determined to quit

Hi everyone,

After struggling to quit gambling for so long i decided to come on to the gamcare website and i have found that reading other peoples stories have helped me gain perspective. I often feel that because of the extent of my stupidity i must be the only person in the world that could be so stupid to make the decisions i have made, however it is clear that this is an addiction and that all of the losses i have had didnt involve much of any forethought but were made with impulse and compulsion.

i first started gambling when i was 16 with the odd £1 football accumulator on a weekend. It continued like that until i was 19 which is when i was introduced to these roulette machines. I remember putting in £10 and losing it and thinking how stupid i was to waste money on a virtual game that would be clearly rigged in the bookies favour. The logical side to me knew they were bad news. However, as time passed and i kept making my weekend football bets,I witnessed what looked like rapid large wins on these machines and so my interest grew. It got to a point whereby i would only ever bet with loose change in these machines and most of the time i would lose it. One day, which i will never forget, i went into a bookies with £4 and somehow made £1500 from the machines. My life changed on that day, and this was one of the worst things that could have happened to me. I became obsessed with the machines and the roulette in general. Even after losing most of it back I was still determined that I could make money from it. I would continue playing and some days lose £500 some days win £500 (mostly lose) etc.. Then in 2010 I had just finished my first year of university and i found my self having a lot of time on my hands. I began to bet on the roulette everyday and when bookies closed i would play online. Somehow over the course of 3 months I managed to make £15000 profit. I thought i mastered it, I thought i had a system that only i knew. Days when i would start off with a loss of £2000 and finish with a profit of £2000 only served to back up this stupid and utterly false belief. I was in dreamland, I was young and never really done a hard days work in my life and suddenly i had all this money. At the time i thought i was so lucky, whereas now i actually think of this period as being very unlucky as it paved the way for this addiction that would later bring me to the point of ruin. My obsession with roulette grew out of control. I started to gamble in casinos and online so that I could increase stakes. I was betting thousands on my laptop while having friends around for dinner. i had days were i would lose £5000 continue to chase the loss and end up winning back the £5000 with profit. These loss recoveries again only served to encourage me to chase losses at all costs as in my head i always thought i could win it back. Before long, i lost all the £15000 profit i had made in one sitting. it started off with a loss of £100 but then i kept increasing stakes to win back the loss and eventually all the winnings went and whatever money I had also. I had to get a £80 loan from a payday company despite having over £15k in my bank account the previous day. I felt sick, and actually just wanted to sleep and not wake up. However, it didnt stop there. I would continue to gamble all the time over the following years sometimes i would win big although the end result would always be the same, a loss. History went on to repeat itself, i won £25K a few years later only to lose it all in a matter of days. I would have breaks in gambling of a few months, build up savings and then lose it all in a period of madness. I would gamble at work on my phone and gamble while walking in the street. It was just completely out of control. I have tried to quit so many times but i kept having relapses. I've excluded myself from countless online companies and bookmakers but it just seems there is always another one available in my moment of weakness. From this addiction I've lost a business, friends, my job, and i have declared for bankruptcy. I have struggled with alcohol and neglected my health. I became a problem gambler at 20-21. I am now 26, so it took 5 years for gambling to completely alter the direction of my life and turn it upside down. the damage gambling has done to me is immeasurable. I have lost all my career prospects as result of it.

Despite all this, on Thursday 25th February I went into a bookies with £200 put everything into a machine, got up to £840 and left with nothing. I am now determined to make that the last gambling experience i ever have! which is why I have joined this forum to log my progress.

Financially, gambling has cost me a huge amount of money. But the damage goes far beyond the money. Its left me with low career prospects, low confidence/self esteem, no friends, anxiety, depression, and i am a heavy drinker as a result. I have missed so many experiences in life, by choosing to spend the day in a casino or bookies or by letting my mind be consumed by gambling thoughts rather than utilising my time more productively. I'm determined that from now on things will be better and i hope to move in a positive direction with my life.

Thanks,

f