was a gambler. Then some-one with a gambling problem. Then a recovering gambler. Later I thought of myself as a non-gambler … which is where I am today – except that I never think about gambling (except perhaps when I come here) but I think of myself as a traveller.
So my tip would be to think of yourself as a non-gambler. Act into being a non-gambler. You are not in the least bit interested in gambling and when that spare £20 comes along you will think – well I’m a non-gambler so I won’t be putting it into a machine …
Eventually you will come up with the “new you” – your new life as an artist, or a animal lover, or – whatever rocks your boat. Until then being a non-gambler is a good place to start!
The title of your thread is “want to change my life” and I think finding somewhere new to live is a good start to this. Don’t stop at that, find new (non gambling) activities to do, new (non gambling) friends. Think and act like someone who is not a gambler, and you will change your life to one where gambling has no place.
I wish you well.Looking at why you choose to gamble and what triggers you, as Emma says, is a key factor in being able to block out “Mr Hyde.”
One thing you can consider (I assume you are in the UK) is the offer by Gamcare for counselling. This will help you to look at these issues in a supportive space. https://www.gamcare.org.uk/get-support/our-treatment-offer/?cn-reloaded=1
You may also want your partner to look at the “families and friends” section of this forum with a view to what support to give you. As you rightly say, your gambling doesn’t only affect you but the whole family. I wish you well.
That’s not great. Did someone steal your card or was it identity theft? Either way, I hope that you can get it sorted without it costing you anything. Surely if it is fraud the bank should stand it. The weather has been awful here and the internet was out for a while last night – but back to normal now. Just had a hail storm.
Hope you now get the good things happening as I guess you have had enough of the bad. Take good care!
“But for me it’s not about winning. It’s about spending everything I have in search of the big win.”
So what is the “big win?” Is there an amount that you could win where you would honestly say, “right that’s it. I’ve got the amount I want and I am going to stop now?”
It is only since I have been stopped some years that I have realised that for me, the big win was just a fantasy. What would I have done with it – why I would have used it to carry on gambling.
Amongst the many things which I did when I stopped was to look realistically at my life. It is how I want it to be? If not, why not? What can I do to change it?
Money is not our life. Having money can give us more choices and can eliminate worry – but our lives are what we choose to make them. I don’t know if you had been feeling directionless, but perhaps ask yourself – “if I had that big win what would I do with it?” Then see how you can work towards that goal without gambling.
As I said earlier, the big win (for most) is just a fantasy. It is one of the things that the gambling companies use to keep us in play. “You need to be in it – to win it!” Letting go of that fantasy and living a life without it can be a wrench, but if we are living out the lives we want then what more could we possibly want? I wish you well.