Good day everyone!
I do not know where to begin to be honest… and I never could have imagined that I will end up here nor in such ruins in my life. I have brought absolute mayhem to myself, my family and to people around me. My only wish now is to overcome my addiction and to resolve the problems I brought onto my family & close ones.
To start off, my name is Nick, I am 25 years old and I am a compulsive gambler.
When and where did I start?
I have been involved in competitive sport since a very young age, playing tennis and football on the academy level. I was also member in a chess club and attended weekly competitions. At the age of 13 my family and I moved to the U.K., where I attended a boarding school, later on moving to college in London. Throughout this time, I kept being involved in sport and competitive activities. However, I believe my future addiction to gambling was born at the age of 15, when I was first introduced to playing poker for money.
It started off playing with my dad and his friends, then my friends, then people I met for the first time and on the day, I turned 18, after my celebration, I went and signed up as a member at one of London’s poker clubs.
As I am sure with most of you here it started off lightly. I played, I won a little, I played, I lost a little. After a few months, I was in profit over a few thousand pounds. However, poker was too time consuming for me and on one night my friend introduced me to the roulette. On that night, I lost £2,000 and went home angry with myself. The next morning, I woke up with only one thought in my mind – I have to win it back! This is where my problem gambling started…
What happened next?
That same day I stormed into the same casino at 11am and went back to the same roulette table. I came out of the casino in 45 minutes with £3,000 in my pocket. Happy to the moon. And, most importantly, with one thought: “I got a hang on this, I can make money out of this, I have the strategy, it works”.
Where I ended up 7 years later?
Today is 18th of June 2020 and I am now close to nearly 8 years of compulsive gambling. I had a breakdown 2 years ago, when I lost over £200,000 in a period of one month. I confessed to my family, I promised everyone that I won’t touch the casinos, betting or any other form of gambling ever again. And they helped me. I cleared nearly all my debts and started my own company. I went without gambling for a good few months. However, I did not get treatment nor I saw a psychologist, as everyone counted it as me being young and stupid.
And after a certain period of time, it took one invite to a poker game, a few thousand pounds saved on my account and I was back to gambling in an instance.
In the last year, my addiction escalated to a humongous problem. I borrowed money from anyone I could, I played nearly all forms of gambling there is. Roulette, slots, sport betting, you name it. I could be putting bets of over £1,000 on an accumulator, then going home and gambling away thousands of pounds on the roulette and finishing with £1 per spin on the slots, hoping I can hit the jackpot and win my money back. This is the most important part of my (and I am sure many of you here) addiction. “I have to win it back. I have a chance. How else am I going to pay off the debts?”
Now my life is in complete ruins. I have lost all the money I could get my hands on. My company has suffered as I was constantly stealing money to feed my gambling addiction. I accumulated debts to over six figure sum to family, friends, colleagues and I am currently completely broken. I have confessed to my loved one and she agreed to help. Now my real recovery starts.
I called The National Problem Gambling Clinic today for me to find a psychologist and start therapy. Hopefully, I can start as soon as possible. However, I know I have to start with myself. Step by step. Day by day. I am passing all my finances to my loved one, I am confessing to my family and setting up a payment plan of my debts and starting to beat my addiction. Today!
Thank you for reading this.
I know I am not alone.
…to be continued
I’m sorry to hear this story, it’s very sad but believe it or not I do see some positive vibes here too. Firstly you are acknowledging your stupidity which sounds harsh but that is surely the first stage of a genuine recovery.
Secondly, please do not underestimate how lucky you are that your loved one is sticking with you on your journey of recovery. If he/she has faith in you then you should have faith in yourself.
Another important factor here is you recognise the particular issue with your gambling which is chasing losses. This is the quickest gambling route to destitution in my opinion. It’s a lack of will power, a lack of understanding in the gambling process you are involved in. I lost several thousands of pounds this week purely through chasing what was a relatively low value loss. When we get psychologically locked into the chase mode we only think about how great it will feel when we recover the loss...we never think about the repercussions of our chasing bet losing as well.
Treat every day as a small step forwards. If you go to bed at the end of that day and you haven’t gambled, treat yourself to a feeling of positiveness, sleep well, but when you wake up remember you’ll need will power to make sure you get through that day and make it another positive step to your recovery. Final point I would make and am currently dealing with... the cash you’ve lost is gone, you can’t get it back, so let’s just make efforts not to give any of our new hard earned cash to strangers that really don’t need it. Good luck to you my friend.
Hello,
Thanks for sharing your story, you have been very honest (which is good). You are reaching out to folk who sound very supportive and seeking professional help so there's not a lot of advice I can give you other than to look forwards not back.
I wish you the best of luck on your journey.
Kind Regards
Si
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