On the brink of bankruptcy

Hi,

This is exactly the same as me. Unfortunately I can't say how you get over it, as I only joined today. I have read a number of informative threads/posts though and whilst I wouldn't say it's nice to know there are people in the same situation as me it's reasurring that people can get through this.

My biggest win was £3500 on Louis Oosthuizen winning The Open Championship a few years back. So I completely understand "the worst thing that could happen". For some strange reason I thought I could make a living out of pne lucky wager and turned to laying horses on the exchanges. My winnings lasted about a week.

On the other side of that, in 2010 (the same year as Louis' win but a month or so before) I was losing about £300 one day. I decided that I could easily get most it back by laying Switzerland in the 2010 World Cup Opener at odds of 25-30ish. I lost £6000 that day and had to immediately take a loan out.

I signed up to a Debt Management Plan and have paid £20k of the £50k off. Still a hell of a long way to go, but if you are in the same situaution an you haven't already, I would recommend talking to StepChange. Without them I dread to think what damage I would have caused myself and my family.

Keep me updated. I've created a diary on here to keep me motivated.

All the best.

Hi not again,

Thanks for the advice. i have literally been looking at stepchange but my only fear is that I cold lose my job if i got a debt management plan. I work for the financial services and a regulation is that you cannot work in the financail sector if you are declared bankrupt or have adverse credit. Yet another torment that contantly makes me worry.

my job is the only source of income and if i lose that i really will lose everything. I need to get through this somehow and just need to find a way 🙁

Good luck with your motivation and keep it up!

Thanks mate. I wish you all the best as well.

re Stepchange and your job, that does sound a bit tricky and I feel for you in that way. I suppose a call to them wouldn't hurt though.

Keep at it and I'm sure we can do it.

I would give Stepchange or Payplan a call and explain your situation. Otherwise the stress and constant money worries will keep you gambling for that "big win".

You're right about the banks and credit card companies though, they keep upping my limit even though the only transactions I had were gambling related so they knew it was easy money for them.

Hi pratchettfan, I am 14 days gamble free, so new to this too but am determined to beat this awful addiction as I know I will never win because I cannot stop, I too was an online gambler and over the years have lost thousands! There are some amazing people on here and some really inspirational stories so I have been keeping myself occupied by reading those. I have also joined the 90 day challenge on here. I have contacted the sites who I had accounts with and have shut them down, k9 is a free blocker for your computer so that you cannot access any gambling sites. Also posting on here everyday helps, you can do this, please keep us posted on how you are doing, your story really got to me and I would like to know how you are getting on.

Thanks for the K9 advise.....I will look into that but it says about setting an administrator password. Does that not mean I can change the settings to allow me access to gambling sites? I need something that will not allow me any acess to gambling sites no matter what.

I am going to stick it out and see how I go before contacting stepchange. I am not in arrears (yet) and I am determined to keep it that way. if I can get thorugh atleast a few months without gambling to start with, my financial ituatio nwill hopefully start to ease.

Would you be able to get someone to set the password for you? Or pick a long random number from somewhere that you won't be able to remember and then flush that number down the toilet!!! I haven't installed it myself as my laptop is on long term loan but as I mainly used it for gambling I am going to give it back! But the advice I have read on here has suggested k9 or gam block. Good luck with everything and remember if you carry on gambling you will get into arrears, that's why I have had enough I am not going to make my financial mess even worse and by taking things one day at a time it's going to gradually get better.

...........