25 years of gambling ends now

I've hated myself for a while also. I rent a place too and it has made me feel unsafe in terms of affordability. Like yourself, I isolate. There was a time when I was on a break at work and I went into a casino. A half hour work break - I walk into a casino - walk out £400 poorer, with nothing but shame to show for it, plus the worry of "how am I gonna meet my payments for the month?". People see me and think I live a normal life. I have an okay job, my appearance is good (by that I mean I still shower, dress nice and go about my day as normal; I'm not saying I look like Brad Pitt lol). Sending a massive amount respect to you for opening up. Feel free to let me know if you'd like to speak about anything directly. All the best 🙂

Hi Kandi

Thank you for sharing. That must have been soul searching and I don't know whether your self discovery is recent or whether it been in your mind for a long time. I do resonate with the escapism from stress being promised by gambling and although it adds to the stress and offers no solution, we get dragged back time and time again. We are all sane intelligent people who know the house wins through simple mathematics and yet we still go there. I spent years with my addiction telling me that I needed it to function, to make me a better business man, because it was me and what I do. 

Human brains don't fully develop until we are 25 so yours was still growing when you started gambling. I can hear the pain in your words and back story. There is some baggage to work through on your road to recovery. I wasn't a binge gambler but its amazing that addiction is addiction. It doesn't matter how they manifests, which country you are in, the type of length of addiction, it's all one and the same

I remember listening in the car to a gambling addiction recovery story. It then led onto an amazing interview with a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. As I was driving I was unable to change it, but as I listened I could hear my story in her words. Addiction is addiction

Have you ever done the 12 steps and read Bill Ws story from the AA big book ? If you haven't you get view pdfs online free of charge and it's page 16 onwards. When I read it, it's mind blowing. He wrote that around 100 years ago. It's about alcohol but is so relevant today and for any addiction. He described his story which mirrored my own gambling history. Worth a read

I mentioned before that one of the biggest things for me in recovery has been discovering connection. It didn't come to me straight away and the first few weeks were a nightmare. I walked carrying shame for the last, head down and hated myself. I had some very dark moments of feeling worthless and when asked I said I'm ok. I was still lying or trying to wear a mask. I don't know what happened but one day when out for a walk I started looking around and stopped thinking about me me me. I started to connect with my environment. The next day I walked to get a coffee. This time I enjoyed the walk and went into the cafe that I had been to 100s of times before but this time it felt different. Now those 100 times before I said the same thing whilst looking at my phone. Decaf medium latte take away please, pay and then say thank you when it was given to me. 

This time my phone was in my pocket and had been since I left the house. I repeated my same creature of habit saying but then said would you mind if I changed that to a flat white. When the kind lady ordered it on the till for me to pay I asked her how her day was going. Her eyes lit up and we entered into a short conversation where we both connected. There was no drivel to the conversation. I walked out, not elated but just a little uplifted and I would hope she did to. 

My addiction thrived in isolation. I had my alter ego masked persona as the professional running the business who everyone wanted to talk to and the broken person inside who gambled. I feel I am a work in progress but each day I like myself more, just a little bit and I try to be a better person than yesterday. I can do empathise of the baggage we carry and it's tough to live, just for today but over the last few months I've learned that living in the past takes me back there. Worrying about the future is futile. What I do today counts.

Hi Kandi

One other thing I forgot to ask. On this site there are some amazing chatrooms. They are text only so no need to worry about camera. They are full of support and the moderators are amazing. I don't know whether timings work with your life and the time difference but today they are at 1pm, 6pm, 7pm and 8pm UK time 

Stuart 

@9k6ugj8shx

Hi Jay, it's nice to meet you. Crazy the things we gamblers do, eh? It's like we just have to get the fix when urges are so strong. I usually don't like to go to a casino with less that 1,000 dollars. Otherwise it just goes so fast. That's why I am a binge gambler. About once a month on average, in worse spirals once a week, which is why I am 9k in debt because I have borrowed on credit cards to finance the crazy spike in casino trips these last few months.

Jay can I ask, have you blocked access to cash? This is what I am doing and I think it will be the biggest help combined with reaching out for support here.

I haven't actually blocked access,  I have created a system that will not allow me to have access to any cash other than small amounts like 50 bucks or so. The rest goes to bills and necessities. Cut up all credit cards except for Discover, which is the only credit card that let me reduce my cash advance limit to zero. This way I can pay for everyday expenses without cash, which will all know we need some money to survive day to day. Also Discover card is not accepted at 99 percent of online casinos so its a really great card for gambling addicts.

I totally feel your pain about rent. It us a concern, especially without a partner, friend, roommate or other family member you can possibly live with later in life. Rent is manageable now because I have a job.

I worry that once I can't work and with heavy inflation there us no way I can pay that snd all other expenses on the government social security alone. So I need to get it together now. Actually 20 years ago but there is no going back. I can o ly move forward abd trust that every choice I make from this day forward can improve my future outcome.

I hope the same for you, Jay. We can do this. Making it as close to impossible to act on urges though is probably a great first step.

Kandi 

Hi Kandi and Jay

I don't think I will ever understand what took over my brain where all consequences flew out of the window. I can remember so many times that I either had pretty much the right amount of money to get my family through the month or slightly over and still gambled. That feeling afterwards of dread that the bills wouldn't be paid always subsided soon after and back to it. Same result over and over, same feeling and yet I didn't change.

That's so true Jay about the face we both put on. At work I was an MD, sharp peaky blinder suits, brash and wearing my ego. At home, desperate to gamble. One of the million and one reasons to give up but is vivid because it was near the end, was falling asleep playing an online casino. When I woke up I was still pressing the spin button. Surely that's not normal ?

So far in my recovery, I don't wear a face and I love it. I don't have to mask the person, my feelings, my worries at all. That's so liberating 

There are tough days but im looking forward to the modern meeting tonight, GA tomorrow and reading the posts on here which keep me present and I know who I want to be , just myself 

@lp5vut869c 

Absolutely true. It's like there are 2 of us. I always describe as my gambling brain and my logical brain. My gambling brain has taken over for so long and beats my logical brain, who knows way better and that every time I gamble I lose money, time snd self-respect, everytime I have access to cash. No expendable money because there is never any of that. Every extra dollar after bills needs to go to debt, but not when gambling brain takes over and sees some money in my account. It's honestly sick.

That's why no access to cashbis the new plan. Not for as long as it takes to quiet gambling brain, and make her see better ways to cope with life's stress.

I will check out the chat room as soon as able to join around my work schedule. Thanks Stuart for letting me know. 

Stuart I sent you a DM on Evive. Not sure I did it right but I sent it.

Take care guys and hope you are having a great, gamble-free day.

Yes I got it 

@n3elrf0o1u I know eh?! It's nice knowing there's a community where we can come together though. I usually use online slots and live games shows. Or the ones where you use the slots to qualify for the live game shows with larger prizes.

I used a service in the UK called gamstop and also blocked gambling transactions within my banking app, but unfortunately many online casinos easily override these restrictions by offering the ability to pay via instant bank transfer using third party services like Trustly and PaySafe (unsure if these are a thing in the US), PayPal, or simply have the deposits added to your next mobile phone bill.

As for the casinos - I stay in Scotland in a relatively small town of just under 80,000 people, so there's no 'mega' casino in our area. There are mainly small betting shops with a few slot machines inside. However, our town centre has a fairly popular casino that is purely slot machines, poker, roulette etc. This is where I went during my lunch break. I knew I wouldn't be able to pay via card since the transaction would be a debit/ApplePay transaction, so I withdrew as much cash as I could before entering. 

Unfortunately blocking cash isn't an option for me as some monthly payments I make need to be made in cash, and I also require the ability to withdraw cash from my account for my job.

I just fail to understand in my head how I can't quite. There's been times where I've won enough to start fresh. Enough to clear my debts and have a couple of grand in savings, saying to myself "Right, that's enough, you've done it, you've cleared debts, you've now got some actual money, quit while you're ahead", yet within 24 hours I'm back to square one.

Anyway, here I am, finally growing some balls and trying to change things!

Wishing you all the best!

Hi Jay

Have you installed gamban on your devices ? That will block foreign websites as well if you haven't already got it. You can self exclude bookies with Moses and there is one for arcades but you probably know that 

@9k6ugj8shx 

Jay I hear you with how hard it is on a practical level to remove access. It has taken me many years of trial and error to figure out a system that works for me. I have tried many things over the years but always find a loophole. This time I have had it and spend the last couple if months slowly putting more and more blocks in place.

I use Gamban. So, as an extra measure, I took a few days and literally banned from every single casino group online for life.

It was a bit of work but I was determined and it felt satisfying to do it.

Your country is a bit different but as Stuart mentioned below there are ways to ban from physical casinos as well. I have done this before, buy do need to ban from the casino about a 30 minute ride from me.

I haven't done that yet, because I think the no access to cash will resolve that issue. Plus realistically, I could just take out cash and buy tons of lottery tickets so for that piece, it is no cash access as the barrier. 

Online was the real demon. I mean as long as I have a bank card or credit card with money on it I could gamble so easily. 

Jay I hope you find what works for you. The truth is, I think especially in early recovery,  most of us need huge barriers to cash and/or credit cards as well as bans from casinos - online and physical.  Without a partner or family member to manage my money, these tricks are helping me a ton.

No access = No gambling. 

Have a great gamble-free day!