i have been compulsive gambling for 9 years sometimes i could play on roulette machines for 6 hours a day missing meals and walking out of there with the worst head aches its ruined my life so many lows an depressing times with it not wanting to live maxing credit cards out over drafting stealing borrowing ive done it all about 3 weeks ago i had one of my worst lows after losing 1700 in 5 days on a football bet an roulette machines leaving myself in debt and ruining christmas it took a while to get over promising never to do it again cause of how it left me i was a mess i relapsed yesterday i had £20 on a football bet and am dissapointed in myself and am worried i could spiral out of control again cause i have done that first bet i am miserable and in hurt cause of this addiciton
This compulsion is not easy to deal with. Most of us wander through life not even realising we have a problem until it has an adverse effect on our lives. Then we go into denial as we know deep down that the only way to beat it is to cut gambling out of our lives.
This is no mean feat and you need support of others to help you tackle this. One of the best places to seek advice and support is at your nearest GA meeting. If you engage with the 12 step program you can really change your life for the better.
Hi alexs100,
Welcome to the forum, and thank you for sharing your story with us. I’m glad that you just didn’t give up, but tried to come to the forum and chat about your problem. Hopefully, you have support and advice from here to encourage you to keep trying.
With gambling problem, as you can tell from experience, it gets worse if you don’t do anything about it, and it can easily get out of control. When you manage to speak about it, it lessons the impact that it’s having on you.
Just to make you aware, Gamcare can advise you on strategies that you can apply to help you control your gambling, and eventually stop if that is what you want.
I’ll encourage you to contact us via our free phone Helpline on: 0808 8020 133, and speak to one of advisers to find out what other help options are available to you. We can refer you to 12 sessions of free counselling if you think that would help you to overcome your gambling problem. Additionally, we can sign-post you to other charitable organisations if we think you’d benefit from their services.
Even though you admit to feeling miserable and hurt due to your last relapse, you decided to do something about it by posting into the forum, and I think that is a step in the right direction.
There’s so much support that we can offer you to help you abstain if you stay in touch with us; there’s no need for you to suffer in isolation.
My best wishes to you in your journey to recovery.
Stay safe, and please keep posting!
Kind regards,
Beatrice
Hi,
On a positive note, you only gambled £20, I know you must feel annoyed, but mentally you've only gambled a small amout lately. You should feel proud that you've only gambled a little lately and work on that. I personally have mental health issues and relapse every other week. I hope you are feelng better now. Im new here and hope this helps.
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