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Well done you. Don’t worry about your (non) exciting life. I think we have all had enough excitement and need to move onto peace and calm and serenity!
Take care!
It sounds like you are in a really difficult situation with your special needs child dependent on you. Like you say – change will come anyway and being (to some extent) in control of the change is better than uncontrolled change. I really would advise you to find some counselling about this – perhaps some form of family therapy as I feel there are a lot of dynamics at play.
If you are in the UK – it might be worth talking to the Gordon Moody Association to see if a residential with them would be possible – but I get a sense you are not a UK citizen.
All we can do is give you support – but it feels to me that you need a more practical intervention closer to home. I hope you can find the wherewithall to speak to someone and move forwards. I wish you well.
Sad and tired is not necessarily a bad think. I know when it happens to me, I need to just take special care of myself. I also know from experience (as I am sure you know) that sad and tired doesn’t last forever and I will be up and about again in time.
The important thing is not to listen to any voices in your head that tell you this is a good time to go back to gambling. Just care for yourself (and if you can get others to care for you!)
Go well.
You wrote: “No one seems to think this is possible or a good idea to try and that the sports bets will just lead me back as a gateway to the online blackjack tables. Any advice or help would be appreciated”
You also said in your OP that you were in a hole from your sports betting too – and that you turned to blackjack to get you out of it. So what happens next time you are in a hole? Will you walk away from sports betting never to return? My guess is you will try and find some other way to keep betting – that is the hold that this addiction has on us.
So my advice would be to look at other threads on this forum. You need to stop all forms of gambling, as one can easily lead to another. Ban yourself from places where you do and could gamble (including on-line.) Hand control of your finances to a trusted family member or friend – or if that is not possible put barriers here so you cannot just “put a bet on” when your resolve is weak. Get good support for yourself, through GA (Gamblers’ Anonymous) or some other self help group / counseling. Keep yourself occupied with some non-gambling activity, again there are threads which will give you some ideas of what you can do.
Sports betting is a difficult one – because many people want to enjoy watching their sport whilst they are recovering from gambling – but that causes so many triggers. Some of the sports bettors on here may be able to offer advice on how to deal with this – but taking part in a non-competitive sport seems to work for some. I wish you well.
Just noticed in your original post, that you have a party lined up for this weekend for your 30th. So not sure when it is but Happy Birthday all the same. We might share a birthday – mine is on Sunday.
Great that you have gone to GA and found it beneficial. Keep up the momentum now. There will be times when you will not want to go – my excuses were, “it’s repetitive, they’re not really supporting me, I can do this on my own, I’m too busy/tired/depressed … I need to spend more time with XXXXX.” The thing is, I needed to build a new routine into my life. It was only when I started to put as much energy into my recovery as I did into my gambling that I managed not to relapse back into gambling again.
I don’t know if you looked into counseling as well, but I still feel that this would be an option for you. It may be available via your medic, depending on which country/state you are in.
I wish you well on telling your partner what is going on and I hope she can share your recovery. Let her see the families and friends part of the forum if she is interested, I hope she is supportive and also gets good support for herself as her life will be affected as much as yours. Keep strong.
You said, “I wonder about driving off the cliff on my way home from the casino.” I feel that talk of ending your life means that you really want to CHANGE your life. You are wanting a new life without gambling – not the life you have now with it. Please contact a helpline in the country where you live if you need to talk this through – ending your life would devastate those around you and I am sure you would not want that.
I read your story and wondered how anyone could cope with all that is going on. Where are you getting your support from? I know you have a partner and maybe asking him to try and understand by reading the forums here including the “families and friends” area where there will be others who will share his concerns. Can you get support in handling your finances, in counselling, in finding alternatives to gambling, in self-help (such as GA?) Maybe you have already tried these things – I would be interested in hearing more.
Welcome to this group!
Tips and advice from my own experience?
Well – I know I could get around barriers, but that is not the point. The point of barriers is that they made me THINK about what I was doing to myself. So yes you may be able to get money in other ways – but if you make it as hard as possible then you may think and you may be able to pull out of the bet.
Similarly – go to GA. Don’t start thinking “oh maybe I need NA or AA more.” If you start replacing one addiction for another then maybe – but I would put your energy into what is causing the most damage. I would also be thinking about counseling. If your situation is that you feel that you need to go to 3 different self-help groups then a broad look at your situation would be helpful – and a skilled professional would help you to manage this, so that you don’t get too emotional and go back into action.
Finally if you are having suicidal thoughts – please contact a helpline and talk to someone. I know you say you are only thinking and wouldn’t do it, but gambling does have a high suicide rate. Thoughts about ending your life mean that you really want to CHANGE your life. Get as much support as you can – put as much effort into recovery as you did into your gambling and get the life change you deserve. I wish you well.
I know you feel down about gambling again – but every time I restarted I gambled less and the times between gambles lengthened – I am hoping that is the same for you.
I look forward to hearing more of your story!
I am also interested to hear about your travels … they sounded so exciting! Maybe we can catch up in group sometime – although now I am working, I don’t have so much time to be there. Wishing you well!
I think Monica has more faith in my than is warranted. I don’t know of any organisations that help with debt in Nigeria. All I can say is that you must not let embarrassment stand in the way of asking for help. I would speak to your family – if you have not already and failing that talk to people on the two helplines that I have sent you in a previous message.
You really need to talk to people locally, as they will have the knowledge of what will and what will not work. It may be exploring ways in which you can work on-line from any country and there are sites which will help you to do this – try googling them as I am not sure I can put links on here. I’m not sure what else I can do to help but if you have any specific questions please get back to me.
When I was first trying to stop – I remember those voices in my head. One saying “go on – you could “just” do a 10 … you can manage that, if you lose it don’t chase, you can walk away.”
The other saying, “don’t be stupid. You know it won’t stop at 10 – and you will regret it.”
I often gave into the first voice and then agree with the second, (when I had lost 100 or more.)Later I got to recognise those voices and when I heard the first one try and needle me – I knew I needed to close it down, so chose to do something else to take my mind off things – or I called someone for a chat.
Don’t be angry at yourself, be caring of yourself instead. You have a bad behaviour (gambling) that doesn’t make you a bad person, or a weak one for that matter. Get good support around you.
Finding out the root cause of your gambling is worth doing, but I think in the early stages of stopping, focusing on measures that will keep you stopped is the key. Strengthen your barriers, keep your personal finances to a minimum (hand over to your partner if possible) and find alternatives to keep your mind off things. Later looking at root causes through counselling can be helpful, but I would go down the counselling route as there may be some difficult emotional stuff to deal with and you will need support. I wish you well.
You wrote, “On some level I keep thinking other people have beautiful homes not me!”
I also thought that “other people go travelling the world, not me.” I felt guilty for doing it! When I first started my travels, I almost felt that at some moment a hand would clutch my shoulder and a voice would say, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?” It hasn’t happened yet. Travelling has become routine. I guess having a lovely new kitchen and bathroom will become routine for you as well, the fear of that voice will simply disappear.
Enjoy choosing and the fun of the new – it is not just a beautiful new kitchen you deserve … it is a beautiful new life.
First of all, thanks for your comments on my thread – I was touched.
I am very interested in boredom as a trigger, because I would say that it was one of mine when I was in action, yet these days I would say that I am very rarely bored.
I used to work as a Careers Adviser – with teenagers! One of the standard answers when I asked about subjects they disliked at school was “it’s boring!” Yet that never got us very far, because boring varies so much between people. What I find boring, you might find really interesting and vice versa. So I would ask them what they meant by boring – as if I didn’t understand the term and usually they replied by saying they would much rather be doing something else – so they “switched off.”
I think that “switching off” is what we do when we gamble, but perhaps it is stopping us from getting the most out of life.
Maybe boredom is a barrier that we need to work through – I know people who have said that they found learning to play an instrument boring after the initial interest, but once they worked through that, they found it interesting again.Or perhaps boredom is a state of mind. People might say that sitting, doing nothing for an hour, is boring; others would call it meditation and look forwards to it (especially as a break from a busy day.)
I also wonder if boredom is a sign that I am not living the life I really want. I sometimes used to ask myself the question, “if I could do anything what would it be?” Then I had a goal to work towards (in my case travelling.) When I was first trying to stop (and looking for other things to do rather than gamble,) I worked out that I didn’t have a lot of experience of things; perhaps I could call them “outside my comfort zone.”
I hadn’t travelled outside my home country at that stage (I was 31!) I’d never been on a plane. I made a list of things I had never tried that might be fun to do – and worked through them. Some I did find “boring” (a chess club!) Some became almost new addictions (jive dancing!) The important thing was that I didn’t let the thought, “oh that will be boring” get in the way of me trying them out.
This year I decided to make a new list of 52 things I have never done and then work through doing them … except I couldn’t think of 52 things. So I worked on 52 treats instead.
So far I have done three – all new things, with mixed results, but I keep trying to make life more interesting and less boring.Anyway I hope I have given you some ideas of things to try to work through the trigger. So, as I am in danger of becoming boring myself, I will leave it there. I wish you well!
You are right – it is an expensive lesson to learn, but if we have learnt it then it is all good.
Some never learn it and lose their homes, their livelihoods even their lives.
I sometimes feel I wasted 20 years of my life – I am travelling now in my 60s and I could have been doing this in my 30s or 40s … but then I think, “well at least I am travelling – if I was still gambling I would be stuck in a darkened room somewhere pushing coins into flashing machines!”
Congratulations on your 3 months and I look forward to most positive posts from you!
Glad that some good news has happened and that you can use the money to help your home situation. I know when I was badly in debt in the last 5 years before I sold my house I had a few unexpected windfalls which I really appreciated and helped me to keep my head above water.
Keep taking good care of yourself and hopefully speak soon.