Hi,
I'm new on here, but not new to gambling recovery. I've been going to GA off and on for almost ten years, but I've recently had a series of relapses so I'm exploring all avenues of support.
Some of my story. I started gambling as a teenager, playing fruities in arcades, then later in pubs and snooker clubs. I would lose a fair chunk of the money I had, but didn't get into any debt and it didn't really affect my life that badly, other than wasting a lot of time and money. I managed to hold down a good job. Things weren't great but they weren't catastrophic.
That carried on until I was about 23 when I discovered Casinos, and specifically poker. I fell in love with the game immediately. I'd always enjoyed playing cards and chess, so when I realised you could play for money in casinos against other people and not the house, that was it - I was hooked. I stopped playing fruities altogether and everything became poker and occassionaly other casino card games like blackjack, punto banco and baccarrat. I was living in London at this time and was constantly in the casinos and card clubs.
My memory of this time is that I enjoyed it, but things got out of control a few times and I would sometimes lose all my wages within a few days of getting it. Then I'd cool off and not play for a few weeks, then go back and repeat. I tried putting some self-imposed limits in place, but they would inevitably end up broken. Then in about 2004 I discovered online poker. Again I was hooked, but this time it was even worse because I could do it from the comfort of my own home and gamble any time of the day or night. I was convinced that I could beat poker. I've always been good with numbers and I studied the probabilities and strategy of the game when I wasn't playing. My dream was to become a professional poker player and play at the highest stakes. That was never to be...
I continued playing online poker, and had some big successes winning over 50k in a tournament at one point. But the losses were always bigger, and after big tournament wins I'd play very high stakes and lose most of it in what felt like a heartbeat. In about 2008 things went from bad to worse. I had a big win, enough to more or less set me up for life, but I went to the high stakes and blew the lot in about 2 days, over £100k. I then went mental and took out loan after loan trying to chase the losses. I ended up running up almost 30k of debt in a couple of weeks. I remember sitting in my flat a day after my payday with no money for the rest of the month to buy food or pay my rent. I drove to some nearby woods with a length of rope, with the intention of killing myself. I couldn't go through with it and went to the doctor instead and asked him to section me.
To cut a long story short, I ended up moving back in with my parents in Swansea. There I was at the age of 30, no job, no money, no girlfriend, mountain of debt, living back in my parent's spare room. Things were pretty grim. But I still wanted to gamble. It was at this point I knew I needed help and started going to GA regularly. I had a lot of relapses to begin with, every couple of months. But eventually I got it. I managed to get a decent job, met someone, got married, had kids, bought a house, slowly paid off the debt. I had a small relapse in 2013, but then started working the 12 steps in GA and had 5 years of happy abstinence.
Which brings me up to December of last year. I had a big relapse. I had a lot of stress going on with running a business, 3 kids under the age of 5 and my wife having a long-term illness, which triggered me to go back to gambling. I gambled on online poker for about a month before my wife found out. I hadn't got us into financial problems, but she was livid that I had lied to her. She kicked me out for a night, letting me back the next day, but definitely in the doghouse. I stepped up my GA attendance and got back into recovery. All was good again for a few months, but last week I gambled online again, this time blowing a chunk of money.
I didn't really attempt to hide it, it was almost as if I wanted my wife to find out. She found out yesterday, and so far has been a bit numb to it, but I'm not sure if I've completly messed up our marriage and family life. I spoke to some people from GA and I'm going to throw myself back into the 12 steps, but I don't think it's enough. I think I need daily contact with other people trying to stop gambling, so I'm hoping this forum will be good for that.
To sum it up, I'm sick and tired of feeling like this. Feeling s**t about myself and the fact that I'm putting gambling before the people I love. I know this addiction is an illness, but I'm finding getting the right treatment difficult. I find it very easy to fall back into a fantasy world, where gambling is going to solve all my problems. I know it's completly delusional, but I can't seem to stop those crazy thoughts at the moment.
I'm hoping I can use this forum alongside GA to get a strong recovery going. I know it's one day at a time, but I also want to get to a place where I feel like I can live my life free of this illness, or at least with it not having such a strong grip on me that it can just come back after 5 years without gambling.
Cheers,
Dan
dan79 wrote:
Hi,
I'm new on here, but not new to gambling recovery. I've been going to GA off and on for almost ten years, but I've recently had a series of relapses so I'm exploring all avenues of support.
Some of my story. I started gambling as a teenager, playing fruities in arcades, then later in pubs and snooker clubs. I would lose a fair chunk of the money I had, but didn't get into any debt and it didn't really affect my life that badly, other than wasting a lot of time and money. I managed to hold down a good job. Things weren't great but they weren't catastrophic.
That carried on until I was about 23 when I discovered Casinos, and specifically poker. I fell in love with the game immediately. I'd always enjoyed playing cards and chess, so when I realised you could play for money in casinos against other people and not the house, that was it - I was hooked. I stopped playing fruities altogether and everything became poker and occassionaly other casino card games like blackjack, punto banco and baccarrat. I was living in London at this time and was constantly in the casinos and card clubs.
My memory of this time is that I enjoyed it, but things got out of control a few times and I would sometimes lose all my wages within a few days of getting it. Then I'd cool off and not play for a few weeks, then go back and repeat. I tried putting some self-imposed limits in place, but they would inevitably end up broken. Then in about 2004 I discovered online poker. Again I was hooked, but this time it was even worse because I could do it from the comfort of my own home and gamble any time of the day or night. I was convinced that I could beat poker. I've always been good with numbers and I studied the probabilities and strategy of the game when I wasn't playing. My dream was to become a professional poker player and play at the highest stakes. That was never to be...
I continued playing online poker, and had some big successes winning over 50k in a tournament at one point. But the losses were always bigger, and after big tournament wins I'd play very high stakes and lose most of it in what felt like a heartbeat. In about 2008 things went from bad to worse. I had a big win, enough to more or less set me up for life, but I went to the high stakes and blew the lot in about 2 days, over £100k. I then went mental and took out loan after loan trying to chase the losses. I ended up running up almost 30k of debt in a couple of weeks. I remember sitting in my flat a day after my payday with no money for the rest of the month to buy food or pay my rent. I drove to some nearby woods with a length of rope, with the intention of killing myself. I couldn't go through with it and went to the doctor instead and asked him to section me.
To cut a long story short, I ended up moving back in with my parents in Swansea. There I was at the age of 30, no job, no money, no girlfriend, mountain of debt, living back in my parent's spare room. Things were pretty grim. But I still wanted to gamble. It was at this point I knew I needed help and started going to GA regularly. I had a lot of relapses to begin with, every couple of months. But eventually I got it. I managed to get a decent job, met someone, got married, had kids, bought a house, slowly paid off the debt. I had a small relapse in 2013, but then started working the 12 steps in GA and had 5 years of happy abstinence.
Which brings me up to December of last year. I had a big relapse. I had a lot of stress going on with running a business, 3 kids under the age of 5 and my wife having a long-term illness, which triggered me to go back to gambling. I gambled on online poker for about a month before my wife found out. I hadn't got us into financial problems, but she was livid that I had lied to her. She kicked me out for a night, letting me back the next day, but definitely in the doghouse. I stepped up my GA attendance and got back into recovery. All was good again for a few months, but last week I gambled online again, this time blowing a chunk of money.
I didn't really attempt to hide it, it was almost as if I wanted my wife to find out. She found out yesterday, and so far has been a bit numb to it, but I'm not sure if I've completly messed up our marriage and family life. I spoke to some people from GA and I'm going to throw myself back into the 12 steps, but I don't think it's enough. I think I need daily contact with other people trying to stop gambling, so I'm hoping this forum will be good for that.
To sum it up, I'm sick and tired of feeling like this. Feeling s**t about myself and the fact that I'm putting gambling before the people I love. I know this addiction is an illness, but I'm finding getting the right treatment difficult. I find it very easy to fall back into a fantasy world, where gambling is going to solve all my problems. I know it's completly delusional, but I can't seem to stop those crazy thoughts at the moment.
I'm hoping I can use this forum alongside GA to get a strong recovery going. I know it's one day at a time, but I also want to get to a place where I feel like I can live my life free of this illness, or at least with it not having such a strong grip on me that it can just come back after 5 years without gambling.
Cheers,
Dan
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