Day 0

Hi Sil

Well done for coming on here and thank you for your share. I know how you feel. If you get a minute have a search for "my story" in the recovery diaries section and you will understand how I know how you feel. 

Firstly congratulations for admitting to yourself that you are a compulsive gambler. That's a huge step especially deciding that you want to do something about it. I am not going to preach to you or tell you what you need to do as this will be your journey. I'm also not going to give you some platitude that it's going to be easy because it's not. It sounds like you haven't told anyone yet apart from your addiction and that is to come. Connection is everything in recovery but I leave that to you to tell her. A support network is key because white knuckling it rarely works for anyone. 

I gambled for 44 years before hitting a life crash 100 days ago. I put the blocks in place, gamstop, gamban, moses and sense. I blocked my bank card from gambling transactions just to get some barriers in place. I then told everyone warts and all. It was a huge relief for me but devastating watching their pain. It was the start of my support network which is built on people and things I can turn to. I joined GA and started counselling for mental health and gambling addiction. 

Two of the most important things I did which worked for me is that I spent hours talking to the advisors on here on text chat (Click the button that says speak to someone). They are amazing. The other was coming on the chatrooms as many times as I could. The 8pm one is incredible for support. All compulsive gamblers looking to support each other. No judgement just support for each other.

Hopefully I will see you in one of the chatrooms and we can talk further. There is a life and it's a much better life so don't worry about the future. You need to take this one day at a time. Don't think about the future just concentrate on not gambling today.

Stuart