Hi
i've decided to make a post about my brothers gambling addiction, i hope ive come to the right place. So first off my brother has a big problem, im a 16 yr old that came here to find help for my mother and brother. 4 years ago he lived a normal life, had his 2 kids and wife. When he started to waste money on betting and casinos, his wife found out and problems occured, it ended with him getting thrown out of his house by his wife, by time passing eventually he would live in our house till this day. Hence my dad pays the bills , he has more money leftover and ever since divorce, the gambling became a bigger problem. He started borrowing money from other people etc. My other brother which tries to help him so much, told him to give his credit card to him and letting him take care of it, which he did and 2 months would pass without gambling. My supportive brother which tried to pay some of his bills from his own salary and mother went for a vacation for a month, this is where my addicted brother orders a new credit card and spent almost 8k dollars on gambling in 1 week!!, we dont know if its betting or casino as he never tells. My mother cries everyday and its hard dealing with. He always comes with lies, saying he will give all his infos, such as credit card and (NEMID) which is a code given to people in Denmark to access the bank on the internet and so on, he never does and whenever its salary day he will just empty his salary which he needs to pay some people he borrowed money from but doesnt, which ends on gambling, its ridiculous. He lies to my mom saying he ordered a new credit card and that he'll stop everytime.. He wont show his card history. My mom thought about not letting him home but then he would go to my sisters house. He doesnt tell who his friends are. Today is payday and i believe same thing will happen sadly. Its just hard to trust him, telling every time he will stop. He used to be out all the time to 4-5 am, he stopped doing that but gambling is still there. I cant believe he works full time just to throw it away on gambling, he could pay all the people he borrowed from within 3 months but no...
I hope you guys can provide help, thanks for reading!
Hi Anonym,
First off, I've moved your post into the Family and Friends section where it's more likely to be seen by people that are in similar situations. I'm sorry you've had to go through all this, and watch your brother seem to be so self-destructive. It sounds like you care about him, and that must be stressful seeing him do this. Unfortunately there isn't a whole lot anyone can do for him until he decides that gambling isn't working out very well for him. Usually people realize this due to the consequences they're experiencing from their gambling. At this point, it sounds like your parents are supporting him, but he's also not having many consequences for his continued gambling, or being held accountable for that. If that's the case, then he might not have much motivation to change his behaviour. If he ever does decide that he actually wants to stop gambling, there are steps he could take to do that, such as putting in self exclusions in the betting shops or casinos, downloading blocking software for online gambling, or going to Gamblers Anonymous meetings or getting individual counselling. We could talk to him about all of these options if he ever wanted to get in touch with us.
We're also here for you and anyone else in your family if you wanted to have a chat and get some support, or learn a bit more about gambling addiction. You can use the Helpline or the Netline links that you'll see at the top of the page, and we'd be happy to help if we can, or tell you about agencies in your area that might be able to give counselling.
Hope this helps, and thanks for your post.
Travis
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