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Thanks for your post. I am a little confused – are you saying that you gambled 20K yesterday that was supposed to be a deposit on a house for you both. If so – I am not surprised that you feel guilt, remorse and regret. Perhaps you need to feel these feeling and to remember them so that when you get the urge to gamble again (which will happen) you can remember these feelings as the consequences of gambling.
I am guessing that you know the drill about banning yourself from gambling premises and online – giving your finances over to a loved one and getting support. You have been attending GA. I know that even with all these things in place I gambled. I had the guilt, regret and remorse and I felt I just had to knuckle down and do even more to recover – really work my recovery. Have you spoken to your wife yet about your latest gamble? She may need support herself – from this site or from Gamanon or similar. I hope you can both get through this and I wish you well.
I guess that you have looked through the site and are aware of all the things you NEED to do in order to stop gambling. Banning yourself and taking away finances and time are things that you will need to find a way of working through.
You have decided to share your story with other compulsive gamblers. You may want to consider doing this locally with a self-help group such as GA or similar. We gamble alone and there is a lot of shame associated with what we have been through – but no-one can beat this addiction alone. You will need to share and get help and advice from people who have been there in your locality. I wish you well.
All of the list is something that could apply to me. I might want to add anger. When I felt angry about something and could not let it out in any other way – I would take out my frustration by gambling. But then maybe I could find any excuse to gamble. Where was getting rich? Not a reason for me either!
For destressing – I find walking in the countryside really helps. If not countryside then parks or somewhere near water. I have also found mindfulness helpful – although difficult to do when I most need it.
Thanks for your post – I hope you also have a good, gamble free weekend.
Well done for looking for looking for help before getting into debt. I was nearly £40K in debt at one point – and not gambling. Debt can stay with you for years.
If you are not handling your own finances then you can’t gamble. As both your Dad and gf know about your problem – could you ask one of them to handle your finances for a while. I know losing control is difficult – but your future is on the line here. Ban yourself from wherever you gamble both on-line and in the real world. Also consider support from GA or specialist counselling from Gamcare or your GP.
See you for day 1!
Again good advice from Vera. Nothing much I can add. If you can find someone who will just listen whilst you talk through your worries that would be wonderful. Or post here – we’ll listen!
I’ve recently retired and have been watching people working – earning money as I used to do. Except I took that money and put it in a metal container with spinning wheels on front that (mostly) someone else emptied. Or handed over to someone in a suit in the hope I would get more back – which rarely happened.
The losses I chase now are not the lost money, I let that go long ago. I chase the time I could have had with friends, seeing the world, making music etc.
When I was gambling I wasn’t only losing money, I was losing time for work, worry, searching for deals, setting up accounts. Life could have been so much simpler and more rewarding. It is now – in my 60s. Don’t leave it as long as me to really live.
Sorry I didn’t get much chance to talk in group tonight.
Rock bottom is a difficult one for me – because of course I have heard that many stories that feel they were more “rock bottom” than my own. I think I hit rock bottom when I kept failing to stop gambling again and again. Even when I was attending GA and working the steps – being in counselling. I had to control my own money as I was very on my own at the time – but I still felt really bad when I couldn’t resist the lure of the machine. It only really turned around for me when I began a new relationship with someone who didn’t know me as a gambler and I then didn’t want her to see me as one. When that relationship ended – I did flirt with the idea of gambling away all the bad feelings I felt but then I thought if I am hurting now – why on earth should I hurt myself more.
So remember the hurt and know that you do not need to keep adding to it by gambling. A new life Idi!
That was quite a story and I am impressed with the steps you are taking to ensure your “sobriety.” I decided early on to put as much effort into my recovery as I was putting into my gambling and that was a lot! I think I over did it at times (and that is another story) but it has paid off in the end and I have been several years gambling free on slots which were my downfall.
You will get lots and lots of advice over the next few weeks and you may find all this confusing and overwhelming. Try to chart your own path through this – it is YOUR recovery so take on what you think will work for you. Keep posting and talking to people about what is going on for you. It is when we keep things to ourselves that we are in danger. I wish you well.
Just for today – as they say! I’m not sure it helps to think in terms of months and years. Just get through the days and weeks. Yes you will need to do the work yourself and if you are getting mixed advice, you need to choose what makes the most sense to you. Maybe they are both right in different ways!
I’ve worked with various types of counselling over the years – some that seem to fit with me and some which seem truly bizarre – but at the end of the day if it works for someone then that is great – it doesn’t mean it would work for me.
Good to see you posting here and encouraging on other people’s threads. Keep strong.
There’s no point in being hard with yourself over this. You tried to get money to gamble with. It didn’t work – if it had, things may have been even worse.
Now is the time to regather and get into your recovery. Counselling? GA? One-to-one on here? I hope things are ok with you and hubby. Take care!
Did anyone say it would be easy? It wasn’t for me, but things did get better little by little. At the moment you are like a delicate plant that has had a brush with frost. You need time and nurturing in order to heal, eventually you will blossom. Take things easy, heal well.
I wasn’t expecting snow, but it is a blessing if it helped in preventing you from gambling. I arrive on the Emerald Isle on Wednesday – maybe it will be gone by then. Take good care of yourself!
Hello Jester and thank you for posting. I was around your age when I decided I had to do something about my gambling. I was in a similar situation with a well paid job and should have had a good life, yet I was in lodgings, with debts and living to the next pay cheque. No-one can tell you what to do – we can only advise, but my advice would be not to involve friends in this unless you come clean about your situation and even then … As a compulsive gambler, I know how difficult it is to stay stopped. I reckon it took about 5 years from making the decision to stop to actually being gambling free (and I still had a few slips after that.). I think you are too vulnerable to risk friendships by not paying back what you owe – and friends are so valuable to us, as we tend to gamble alone. Go to GA, get advice there. Lose access to money. Ban yourself from gambling premises and online, (use gamstop) . Keep yourself busy to avoid gambling thoughts – perhaps take extra work on to help clear the debts. Get some good unbiased financial advice. When you have stopped for a few months and have a clearer head, seek out some counselling to look at what has caused you to drink and gamble – otherwise there is the danger of using some other addiction to avoid looking at things. I wish you well.
Any change in behaviour or circumstance is bound to feel strange at first … it will pass and become the new norm. Part of being the new you! I found the biggest trigger when I changed my lifestyle was boredom – and feeling that at least gambling would give me something to think about. When I (inevitably) slipped it did – and how! But eventually I decided that I didn’t need that lesson and learnt to ride out the boredom.
Now I am letting the excitement of not knowing what the next day will bring keep me away from boredom. Next week I sail for Ireland. To start with I will be in a little cottage in Donegal – not even a shop for miles. Should be safe from temptation. I hope you are too!
You wrote: “I don’t deserve what I earn and I’m only safe when I’ve lost it all.”
That resonated with me as I am sure when my gambling was out of control that I really felt that I didn’t deserve money in my life. I was numb to what I was doing until I had to stop and then the guilt, remorse and self-loathing set in; and the following day I would go back and do it all again.
Practical steps to stop – banning yourself from places and sites where you gamble, not carrying money, avoiding triggers … all these need to be done. Looking at your life and what makes you feel (at least subconsciously) that you don’t deserve a richer life – richer not just in money terms, but in terms of comfort and enjoying the things that money can buy.
Counselling is probably the the thing that worked best for me. There are one-to-ones on here or your GP (in the UK) or via Gamcare, Mind or some other provider may help. I also found co-counselling a cheap and effective alternative. Self-help books, counselling sites on-line, talking to people in group will also help.
You do deserve what you earn and you need to believe that you deserve to hold onto it. I trust that you can do it. Go well.