Hi All,
Decided that after years of gambling to quit at the age of 22. I feel it has started to possess me and starting to affect my family life and work life. I am finding myself regularly depositting daily into website for slots for the last 2 months aswell as poker websites and football bets.
For the last 2 months, I am depositing, losing and not even batting and eye lid when i lose, then re-deposit.
I havent gone longer than a week since i turned 18 without a bet, and for the last 5 months I have been gambling daily, even during work hours. Decided to finally give up after realising I probably spend close to 75% of my wages losing. And even when i do win, i just up the stakes waiting for that 'big break'.
Any tips or getting a pen pal could prove useful for motivation.
Wish me luck
Mikey94
Hi Mikey and welcome to the forum :)).
If I were to offer any tip's it would probably be along the lines of putting as much as you can in the way of you and Gambling in order to keep yourself safe , especially early on as you begin this road to recovery.
You can exclude yourself from these Gambling sites or you could download and install some blocking softaware such as Netnanny or Betfilter , change your email address if you need to as these compamies will pester you with free offers once youv'e stopped . also look at the way you deposit funds and maybe report your card as lost and when the new one arrives then remove the security code without writing it down , so you can't deposit , I also think Barclays have a card now that can't be used for online transactions , it's basic but it's all you need as no funds = no gamble :)) .
These measures although important in respect that they offer you a bit of time to think instead of just logging on and chucking your money away are not foolproof and obviously if we want to gamble , then gamble we will :(( and that's where willpower has to step in and you have to think that you want to stop more than you want to place that next bet .
At 22 youve got your whole life in front of you mate and can put this down to a really expensive lesson , I don't know if youve told anyone about this , Parent's or Partner but it helps to be honest and have them on board , it wasn't a conversation I enjoyed or was looking forward to but it meant my dirty little secret had nowhere to hide and that I was accountable to someone other than just me .
As a Compulsive gambler I never liked to lose but in order for me to stay stopped I had to finally let go of all my losses and not go chasing anymore and admit for the first time in my life that gambling had beat me but that's all good as I haven't gambled in about 19 months :)).
Trust me as an old hand at this , when I say if you continue to gamble it will only get worse for you but if stop now and put it behind you , then life will be good again and in a very short period , sorry if I'm sounding like your Dad but my son's the same age as you and I'd hate to think of him cghucking everything away just as I did for many years .
You'll probably miss it at first but with time it gets far easier to deal with any urges you might get , so just take it one day at a time for now and keep yourself busy and keep posting on here or maybe start a diary on the other page :)).
Take care for now :))
Hi There,
Thank you very much for taking the time to post this. Currently on day 2 now and i could think about last night was a 'big win' and not having to go to work tomorrow. Its actually crazy how it can become someones every thought.
Thank you for your very kind words, and I hope I can kick this for good. Online is the devils work, and should not be messed with. I dont know anyone who plays online for 'fun'.
Take care,
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