Reality check

I can relate to this 100%. Its bizarre really because I am actually really frugal and would often talk myself out of everyday luxuries like meals out or a new item of clothing, yet I could feed £500 into a fobt without a second thought.

I also seem to be unable to spend my own money as it were, and only bought things if I had won from gambling. That is the twisted mind set ive had for the past 8 years. I would say to myself Ill just go and win £100 so that my night out would be "free" but end up losing everything and not going out at all, on repeat for years!

Tomorrow will be day 10 gf and hoping I can abstain for good.

I totally understand where you are coming from as we never thought twice about spending money on gambling but on day to day things I always questioned does that need doing or do we need that ! It must just be the thought process of a gambler ? Congratulations on your 6 months GF, something I'm aiming to get to and surpass !!

All the Best

Darren

Hi CaptainCorrigan!

Youve mentiond one of the most fundamental signs and proof that gambling is a dangerous addiction. Your point is profound in that it should wake people up to the REALITY of gambling.

It is bizzarre and even crazy how the addiction grabs us. It just can not be rationalised in the cold light of day which is pretty scary Weve all done it and Im sitting here looking at nice amplifiers and fancy goods I could have bought many times over, a long time ago.

I sometimes think that the addiction marched me to the servicetill in the same way as a mugging but I was doing it all myself. Im clear on the addiction being an illness although some people are scared of the term illness. Its a mental illness we can get better from

Indeed I sometimes get pangs of pain. Im wondering when I can have a new £70 lid for my turntable and I could have bought loads of them with the money Ive gambled away. In a way its good that it focuses me on the reality of what Ive done but I cant dwell on it and I move on with my gamble free life

You will use all your strength to come to terms with it and a calmness does come. I have to accept thats what I did with my money and get to the the truth with counselling and learning how the addiction worked on me

It all adds up to the power of addiction and just how much something was controlling me. I understand the power of the mind wanting its own aims ,much better now.

It is also to do with troubles in the soul but I hope when people see this thread it will spark some of the reality and fear about gambling. When the gambling stops, the money tends to look after itself. Im never going to be rich but my money is hard come by and I spend it wisely I could be careful with money but for various reasons gambling got under my skin

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

It's honestly quite bizarre. I've been saving up for something for a few months now - but in that time I've blown that amount 3/4 times over. It's almost like money doesn't count when it's being gambled.

Congratulations on almost making 6 months, how have you managed to stay GF this long? Any tips?

Couldn't agree with you more on the 'it's almost like money doesn't count when it's being gambled'. It's probably because with spending money on material things you know its going for good yet with gambling there is that hope you'll be winning more money. However, hindsight being the great thing it is, you're certain to enjoy the thing you've saved up for and bought a lot more than losing it all gambling. Bizarre.

In terms of tips having the blocks in place and acceptance has helped me massively. Upon having a big loss in one hit i self-excluded from online sites (never gambled in a bookies) which stopped me for the first month or so when i wanted to aggressively gamble to win it all back. As time went on i come to terms with the losses and accepted it was gone to a point where i no longer have the desire to gamble. However the 6 month self-exclusions are soon to be up so that will be the first big test.

Well yes we overide the feeling that the money is important to us. The addiction was so powerful that I was ignoring the real odds. Seriously my head was full of of" just winning a bit" as if I was lucky this time...then next spin.... next spin

To gamble my food and rent money was addiction personified. Im still working through why very early on I didnt give them up as a destructive waste of time. It seems so clear to me now....just why not before?

I must have known inside that the machines were losers game yet I kept playing. The real odds on what I really aimed for on machines range into thousands to one or way way higher. They are deviously programmed to hook with tiny false wins. I remember some "wins" were lower than the stake which surely just cant be allowed! Its tricks of the trade like that which tell me all I need to know about one armed bandits. Sure some are supposed to be random number generators but so is the lottery and most people will spend a lifetime losing on the lottery.

The percentage payout is a red herring and it means nothing related to my session.

I began to realise there was more to it and I was a highly addicted escape gambler. I can only conclude that I was playing to lose because the real drive was my mind playing for dopamine. My mind just wanted to keep playing again proved by the fact I couldnt walk away even when I began to think enough was enough.

I wont forget what those machines did to me because it helps keep my feet on level ground. I also dont forget that I carried out those actions but Im not taking all the blame with those infernal things being so accessible to me

I have to remain calm though and life moves on

Best wishes

£700 on a car and you were annoyed but you bet that and more, on a single bet. Yep I can relate to that. On one of my videos I did gambling for youtube, I gambled £4,000 quid on one roulette spin. The ball landed in one of only 3 numbers I hadn't covered on the whole table. I was sick as a dog. Yet when I got a bill from the dentist to fix my front teeth it was 900 quid and I nearly passed out with worry. Stupid eh?

I understand exactly what you mean. I have never spent that much money. The most I have spent in a single day was maybe £500 and that was because I was stupid and thought that I could use an interest free period credit card to gamble with not realising that I was gonna be charged interest as if it was a cash withdrawal. Luckily somebody was on my side that day and I won back enough to cover me so that I didnt have to pay interest and get into debt. But when I play I don't do a lump sum, it's 10s after 10s and 20s after 20s until I know I have nothing left in my overdraft. But then when I check my bank and see that my phone bill, internet bill etc has come out it makes me mad at how expensive these things are. So why is it okay to make myself struggle with nothing left after wasting all my money on a stupid online slot that only causes me more problems but its not okay to pay a phone bill which gives me all the minutes and texts and data that I need for everything I do?? Why does my brain trick me into thinking "I'm going to win"? when all along my heart knows that I most likely wont. And even if I do get a bit of a win, I'm stupid enough to think that it's not good enough and I can win more, which only makes me lose everything anyway. Do you get physical symptoms when you are online gambling? I get shakey, hot and sweaty, time goes REALLY fast, I feel in a frenzy, I hyperfocus so much I can't seem to keep in touch with reality. My skin goes red, then I get headache. Is this how you feel? What do you do to distract yourself?

Sometimes when I was in denial about having a problem, I told myself that because I've read so much about how people have spent £1000's at a time that I "wasn't that bad" but the truth is, I've never had that amount of money at one time, I have mental health problems so I don't really go out anywhere, and I don't work, So I don't have much money at all, But I often wonder if I DID have that much money, would I gamble it all? Or would I be satisfied enough with my financial situation that I wouldn't feel the need/want to gamble to get more money? It's a question that I am unsure if I even want to ever find out the answer to. Maybe it's a blessing that I don't have enough money to gamble that much. Maybe if I did have that much I wouldnt WANT more in the first place.

Years ago I gambled a few hundred pounds on my way to the cinema, in town arcades. But once at the cinema, I refused to be ripped off for £1.50 for a bottle of coke from the machine.

Gamblers logic is stupid on so many levels.

Congrats and good luck to all you gambling quitters.

It's because of how this horrible addiction works, when spending money gambling there is a chance you can make money thats were the buzz comes from the gamble thats why we go back and do it again and again.

But when we need to spend everyday money there is no chance there is no buzz just normal everyday life

Thats the difference that is what drags us back to gambling

Anyway that is only my thought.

Take care

Malc