New member looking for help and understanding

Hello and welcome....
I would advise you to ring the helpline for advice and support on how best to help your daughter...yourself ....and you're family....sadley there's hundreds of stories like yours. ...so please don't feel alone.....but your daughter needs help and support in fighting this addiction....as do you and yours ....
Have a read of the diarys on here...you'll pick up some suggestions...but I recommend the helpine for a one to one chat love...
Like you ...I'm a mum....and would and have done anything for my children...but I'm the addict in my story...although I haven't played on online slots for over 15 mnths....so probs not the best to give advice....but just wanted you to know someone's listening...take care....I'm sure some mums of addicts will be along soon

Hi,

I am the wife to a CG. The first thing you must not do is to support her by paying off any of her debts. So many parents only enable their children's gambling by doing so. She needs to face the responsibility of what she has done. The support you can give her is to encourage her to seek her owb support through the helpline, therapy, GA. But bear in mind that you cannot force her, she needs to do it for herself. Yourself and/or her partner also need to take control of her finances she the gambling can stop and also protect the family business from her too. Basically limit all temptation. Also keep the lines of communication between everyone open and offer support to her partner. It is likely the wedding will have to be postponed for both financial and emotional reasons. It is a shock. Something i have found useful is repeating the serenity prayer and also the 3 Cs: I didn't CAUSE it. I can't CONTROL it. I can't CURE it. I have this written on my fridge so I see it often!

Hi

Sorry to see this. It's a massive shock when we find out what's been going on behind our backs. There's a lot to take in but the immediate priority for you and everyone around must be to protect your own financial position alongside someone she trusts taking control of her finances. Once that's done there's time to consider next moves which will range from her self excluding all her accounts and blocking or ditching every device she uses to gamble to her seeking debt advice from agencies such as Payplan or Stepchange, counselling (offered free via Gamcare) and GA among others. Let her do the research and contacting. It's advisable to let the addict make the connection between action and consequence.

She has to want to stop and sadly there's nothing anyone can do or say to make that happen until she wants it. Read up on the addiction, don't trust a word she says without seeing hard proof for yourself and put yourself and the rest of the family first. It's very easy to get consumed with it all but you'll need to take care of you.

Welcome to the forum akd1961,

You have taken a positive step by accessing the support of the forum and the forum users. We recognise the your post might suit the Family and Friends section so we have also moved it to this forum.

You can also use the helpline

• Freephone: 0808 8020 133

and netline if you would like to access further support in referrals to counselling support and information about support groups.

Continue to access the support of the services available.

Kind Regards

Forum Admin

Hi akd

I have been in the same situation as you and feel for you and have also witness what your daughter is facing now. You have been given good advice above and Gamcare is a good place for you to start the ball rolling with helping her. However the one thing that is always the problem with gambling addiction, as with any addiction really, is the secrecy. She has obviously told you but is it just you and her harbouring the secret now. If it is I would say, from personal experience, that if she is relying on you to keep this secret and you start helping her financially it will not benefit her in the long run and it will put enormous stress on you. Sometimes a little tough love is needed and if it is possible share this with someone close to you and try hard to make her talk to her partner about it. Once it is all out in the open it is so much harder for her to gamble and it will make it easier for plans to be made for her finances etc. If she is getting married in September it would be better for her to go into that with a clean slate rather than this big secret. At the moment she is so rock bottom with it all that she will not be seeing things clearly and she is panicking that there is no way out financially and her self esteem will be really low. But there is definitely help to be had if she can clear her head a little and let you help her. There are ways she can manage her debt, there are ways she can self-exclude from sites, etc, there is counselling. It would help if you could moniter her finances and control her spending. There is lots that can be done and we have tried most of them and things are looking brighter for us now. It is a terrible shock for you and please try not to cope with this on your own. I tried that for quite a while and it was a nightmare. There was so much relief for all of us when it all came out in the open. I wish you luck and hope you continue with Gamcare where you will get good advice and kind support.