Day one

Hi @jazzy25

Hope you can stay strong! 

Opening up to key family members/partner is very important and also having barriers in place is important. Have you spoke to family and Do you have any barriers in place?

jee

Dear Jazzy,

Welcome to the Forum and well done on taking the step to come on here to share your story. It is positive to hear how determined you are to change things around. I hope this will be a helpful place to start your journey of recovery. As mentioned by Jee95 it can be very helpful to have some barriers is place like self exclusion and blocking software( if you gamble online) and support network you can reach out to.

Please feel welcome to give us a call on our helpline 0808 820 133 or Livechat. Our friendly advisors can talk you through what kind of support is available to help you with stopping gambling, we can even get you referred for some 1:1 support.

Best wishes,

Vanessa

Forum Admin

Hi, thanks for the support guys, yes I’m registered with Gamstop, and have gamban in place . Feeling a bit overwhelmed today, usually by this time I’m in an online casino, but have been trying to keep myself busy, so baby steps, oh and this is day 2…. 

Hi Jazz

It's great you're here and sounds like you have all the right tools in place. 

I can relate to the overwhelming feeling, it happens in the first few days - infact, I felt really strange for about 10 days - then it eased just a tiny bit. 

I would recommend the CBT course GamCare offer, it's 8 weeks with a weekly call from a practitioner and it's free! Puts things into perspective. My last session was last week.

Keep talking and keep us updated! 

It’s now day 4… still not gambling the blocking software has really helped. The big test will be next week when I’ll have money in my account…  the overwhelming feeling is still there, been walking a lot to keep my mind off things, have marked all gambling emails as spam, and deleted them right away, I feel this time I will beat it, I’ve made it to a week before but always slipped, this time I’m determined to keep going. 

I had a blip, I’m so ashamed of myself, I had unexpected money in my account so I gambled it all away…I used an old device that didn’t have gamban installed…. I was doing so well too, the device is now protected, I’m so mad at myself, it wasn’t a lot of money but it’s the fact that I frittered it away! 

Jazzy as you described it..it's a blip !!

Make sure you have gamstop if you don't already that will self exclude you from sites and see if you can get a block on your banking

It's normal to feel mad at yourself, upset etc. However it's important you just get back and put the books back in which I see you have now blocked that device 

Lou xx

Hey jazz im a new member here also, just wondering how you are getting on 

Hey Lauzy, apart from that one blip, I’ve made it past a week, and feeling confident that this time I can go further, thanks Lou for the support, u guys are what’s helping me through, Lauzy, u got this xx

Thanks so much jazzy, im trying to keep my mind focused and if i get the urge i find something else to do. The chatrooms are definitely working as we can all share our days and feelings 

It’s been a while since I posted… and things got bad again, I slipped back into online casinos and have wasted a lot of money, I am so ashamed of myself. I have opened up to my partner for the first time, and I’m blown away by his support! He’s helping me through this, and I wish I’d opened up sooner,  it’s now been 2 weeks since my last gamble, but the urge is still there. Im keeping myself busy with other things x. How are all you guys getting on? 
Love Jazzy x