Hi there,
After SO MANY false starts, I think I may finally be on the mend.
I have been gambling on online slots for three and a half years and it has been a problem for three of those. My main problem is chasing losses, making repeated £100 - £300 deposits. It caused depression and reduced my sleep quality, as well as costing me a huge amount of time and money. My stakes were increasing and so were my losses. A £2,000 win just meant more money to re-deposit and lose over the coming days.
I tried many things to help me stop and always came back. Whislt I am only 15 days gamble free now, I feel more positive than ever. I took three steps to beat this addiction; in this order:
1 - I installed Gamban to prevent access to sites.
2 - I registered with GamStop to prevent me using many sites or registering again
3 - I closed my current account and opened a new one with another bank
Doing all of these means that whilst it will never be foolproof, and I am a fool, it will at least make it difficult and time-consuming enough that I will have chance to reconsider.
I have been putting it off, but yesterday I went through my bank statements and tried to work out my total loss. I think it is around £10,000.
Luckily I am not in debt, though I have very little money in savings. Rightly or wrongly, I have never told my wife (or anyone else) and hidden it from her through all of this. This is my secret that I intend to take to the grave with me.
Anyway... the point of all this, is that everything I tried in isolation didn't last. I self-excluded. I tried blocking software. I kept a diary. Hitting myself with the three above all at once made the difference. Every time I think of gambling I come on here and read some threads. Hopefully I can emerge from this now and get on with the rest of my life. I wish everyone else the same luck too! Gambling is a terrible thing and has taken so much from so many.
Hi onthebrink,
What you have done is great but its bascially putting up the initial barriers to prevent us gambling, its essential but long term its not a solution. We have to make changes to our mindset and ask some hard questions of ourselves when we undergo a recovery program such as the 12 steps program. None of its easy but it shows that we need to change our behaviour in order to really tackle this.
Most people come to GM meetings when they hit rock bottom, they have a huge finacial burden usually (either in debt or have the guilt of blowing large amounts that could have been saved), they are in mental turmoil of having come clean to a loved one or have not come clean and are stuggling to keep a lid on the ocean of lies and deciet they have invented to hide their addiction. When the penny drops for the people who really give their efforts to recovery, we realise its not a financial issue at all, in fact its not even a gambling issue when we dig right down into it, its about our behaviour and how we deal with things in life. Gambling is our drug of choise, its what we use to escape and run from lifes woes. When we are in the bubble we dont care about anything else, we enjoy the thrill of gambling over and over, but we simply cannot control it.
I have seen lots of people stop gambling for large periods (myself included) and ended up going back, even with barriers in place. The reason was we never made a true effort to change out mindset and behaviour.
The main alarm bell coming from you post is your refusal to tell your wife, its exaclty the type of reaction i had before tackling recovery. Dont get me wrong, its not easy coming clean to people but in my view its essential. If you think about it in reverse, imagin your wife had the problem, instead of opening up to her husband she just kept it to herself thinking she could control it, until further down the line this addiction rose its ugly head once more and you found out yourself as bills were not being met or you saw a bank statement or you could see she was constantly stressed and knew something was not right. Then you discover she tried to get help but refused to come to you for help, how would you feel?
If you have any respect for your wife you should come clean and ask for help, she at least deserves the truth.
Thank you for your comment; it has really made me think.
I'm fast approaching a month gamble free (6 days to go), which feels great. Not even been close to gambling.
I started "gambling" to make money from bonus offers, following tutorials and making about £100 per month on average. But it was time consuming, and boring. I upped the stakes to make wagering quicker, and enjoyed the excitement of it. I never was desperate to go and gamble... I just couldn't control myself when I did.
So glad to be on the road to recovery, and I still check in here from time to time to motivate myself by reading other peoples' stories.
Thank you for your time! I have some thinking to do.
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