Hi all,
I have just played online slots for what I hope will be the last time ever.
A quick background. I have over the years enjoyed the odd bet on the football etc but it was only ever small amounts for a bit of entertainment on a saturday afternoon.
Around 12 months or so ago I discovered online gambling, starting with bingo and then progressing to online slots. Again, this started out as a bit of fun but over time the bets have gotten bigger and I have found myself chasing losses and physically struggling to not log in and deposit another £100. I honestly never thought that I could become addicted to anything but I am sad to say that I am a gambling addict and I need help to overcome it.
I have run up around £8000 worth of debt on credit cards and I have recently found out that my wife is expecting our first child. This has to be the trigger for me to stop throwing money down the drain by giving it to these sites.
I am determined to beat this and I have just setup K9 on my computer to block access to all gambling sites. I have also self excluded from the ones that I have previously registered with. Any other tips or advice would be much appreciated.
Congratulations on the baby. And welcome.
What made me stop was swearing to myself on my son's life that at a certain point (if I had not broken even) I would stop. I did. Find something that you care about which you can fix this to.
Try and get a 0% balance transfer deal on a credit card. I am proud to say that I am on Day 2 today, but I have just transferred most of my debt onto a new card. There is additional credit limit of about £4000. It occurred to me for a split second that this might be enough to win back all my losses. But I didn't. By next week my wife will know about all my accounts, and if she has not kicked me out she will be monitoring them.
peetee wrote:
Congratulations on the baby. And welcome.
What made me stop was swearing to myself on my son's life that at a certain point (if I had not broken even) I would stop. I did. Find something that you care about which you can fix this to.
Try and get a 0% balance transfer deal on a credit card. I am proud to say that I am on Day 2 today, but I have just transferred most of my debt onto a new card. There is additional credit limit of about £4000. It occurred to me for a split second that this might be enough to win back all my losses. But I didn't. By next week my wife will know about all my accounts, and if she has not kicked me out she will be monitoring them.
Wow, I hope it works out for you. Although I think my wife would be supportive I really don't want to tell her at the moment as I don't want her to worry about it seeing as she is pregnant. I have recently started a new business which has started to take off so I am hopeful that I will be able to clear the debt over the next 12-18 months. I have already transferred some on to a 0% interest card and then I immediately chopped the card up and chucked it out so that i couldn't spend on it. Unfortunately I didn't do the same with the old card so I ended up spending a bit on that again.
I'm going to sort out all my finances over the weekend to try and make it as difficult as possible for myself to do anything silly.
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