Its not about the Money

What you are referring too is largely a coping mechanism to enable the early stages of recovery

In these stages the gambler usually needs some type of hope that its not the end of the world in order to gain the motivation to stop in the first place 

The debt and losses usually tend to become more of a problem when a partner is involved or later down the line when they actually have to be repaid 

I rarely if ever gamble anymore and have been like that for the last 3 years but what struck me as the worst aspect of the addiction was the time lost 

I lost at about 40% of my 20's too compulsive and pointless gambling

3-4 years of the best time of my life gone to casinos, bookies , cashpoints and screens 

Once I recognised that I knocked it on the head quickly 

I understand this as i am 2+ years bet free so in terms of my life everything is a 100x better from being debt to debt free i see the reward i have moved on from past trauma and everything else my issue is due to health conditions i am still suffering from the concequences now that i have come out the other side i know life can only get better i am still restricted and trying to improve my life in other ways money matters now as alot of friends and family are doing extremely well this is something i am going to have to live with and as far as gambling is concernment my whole perspective has changed i now understand i can only make my life worse after my last relapse it was the first time i did exactly what was asked blocks and seeking support which i have been coming on regularly so i am fully aware i can abstain from it which i will continue on doing what i am struggling with my past actions and i do know in a few years i can move forward my family bringing up my past dont actually help either 

Hi,

For me it was 100% about the money. I had been in control of my gambling, sometimes going months without a bet and when I did bet it was small and affordable. 

Last year I went through a breakup and now have much more costs due to having to pay 100% of the mortgage and bills. 

I had a bet and won a small amount and it made the month a little easier so I tried again and lost. 

From here I spiraled racking up loses and debts. I was taking money transfers from credit cards and blowing through it double quick. 

I genuinely thought I could win what I needed every month to clear my minimum payment on my credit cards, I came up with strategies which generally involved increasingly large bets, classic chasing. 

Now I've realised how stupid I've been. I know that if I had remained feeling comfortable with my money like I was prior to the breakup, I wouldn't have ended up here. Tens of thousands in debt. 

For me at least, it was always about the money. 

I don't think gambling addiction itself is about the money. To put it another way, you don't go to a football match for the end result. You go for the excitement of the anticipation of the end result. If you already knew the result it wouldn't be exciting. With gambling, if you knew you were going to win every single time, you would keep doing it to make money but you wouldn't be addicted because there'd be no thrill/dopamine hits. There's a Twilight Zone episode which has this exact story. The gambler eventually loses all interest in gambling because he knows he can never lose.

Also, literally every gambling addict I've read about has said the same thing, that at some point they had broken even or gone into profit, but they kept playing. I did the same. When I started gambling I didn't need the money, in fact I had more savings than I knew what to do with. Gambling was something I did to relieve boredom (or more precisely, to stop me doing the things I should have been doing, I don't get bored) and loneliness. When I lost half my savings it became about winning the money back, but when I did win it all back I kept gambling because I was the same person I was when I started gambling, but even more addicted because of the big win. I ended up wiping out all of my savings, 8 months of paychecks, and got into debt. It wouldn't have mattered if I'd won all my money back again, or won a million, the urge to gamble would have persisted.

@5r3tv6dp1q i agree the addiction isnt about the money my whole perspective of the indusry has changed i use to envious about professional gambliers the small minority who do profit as i do personally know few off these people which was one of the reasons which made it harder to recognise my addiction for a long time i believed it was down to my luck and i tried making changes i didnt accept has an addiction now my whole perception has changed i dont respect these type of people i believe it ethically wrong to profit over other people miseries i see these people just like drug dealers is that what they are essentially doing it actually give me more of a reason not to fall back into the addiction i believe this mindset is one of the reasons kept me bet free i have distant myself from such people which is something i never thought of it before due to how addictive this illness i know it can catch me out it only need me to make 1 mistake so i have to be perfect each day