My first day here...

Hi Rach - First of all, well done for joining us - a great first step to recovery from the dreadful blight of gambling. Like you, online slots was my weakness. I have been 'clean' now for over a month, and can honestly say I feel so much better for it. You will too, even though you may not believe that now.

You mention gambling on your iPad - can you self-exclude from all the sites you use? And self-exclude permanently.

Next, try to visit this site daily and reap the benefit of other people's stories, their support and advice. It does really help.

Keep a diary (see the Recovery diaries page) to chart your day by day progress.

And finally, don't hate yourself - we are all human and can easily succumb to bad habits - usually as an escape from something else unsatisfactory in our lives. You now have the chance to turn your life around and you can do it!

Best wishes,

Joanna

Hi Rach,

Well you have taken two important positive steps towards beating this addiction. You have admitted it to yourself and to your partner.

I do not know about blocking software for IPADS but you should be able to self-exclude from the website /s you are playing on this might help a bit short term. You could handover your finances to your partner or a trusted person for a while until you are over the worse stages. This might help you to get stronger. It helped me in my initial stages. I remember taking it to the extreme in the early stages and snapped my bank card in pure desperation, I am not suggesting you follow my behaviour, merely pointing out that it is easy to quit when you have spent all your wages, however other paydays will follow and so will urges, you need to find a practical way to prevent yourself from not giving in to these urges.

Keep posting on this site and reading others diaries etc.. it can definitely help to motivate abstinence. Do not be too hard on yourself, yea ok you messed up but you can be strong and overcome this problem believe in yourself and use the support and encouragement available to you to take each day at a time.

Hi Rach,

Reading your diary was like i was writing mine! I have been gambling for three years too and my problem is online slots. I too have blown the majority of my wage on these dam sites and have tried to stop on numerous occasions. Have you tried K9 blocker so that you can no longer access these sites? they really do help. I know right now the only thing your thinking about is the money but try to accept that it is gone and we now have to look forward s that no more months are the same as the past three years has been for us and those around us. We can do this together, this site is a great resource, i am going to try and write a diary entry each day, you should do the same. Sometimes it helps to get all that is going through your mind out in the open. If you ever need to chat you can find my diary on here and i would be happy to chat.

Take care, be strong

SoSad xx