Good morning all,
After five years of what I'd call a severe addiction, yesterday was the final nail in the coffin and I will fight this and come out of the other side before it's too late. I feel a bit stupid for typing this, but I suppose one step at a time and this is the first big step to being debt free.
It all started with just football bets, £5/£10/£20 and the occasional trip to the casino. I had plenty spare money and didn't see it as a problem. Lose £200 one week who cares I've still got money, win another week and it's an extra few pints with my mates - winner winner, yeah!? NO. I was foolish and didn't see this as the beginning of a big mistake. One night when I was 18/19 I gambled the maximum I could withdraw before midnight, then the maximum after midnight in the casino. Lost it all, then went home and decided I'd bet the remaining bank balance online on roulette. Lost it all. This was on payday, just over £1,000 gone in the space of a few hours. The following day I got a £800 overdraft. It took me over two years to get rid of that overdraft.
Next I carried on the expensive social life, football trips abroad, lads holidays etc and got myself a £1,000 loan to cover some costs. Gambling continued ranging from £20 to £200-300 a week. Thought it was fine but already I had a loan and an overdraft to fund this. I then learned to drive, so re-loaned my loan to pay for this with "an extra grand to have fun". Obviously this 'grand' was spent on nothing but alcohol or gambling.
It was fairly constant like that from the age of 19-21. My debt didn't increase or decrease, it stayed fairly level. Then I got a credit card. This is the main issues and in the past two years I now have two credit cards, both with a limit of £3,300 and both are pretty much at their limit. It's not all gambling, i have flights booked, hotels etc and the odd meal, bits and pieces. But the majority is gambling - its spiralled out of control. This is not the end of it, though. In between losing I decided I would ask for another small loan (£1,000) to cover some losses in my bank and see me through a few months.
I have two loans and two credit cards to pay for each month. Not all gambling, but the majority is. I always thought if I keep trying, one day I will win big and stop.
Well the time has come, admit I won't ever win and stop before my entire life is ruined. I have a decent job, decent wage and I can pay my minimum payments and loan payments, if this continues I will lose my job, car, or anything else I have of value. I hope this place helps me, it cant really do any harm!
For extra information - I have self excluded myself from my accounts and all my gambling was done online. It ended up being on anything from football, tennis, basketball, even badminton in play. I never go into bookies and don't intend on it.
Any advice, questions or generic comments fire away.
Wow you sound like my double. I always thought i could win big(i did twice) but it never ever stopped. In fact it made it far worse...stakes were crazy high and i felt like i was on untouchable. But the house edge ensures you cannot win the long term!
Time to leave this poor life behind
Get K9 software on your machine and get someonme else to be the admin account so you don't know the password and get tempted to gamble by getting aroud the K9 controls
Cut up the credit cards and order a new debit card. Have someone remove the 3 digit security code from the back (it scratches off with force) and you have a debit card you can't register online. Most importantly, tell someone, we get trapped by secrecy and shame and it can fuel it
Exactly same as me I'm 25 years old bet mainly online on football everything, losing losing losing. Thought my big win is coming then I will stop and ignore I'm not a compulsive gambler. However, big win never came was getting deeper and deeper into debt ordered a credit card to keep the month going with more bets. Opened to my Mrs again for 2 nd time and currently one week gamble free been very hard. Also anyone who has K9 on iPhone it's so slow that it crashes my iPhone had to delete it. Currently going without any restrictions online. Ordered brand new cards etc so don't know any details
Thanks for all the replies.
My missus is aware of everything, and she is sticking with me and has faith I can prove I can beat this addiction.
One credit card expires next month, so if they don't send me a new one I will not request it - and if they do I plan on cutting it up so I can't spend and I will no longer know the details. This way I can plan on reducing the remaining balance. The other credit card I will give it to the missus and scratch off the last three digits so I can't even attempt to use it.
Hi watson93
Welcome to the forum.
You have reminded me of a key point how gambling starts becoming a problem. We cushion or mitigate the loss by thinking oh Ive got some more money or I can handle it. I realise that its delusional from the start. We push aside the risk and the reality while creating a pretence that its a comfort zone.
I could never really afford to lose money in that way. My money has always been hard earned
Speaking to gamblers its almost bravado that we handle the losses without moaning or whinging about it. I should have been crying 🙂 but my mind was clearly wanting stronger fixes and doing anything to get them.
I lost count of all the fruit machine sessions in pubs where I started thinking its only money and Ive got more. I would pretend that at least I had a good night out. The truth is that I did not have a good night. The women and the good conversation were elsewhere while I stood zombified on a machine. Most often by the time the clubs started opening I was running out of money or just a bit scared of what I had wasted so I went home.
I started pretending that I was in control.....oh it was slightly less that time or it could have been worse. Oh it was only say £50 when it could have been £100+.....I really need things in my home that cost less than this!!
I was never in control and that it the hardest thing to face. The only time I ever stopped was more a fluke...servicetill out of action or something else distracted me( like bumping into an aquaintance who broke the chain for a while)
Then it would develop into its only money and I can borrow that again on credit cards
Then it developed into oh no but I can get money from the bank of mum and dad...to my eternal shame
It certainly was a major factor if not the main reason for two bankruptcies in my lifetime. My sessions increased to around £500 a time...this is money I just dont have to throw away. Indeed it was key money for living expenses...You know that little thing we have to do like eat and keep warm
It starts with the lower amounts then we get hooked for stronger and stronger fixes. Im still working through if Im genetically a compulsive gambler and how escape gambling develops from stress and depression
So I would say to everyone you must stop now and start facing the reality. Its a learning process of living normally again .The addiction is a form of mind control and its scary to think just how out of control of my own actions I was.
There is no shame in reaching out for help. Take action today and self exclude. Take the fight on then your mind has room to heal and seek counselling.
Best wishes from everyone on the forum
Im 25 and Your’re story is virtually a carbon copy of mine , scarily even the timescales fit
I think it was roughly at 22/23 I realised I was in a very deep hole ( as you currently are ) I think I looked at my accounts one day and realised I was in over 10 grands worth of debt at that age its pretty daunting and it slowly started to sink in that I couldn’t afford the monthly repayments which were roughly £500 pm and that was without any other bills
The majority of that 10 grand was casino gambling, turning up to the casino 2/3/4 times a week withdrawing £200 a time and praying everything would turn out ok
( it never did ) and now I was in a situation where I was having to rob peter to pay Paul , nagging family members to borrow hundreds of pounds to pay credit cards then doing balance transfers to try and free up some cash for the remainder of the month
In February 2015 I had enough saw an advertisement on facebook saying could write up to 70% of my debt off with an IVA filled the forms out and never really looked back
The company reduced my debt to just under 5K repaying £80 a month over 5 years , obviously during this period I would have no access to credit / car finance nothing
It hasn’t been easy and ive had to budget very carefully to be able to manage my money , and ive been very lucky I haven’t had any serious financial emergency’s
but I knocked the casino gambling on the head and life is considerably better
I still do my weekly £20 football accumulators but that is more of a hobby than anything and I do win quite often so don’t mind
I have another 3 years left on the IVA and once that’s paid im hoping to put the whole sorry episode behind me
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