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Pie – you wrote: “3 weeks ago I began feeling the utter desperation of my finances again …”
and I am guessing that that was the trigger for your recent relapse.I know my head got scrambled when I started worrying about what I had lost – I “felt” I had to do something, got fidgity, played the “should I, shouldn’t I game in my head.” It took a while before I realised that these are the early warning signs of a potential relapse and that I need to tackle them head on.
The first thing I would do is talk to someone. Better to say to someone that I know I am in danger of gambling again than to confess after the event. If I worked with a counsellor, it was often to come to a sensible plan of action on my finances that DIDN’T involve gambling. (More often it was just about “knowing” that things were tough but as long as I kept to plan I would get through.
Second was a spur to do something ANYTHING to take my mind off these self-doubts. Doing something for other people worked best. When I was in my “woe is me” phase – the attention was on ME. I needed to take the attention off myself for a little while and concentrate on someone else – even a complete stranger. My strategy was to do some voluntary work – so I helped at a club for people with dementia (serving teas and coffees – but mainly just chatting.) It also helped to put my life in perspective.
Thirdly, when I felt stronger and that I had got through the test – I treated myself. I have to admit this was mainly food, I can only tackle one problem at a time. But sometimes it was by just letting my hair down a little, (I still had some then.)Gamblers gamble – so don’t be too hard on yourself and don’t let others judge you too harshly in the early days of your recovery. Learn from your relapses. Watch as you do less damage each time (you will still feel shit though.) Watch as the spaces between relapses grow.
I gambled again after a 3 year abstinence. In hindsight it was because I had taken too much on and wasn’t putting myself first. The gambling last a few months but was less intense than usual and with working with a counsellor on looking after myself – I was able to stop. My last few relapses only lasted a few days. I hated the feelings that they generated and the realisation that I could slip into my old life.
I hope this all helps. New Zealand is one of the few places where co-counselling happens. https://www.coco.org.nz/ I found this extremely useful and a great community to be involved with. Keep posting.
I know that I didn’t work through other stuff that needed doing when I was gambling, because the gambling was all consuming of my time energy and emotions. I hear that you have a lot of emotion towards your boss and I wonder if you can find a safe way to let this out. One method I have found useful is to put your energy into beating up a cushion (large beanbags are good!) You could give the cushion the same name as your boss and then have a good rant – letting have it with everything you’ve got and calling her all the names under the sun.
Of course it would hep if you did this in the privacy of your bedroom – or maybe with a trusted friend to support you (NOT your boss though!)
It will make you feel better – but the important thing is that it will clear your head – and you may then be able to find a practical solution to your work problem that is there but your “seeing red” head can’t get to.
You ask what to fix first. I would say yourself. You have already made a start with the gambling and it is still early days. See your recovery through until you feel stronger to face some of the other stuff. You can’t be there for your daughter if you go back to gambling – so if you want to help her, make that your priority. There’s probably more I could say – but I will leave it there for now … you know you have this forum to check in with.
As compulsive gamblers we are always looking for excuses and opportunities to bet. It is what we do, so there is no point in beating yourself up about it.
The important thing is that you have recognised that you have slipped and you will now put things in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. It is also good that you have come back – not to confess, but to let us know that you still need support.
Treat your addiction like an allergy. If you were addicted to seafood – it may not hurt much to eat one or two prawns – but if you know that you would then be tempted to eat more – which would threaten your life – then even one is not a good idea.
That’s the issue – one small occasional bet won’t harm you – but it is the further things that it could (and probably would)that will.
Tighten your resolve and ensure that you get past 6 days next time – if not 60 or 600!
You are doing really well BEEM – good to see you in chat tonight and great that you are staying in touch!
Hi JG You wrote: “The thing that gets me is that I enjoy betting, but know I need to stop or it will get to the stage where I can’t continue anymore.” Of course you enjoy betting … Everyone enjoys their addiction or it would be really easy to stop. The trouble is that your addiction can kill you – not just by suicide, but by worry, stress, health issues to do with not looking after yourself … I have even known of one cg being murdered from borrowing from the wrong sort of people …
You are not unsuccessful … you realise that you have the problem and you have come onto this site in order to stop. So what YOU need to do is 1) limit your access to gambling sites – ban yourself and / or put blocking software on your devices. 2) limit your access to money – find a trusted friend or loved one to handle funds or find some constructive way to limit the amount you can get hold of. 3) Get support – you say counselling didn’t work for you – try a different counsellor or a different type of counselling. Many on here recommend CBT … Go to a Gambler’s Anonymous meeting – there you will get tailored advice and support. 4) Find something else to do with your time. That may mean changing your friends and even your location – but, hey – that is a small price to pay to keep yourself alive.
If you are having suicidal thoughts – please get help straight away by contacting the samaritans – online or by phone. Keep posting here and maybe visit the groups where, again, you will hear other peoples’ stories. I wish you well.
For me it took a while. Even with the support of GA, I slipped several times. But the good news is that each time was with less and less damage – and I did manage a period of 3 years before gambling again for just a few months. At that time I was single and decided to put some effort into finding a partner and I did not gamble whilst with her (some 5 years) – when we split up, of course thoughts turned to gambling, but I thought “I’m hurting enough – so why should I do any more harm to myself?” Apart from one or two one-offs (stupidly seeing if I could gamble “normally” – I can’t) it’s been around 20 years stopped now.
So I would say (for me at least) there was no sudden stop – just a slow dripping until eventually no more.
If you see gambling as a way of hurting yourself – then why would you want to do it? Love yourself – do things that make you happy without gambling and beyond all else get support from people around you. Take care.
In my early days of stopping it felt more like a stop-start-stop so I know what you are going through. Do you know what triggered your “slip?” Boredom was a big one for me – I just needed a few minutes without anything to do and the gambling thoughts come raging in.
Anything non-gambling that works for you at this point is worth considering – even if it is a mindless computer game. As long as there is no money involved or link to gambling. Or if being on the computer is in itself a trigger – then find some other media – or even play patience with real cards. I know I did a time or two when I was desperate.
Anyways I hear the determination in your post to keep at it and to make gambling less and less an issue in your life. I wish you well.
Hi Rfc and welcome to the site. If you read around GT you will find the answers to stopping. Putting up barriers by limiting access to money, banning yourself from places or websites where you gamble and keeping busy with other things. Also getting as much support as possible – it is hard to do this alone.
As for staying stopped – that is indeed the hard part, but recognising that you cannot gamble again – that even one “free” bet can lead to a slippery slope is a first. Finding a new identity as a non-gambler, perhaps by picking up an interest you had before gambling or joining a non-gambling community can help.
But for now – put those barriers in place and keep coming back to your journal or take part in groups here to let us know how you are going on. I wish you well.
You wrote, “How can I ever escape urges when my whole life is about gambling or not ?” I haven’t worked on the SMART website – but I know enough about CBT to suggest that your thinking that your “whole life” is about gambling is faulty (to use the CBT term.) This is just giving gambling an importance that it doesn’t deserve.
There are lots of other aspects of your life – more to yours than mine I think. So what about the interior design – to take one area. I know you managed to move from there to gambling thoughts – but that is the gambling brain working again.
I was obsessed about being in debt and was always trying to find ways of using my time constructively without spending any money. Not that easy. But if Interior Design was my thing – I might be looking for free courses, seeing if I could buy cheap books on Ebay and sell them at a profit, start a free blog on the subject. Find out where great examples of design were local to me and find a way to get there at low cost.
Right now I have found a great way of stopping gambling – of stopping most things. Get food poisoning so that you can’t do anything for more that a few minutes before you have to visit the bathroom. I have to go …
You are right of course – we are complex people who will have more than one passion.
I liked the “two masters level degrees in different areas.” I’ve two ordinary degrees in different areas – mainly because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to study from all the options.
I could have said my passion was walking or music or literature (I was a book seller for many years) or antiques / collectables.
I guess I felt the label was important. I once read a short story by (I think) Tolstoy about a young man who inherits an estate with servants etc. He is also a part-time soldier, a role he really enjoys. As he gets into all the work of keeping the place in order, he decides he is too busy to continue soldiering – so quits. Over a period of time, he gets more and more depressed, drinking, gambling etc and lets the estate go to rack and ruin. The servants don’t respect him and run off with the silver etc.
Then one day in the depths of despair – he goes to the closet and pulls out his uniform, puts it on and looks in the mirror.
He then sees himself as the soldier, in command, he stands up straight and can boss people around. So every morning he puts on his uniform first thing and then he is set up for the day.Fiction, I know, but I do think there is something in there about “what my identity is” and I think if I identify with being a gambler or even the more positive “recovering gambler,” it is not enough. Because, especially in the middle stage of recovery, gamblers need to make a complete break.
As you know I have worked as a counsellor, but in my early and middle period of recovery I avoided working with problem gamblers because I could feel myself being pulled into their stories and it wasn’t healthy for me. Only now – as I identify as something else – do I feel detatched enough to cope.
So in your case, you have lots to choose from. Baker, brickie, gardener etc. Maybe educator as you have taught me something today! I’m glad that SMART is working so well for you. Speak soon.
I’m tempted to say that since I gave up raspberries, I have had lots of ads to eat them – but that just wouldn’t be true.
It is just the marketing of the gambling industry trying to bring you back into their clutches. Difficult I know. If you can look at other things on line – your ad choices will fall in line eventually.
Until then I hope you can keep strong and keep posting.
I would agree that sharing your gambling problem is a very personal decision and not one to be taken lightly. My only thought is that it is (usually) better to share than to be found out … It is often the lies and deceits that family members find hard to put up with – especially if someone has relapsed and is thought to be clean.
I don’t know if you noticed but the OP didn’t actually confess his gambling … he was found out. Luckily this seems to have gone well – but it is not always the case. It is always a difficult decision and one which may need support to make.
Hi Idi … you said; “In the past I only ever thought about gambling or not gambling. Now I’m thinking where will I go what will I do ?”
I think you have summed up what I have been banging on about for ages. To just stop gambling is not enough, it has to be replaced with something – otherwise what do you have? Just a void where the “pleasurable joys” of gambling used to sit.
The problem is, when I ask gamblers what they want to replace gambling with – they are often at a loss. What would you do if you had that big win and no longer “needed” to gamble? Eh? I would just gamble more … I guess.
Have you noticed on game shows whenever people are asked “if you win what would you do with the money?” the number who say “take a trip to Vegas.”
The truth is that gambling has to be replaced with something. If it isn’t then “boredom” will set in and that (for me at least) is a trigger to recommence gambling. Or we simply replace gambling with another activity that compensates for us not having the bottle to go for our dream. Drinking, binge-watching TV, drugs etc. fine for a while – but is that how we wanted to use up our limited resources … time and the good health we (mostly) currently have to enjoy it.
It is really only by really looking at how I want to spend the rest of my days and then going for it, that I feel I have made my peace with gambling. As you know, for me it has been travelling and yet there were so many internal obstacles in my way. Here’s just a few: “I can’t afford it.” “People like me don’t do that sort of thing.” “What if I’m mugged/kidnapped/assaulted/ robbed? “My mother wouldn’t have approved!” And here’s the biggy “I don’t deserve it!”
In truth – it is that last one that has brought me here. I did a deal with my “I’m not worth it” voice to say … if I go travelling I will do something worthwhile whilst I am on the go – I will help other past gamblers to stop gambling and REALISE THEIR DREAMS.
Because as you have said – just stopping gambling is not enough. “No gambling” is a negative and we need positives in our lives. As I said on another thread if we do away with the label of “problem gambler” what label do we then give ourselves. “World traveller” still doesn’t feel very comfortable to me and a bit pretentious when, so far, I have only made it to the Irish Republic … but at some point even I will have to see it as real.
So enough about me. What about your dreams Idi? I don’t know what new label you might put on. Did you have a passion before you took up gambling which you could now go back to? Are you (as I still am) really interested in knowing more about the addictive brain and how different sorts of therapies help – could you go on training courses, retreats (to lovely parts of the country / world) try out the delights of Gestalt, T.A., Dramatherapy, Co-counseling, NLP? Is your passion more in being creative – or with caring for children or animals – or getting political, and / or saving the environment. Is one of the reasons (amongst many) that we gamble that it focuses the mind on the spinning reels or turning cards so that we don’t have to look at all the bewildering choices that the world throws up at us.
I hope that you can pin down your passion and live it. Before long you will identify with that label and not the label of gambler or even “recovering gambler.” Here’s to a positive future for all of us on here.
I was really struck by your post as it outlined the slow, continuous battle with gambling. Some on here have taken the big hit and lost thousands in one night – but others, like you and me just keep losing most of our wages. We get by, but day to day living is a struggle and all we have to look forward to is the next bet and maybe a win that will ease the pressure a bit. It is no life.
You said, “The solution is so simple right? Just stop betting and all my problems would be nonexistent.” No – your problems will still be there, but you will no longer be able to use gambling to avoid looking at them. If you stop gambling you will no longer ADD to your problems but they will not magically go away. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you can stop gambling, the other good news is that you can get support for your problems – especially if you can overcome the shame / embarrassment you feel about gambling and talk to people.
So bar yourself from places where you gamble – if on-line try gamstop or similar. Off line is more difficult but speak to specific places you go to. If it is only on-line you could consider scraping off the 3 digit code on your credit card so you can’t input it. (If you know it by heart – replace your card and ask someone else to do it for you.) Try not to handle your own finances – this might mean getting a close friend or family member involved – it is worth it.
Beyond all else – get support for yourself. Preferably locally – see if self-help groups like GA operate in your area and go to a meeting. If not look at support on -line there is one-to-one on this site, groups or virtual meetings at places like SMART.
I lived from hand to mouth for several years – even after I had stopped gambling. But I was 10 years older than you when I first sought help and so had done more damage. I also had no family support to call on (that is a choice you may need to make.) I have been clean from slots for over 20 years (with one or two slips) – so it CAN be done. Go well.
I have an allergy to raspberries.
I really like them – they are delicious and juicy and sweet. When I eat them I really enjoy the experience. Then I get ill, have stomach pain, can’t sleep at night for the gut ache. Have even been in hospital a couple of times.
I can’t eat raspberries. I see others enjoying them and I am jealous. I would love to go back to them but have now decided I can never eat them again. In the grand scheme of things doing without raspberries is pretty minor.
So is doing without slots.