Hi everyone.
First post in here and I feel terrible. Been gambling a while now and although it hasn’t recked my life yet, I’m worried if I continue it will do.
My wife has I’ll health so I haven’t told her yet, I don’t know whether she’d be able to handle the truth.
I work hard and earn decent money but have been squandering too much for too long. I should be comfortable in life but my urges to play the flashy machines has been too much.
I am calling the London team to start counselling ASAP and I have my wife taking over the finances on 10th March (although she doesn’t know about this).
I hope that any advice will help and I’m glad I’ve finally posted in here because this has to stop.
Thank you.
Well done by recognising you need help. When my partner came clean to me, he was so scared I'll kick him out of our flat that he arranged a place for him to stay at for that week. He said he was almost entirely sure I'll leave him. But I did not.
He said the most difficult step was telling me all about the lies and deceit but he also acknowledged that it’s the best thing he’s ever done. His exact words were ‘it’s like an enormous weight was lifted off my shoulders and now I can focus on getting better’. Of course I was heartbroken when he told me about it to say the least. But with good support system, I am learning more about the illness and ways to hopefully help him beat it.
As they say, compulsive gambling thrives in secrecy. I think the most effective start to the recovery is to be open and honest about all your debts, lies and deceit especially to your loved ones. Tell them that you recognise this is an illness and that you are now taking active steps to battle it. And then hopefully with their support, you can come up with strategies against gambling. My partner found the meetings very helpful so I suggest you give it a try and take it from there. We're very early on in this lifelong commitment (he is day 11 gamble free) but he takes it one day at a time and we're hopeful we can beat this!!
Good luck and keep us posted.
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