Gambling again

Hi Bgt187

It seem like your life is in a bit of a spiral ? If your wife knows and is supporting you why don't you get her to put some blocking software on your Pc and she will be the only one that knows the password, this could help you very much from what I've read upto now. I myself am having councilling and must say this time around it is really helping me and hopefully I will get the answers as to why I gambled like I did, you will only get out of councilling what you put into though and it's not everyone's cup of tea but I would say definitely worth a go, also coming onto this forum and reading others stories I find helps me as well. Why don't you let your wife have control of your cards as well, this way you won't be able to sign up for new account. I must say though you have to WANT to give up gambling and put many barriers in places for things to work and it's not easy in the early days buts life feels so much better when not gambling ! Hope you get sorted and can kick this addiction and shall look out for future posts.

"It's good to talk and take it one day at a time"

All the Best

Darren

Welcome to the forum 🙂

Firstly, I think everyone here would agree that the wins/losses and the amounts involved are entirely academic to a compulsive gambler. It sounds like you had some great wins BUT it's totally irrelevant as that money is ALWAYS going to go back. You will read it time and time again on here "We cannot win because we cannot stop" and it is so true.

The difference is that if an average person wins £6k they will save it or make plans for a holiday/new car etc. If WE (and by that I mean compulsive/problem gamblers) win £6k then we want to make it £10k and then £15k but it will never be enough and the money will always go back. What's more telling is that the money will be forever 'earmarked' for gambling, as compulsive gamblers we won't want to spend out 'gambling' money on other things so, to that end, what's the point in winning it the first place?

I may have gone slightly off-track here but the simple point is this, the numbers, the ups and downs, the wins and losses are all irrelevant to a CG we will never win because we will gamble at every opportunity until we lose. You need to forget about the money, it's gone and will never come back. Move forward, get blocks in place and ensure you restrict your access to gambling as much as you can as this will be essential in the early days.

Good luck, you'll find a lot of great advice and support on here.

Phil

Get your wife to be the admin account for some software called K9 - Free download and easy to install. It'll block sites you normally use. With your wife being admin, you won't know the password to get around the bloack. Temptation will be removed on that side of thigns anyway. Good luck. Chin up.

Hi bgt

Deep breaths and you are searching for a calmness where you focus. You will focus and realise that gambling has led to anxiety and deep stress in your life

I see the gamblers mind and addiction working there as you almost frantically try and explain that you were up at certain moments. You are on a rollercoaster of emotion that is making you more ill. The overall issue is that you are here as a compulsive gambler. All the fleeting monetary amounts are short term loans and borrows from dens that have taken that money from you many times over. The dens will take it all from you again and loads more if you dont stop completely

What gambling has done is confuse your mind and you are living for dopamine fixes. The issue is that you are not in control as something in your mind is controlling you. You will see that its pointless talking about "wins" when overall you are probably down thousands. Am I right?

Thats a process we all went through of trying to save face and rationalise it. The truth is that you cant rationalise gambling in the cold light of day. Im not being rude here but it doesnt matter whether you bought your wife a holiday or a bag of chips. It matters if you love each other and are honest with each other! Does your wife know the real picture of your finances?

Deep down you know gambling has taken your self respect, pride, dignity and your soul.

You cant put a price on those. You can get your life back with proper blocks and counselling support from gamcare. Phone gamcare as many times as you like because you need that one to one voice to restore some calmness in your life

Its a born again moment you are after where you let alll the stress go and make gambing history

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

Phil83 wrote:

The difference is that if an average person wins £6k they will save it or make plans for a holiday/new car etc. If WE (and by that I mean compulsive/problem gamblers) win £6k then we want to make it £10k and then £15k but it will never be enough and the money will always go back. What's more telling is that the money will be forever 'earmarked' for gambling, as compulsive gamblers we won't want to spend out 'gambling' money on other things so, to that end, what's the point in winning it the first place?

Found this very true and supportive. Iv had a few drinks tonight and although I'm not going to gamble, the thought had crossed my mind. I'm on 125 days and this quote reminded me exactly why I can't ever gamble. Thankyou Phil

Hi WICS,

Thanks for the shoutout...125 days eh? That's really good going and I know how strong the urges can be after a few drinks (but that's one vice I have no intention of quitting).

Whilst my, personal, road to recovery has been littered with potholes (metaphore alert!) I am very aware that I need to listen to my own advice and this is the stark reality of it. The wins and losses are completely meaningless to a compulsive gambler, once money has been staked, it's gone, winning just makes the loss last longer. Studies show that compulsive gamblers show significantly lower levels of brain activity when experiencing a win or loss than 'normal' gamblers (there's something about it in a documentary with Alex from the Real Hustle...worth a watch). This is because we know the irrelavance of any win we may get and have already accepted that the money's gone so a loss is 'par-for-the-course'.

Well done again on 125 days and sorry for the psycho-babble.

Yep thats so true Phil. It got to a stage with me where I barely registered any emotion that you might associate with a"win" If anything I was getting more out of a loss as I could express my anger and frustration with life...It may have come out in a mild looking way to onlookers but I was still cursing the machine.

As it became clearer with recovery and counselling, I was just playing out my loneliness and depression to a machine. Im pretty certain that in a way I wanted to lose because it just reinforced the feeling of how worthless and useless I felt. I did and I didnt. Its a very complex split mind addiction.

Two halfs of me could almost be fighting each other in front of a machine. Thats scary to think about now and its something the psychologists have to talk through with me.

It would be simple to describe if it was all about the money. Escape gambling is far from that. Its a cry for help in many ways.

As you say the wins and losses were almost completely meaningless in the bigger picture. The psycho babble 🙂 is important because it helps to understand just how the addiction gets a hold.

Best wishes to everyone on the forum