Day 1 again

Hi BFG, welcome to the Forum and thank you for sharing you story,

You did exactly the right thing by telling your wife straight away - that is a very rare act; the vast majority of people here let the moment get to them, let their relapse snowball and then finally confess when it is far too late. Well done, you deserve a lot of credit for that, even though the last thing you probably feel like now is patting yourself on the back.

Gambling is an easy fix, a quick solution to "numb out" the trials and tribulations of life. The problem is that, when the lights go down and the money runs out, the reality of the situation hits us like a freight train, and then we have a whole new level of problems to deal with.

I have stopped for five years after gambling for over twenty; I almost had to "re-learn" how to deal with depressing periods in my life and associated problems; most of it is accepting that you are just like everyone else and you need to find an outlet to cope with it just like they do - it depends what works best for you; for me, it is keeping my mind occupied primarily, or engaging in physical exercise - I also engage in charity work which does a lot to ease a pummelled soul.

You have a wonderful level of honesty with your wife - the first thing you must do is take that up a notch; you should have told your wife when you felt the urge to play again, especially when you were very close to doing so - I imagine this would have been very hard, but it would certainly have been better than what you are experiencing now; if you read the "Family and Friends" section, it is always the broken trust and deceit which is harder for partners with far, far, far more than the money itself - they would always rather know the very worst of what you are doing and feeling rather than nothing at all. I would tell her straight away that you will phone her, each and every time you feel tempted. I would also offer to hand over full and final control of your finances if it helps her to look forward.

Bfg, there are a lot of positive points in my friend and you have done very well to post here and be honest with her. You can build on this - the best way of doing so is by analyzing yourself very deeply; how much of a problem is this? How much help do you need? Would you consider going to GA? What drives you, is it just depressive episodes?

I wish you well my friend. I hope that your wife can come to terms with this and that you can both move forward as best you can.

JamesP

Hello Bfg,

Welcome to our Forum and thanks for sharing your story. It sounds like you are going through a difficult time and you use gambling as an escape. First of all, well done for opening up to your wife, it must have taken a lot of courage to do that. You mentioned that you stopped for a while so this can be seen as relapse that you can learn from. However, it would be helpful that you seek professional support when you try to stop gambling as you are fighting with an addiction. We offer one-to-one counselling that could be available to you and your wife. If you would like to arrange an appointment you can contact us by either calling the Helpline on our freephone 0808 8020 133 or using the Netline. We're open from 8am until midnight, 7 days a week. You can also call us if you just want to have a chat and share what you are going through.

In the meantime, do have a look at other members’ posts in this Forum and the Recovery Diaries. You may find helpful tips and ideas there.

Wishing you all the best,

Ana