Relapsed after 9 months

Hi Richard, I relapsed earlier this year after more than 7 and a half years without gambling and regularly attending Gamblers Anonymous. Here I am, back on GamCare today drowning my sorrows, looking for 'something' and trying once again. What a mental rollercoaster.

You said it yourself and this is what I find so frustrating about this addiction - getting off on losing; wishing we never did it; not chasing losses; gambling until it all goes and that horrible sinking feeling you mention that I know all too well. Why do I go back? Familiarity? Comfortable with the devil I know?

I am just going to try posting each day and reading other people's posts. I cannot think of anything more than that at this moment.

Wishing you well. Only we can make any changes, I know that.

Hi Simon, thanks for replying. I don't feel so alone now and you've given me that little bit of strength to continue not to gamble. I don't even know why I do it. I don't think it's even about the money. Any amount I win will not make me happy. I tell myself this all the time.

Gambling is a mask for covering up things I don't want to face up to. I need to fix myself. I've not been very well since early teens and I'm now 37. What a life lol

Good luck to you Simon!

Hi Richard,

I am glad you said that you don’t feel so alone now because that was the underlying reason for my response. Particularly I think, because I do often feel so alone myself, stuck in my own head with a rollercoaster of emotions that I have no idea how to begin to navigate through. I can’t do this alone so I need you and others on this forum just as much as you need me. We are not alone. There is some comfort, a lot in fact, of knowing that there are others who put themselves through what we do.

I am sat at a hotel bar drinking a glass of Merlot whilst reading and responding to forum posts using my iPhone. I could gamble in a heartbeat but am fighting so hard not to. My last bet was only yesterday around 11pm and I lost £750 in an arcade needlessly. I am sure you can imagine the very powerful gambling thoughts I am fighting right now that are telling me I must return to try and get that money back. And here I agree with you completely that gambling for me also, is not about winning money. If I did play again tonight somewhere and managed to claw my way back to ‘evens’ (just for that session, not all the ones before) it would be meaningless anyway and simply lead to more gambling, more chasing highs and lows. It’s that pattern of chasing highs and lows that I need to address. Clearly they give me ‘feelings’ that are missing from my everyday life so I seek them in some other way elsewhere. So I am saying that I want to ‘feel something.’

Richard, please keep posting and reading this forum as there are so many of us on the addictive pattern of behaviour battlefield where there is safety in numbers and much experience and wisdom to pick up from broken bodies as we continue along. My thoughts are with you and your wife. Keep hold of what’s precious to you.

Simon 🙂

I too have fudged up.  Tonight also lost £100.  I'm 10 days away from 100 days gamble free.  What you said about needing to feel something, I can understand that.  I just need to work out what gambling is giving me that real life isn't. And how I can get the same feeling..... 

Don't beat yourself up .. it could of been worse 

Relapsing sucks, but it's not because you lost money. If you had won, you would still be disappointed that you gambled and unsettled so remember that. Thinking that you are upset about the loss will only lead to more losses. Winning does not bring an ounce of peace or contentment either, so the outcome of relapse is irrelevant. Gambling again has messed with your brain chemistry and that discontentment that you feel has nothing to do with money but everything to do with addiction. 

I know we've all heard it time and time again, but relapse is part of recovery and can serve as a valuable tool to cement our mindset to continue trying to remain gamble free. The way you feel now is not because you lost money, it's because you gambled again, so forget the money.

Many people think they gamble for the money, so when we win, we think we are happy and when we lose it, we think that's why we are upset. After torturing myself for 2 decades with gambling, and now being nearly 2 years gamble free, I realise that I was not gambling for the money at all. All I ever did over time was haemorrhage 40 grand so it was very clear to me that gambling was not going to make me rich. Still, I clung to it. Money was only the middle man, it was how I paid for the high I was really seeking to soothe my troubled, depressed mind. I believe that is why I kept going back for more. It was my ill chosen therapy.

I realise I was looking for emotion from a machine. I was looking for purpose and I was looking for meaning that I felt was lacking in my life. I wanted distraction from the pain, and gambling did that for me whether I won or whether I lost. You see, it's not the winning that gives you the high, it's the anticipation of winning that keeps you locked in to the soothing zombie state of anaesthesia. You can lose thousands in a session, but while you still have money in your balance, you still have a chance to win and so the loss don't register until you have nothing left. When we are losing badly in a session, people think they are chasing the losses, but are we really? I think what we are really chasing is the win, not the losses and this is key to letting go of gambling.

It's the high that you really want, getting the money back is only a side story. It's about how much you are willing to pay to feel something. How much are you willing to pay to numb your mind? I know now that this is why I was addicted to losing because it was not about the money, it was the act of gambling that I craved. How else can an addicted gambler be happy with being thrown a thousand pound win when they are actually down ten grand.....because the machine threw you a high and renewed your faith in your chosen therapy and this is how the dangerous relationship we have with gambling continues.

What can hurt more when we relapse is our sense of morale. Gambling won't change so we have to change instead. Figuring out the reason why you gamble can be difficult, but once you do, it can save you and that penny can finally drop and it is far better than any win.

With regard to losing your gambling free days....you haven't lost them just because you have relapsed. All those GF days still stand to you and still serve to make you strong.

What helped me was making a chart. I crossed off with a big red X, every day that I did not gamble. When I relapsed after several weeks or even several months, there would be one black line in a sea of red X's and it helps you to realise just how much you have achieved. Don't go back to day 1. Try it the way I did it and keep adding to your tally of GF days regardless of relapse. When gamblers go back to the day 1 mentality after relapse, it is so easy to just think to gamble again, because you feel you have already thrown away your progress. This is the most vulnerable time and it is important to maintain the right mindset.

Gambling again after relapse and feeling like you may as well is just your brain's excuse to keep you gambling. Stay strong, stack up those days, forger the days you stumble because you are still on the same path.

Look forward and don't look back.

Don't let a machine dictate the way you feel. It can't give you emotion. It can only take it from you.

Best wishes to all of you good people.

Hi Richard.

Its happened to the best of us so you need to analyse why complacency set in and the casualness of asking your wife if you can have a little go.

If you've been a problem gambler its not for you. Its not a fresh start after time out and its not a get it back later scheme. A scheme would have to have reliability and gambling is a random event based on careful risk assessment by the gambling dens. They are not in business to pay your bills when you feel lucky

You cant have a little go just as I cant. I have no control over my drug of choice all those years ago. Even in recovery I am never complacent and I will be chatting about my progress this christmas to my loved ones. I still feel I owe them a report so I give them a report. It bores some of them but they get a report.

I wont soft soap you Richard because it does you no favours....The door was wide open there and it seems your wife also doesn't understand the sheer power of this addiction waiting to blindside you out of the blue. Do You?? ...Does she??

You can be ticking along nicely and then end up scratching your head having blown thousands in an arcade or the poison of your choice...you wont really know how you just did it but you will know the sinking feeling of emptiness and despair. You will just be asking yourself over and over how in heavens name you did that

Its a horrendous addiction that will play with you. We think we are grown adults with willpower but the addiction laughs at that...it plays with us....its way more devious than the sensible part of our minds ..its a split mind disorder.

How can I get through. You chucked £100 and I've never earn't enough to chuck money like that or even ride the small losses. You handed it too them and it doesn't feel clever does it? You know inside that thoughts are racing...you could have bought a present for a young relative...you could have done something positive with it. You were already a winner with good health that money in your pocket

Gambling is not the answer to what you seek. What you seek is a peace of mind in this crazy world. The answer is within you for contentment and positive activities

You need monitoring and a living allowance. If your wife allowed you to gamble perhaps she is not the one to do the monitoring. Its no game about casual willpower..food for thought!

Its your life and your decision...gambling kills people so perhaps you need to start now with that tough thought in your head.. This is no silly game about a flutter. Its a full on drug addiction for people like me who were always vunerable to it.

I never thought I could get addicted to anything...no way! So after 40 years it was an addiction so powerful it took over my life without me fully realising how dangerously out of control I was.

1400 days into recovery I still scratch my head sometimes because its mind blowing to think about

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

I really like the last 2 replies in this thread, thanks to both posters for taking the time to share your thoughts. Lost and Found your post particularly has been so meaningful to me and I have reread it many times over. I think I will print off a copy actually to keep with me. I really felt it important to thank you both for these wise words. My best, Simon.

You are more than welcome Simon. First of all sincere congratulations on going more than 7 years without gambling. What an amazing achievement. This is your achievement. This is in the bag despite the relapse and gambling again cannot take that from you. 

We often have such great awareness and insight into this disease, yet we can still fall into the trap from time to time, even after years of being GF. This disease is for life and we have to manage it as such. The way we get well is by not gambling. It does not mean that we won't want to. We have to understand that the beast is still inside. It sleeps and stirs sometimes but will lay low if you don't feed it by gambling. It gets weaker and has less power the longer you go without. 

Do not worry, Simon. This is only a small awakening and things will settle again soon. You know yourself that it is not about the money so don't let the loss eat you up. Remind yourself that if you won the other night, you would STILL want to gamble again, so your loss changes nothing. You want to gamble again simply because you gambled again. Nothing more. Your emotions are just tricks to get you to do it again and it will not change the way you feel.

I think it is easier to stay the same than to change and many gamblers are habitual creatures and have addictive personality so it is a recipe for disaster, especially if there are other issues in the mix.

I am sure we are not the only ones that use gambling to feel something, whatever that might be. I know for a fact that there were times when I used it to pick myself up and other times when I used it to purposely hate on myself. I think in some way, pain is still better than feeling nothing, or feeling confused, lost....whatever. Gambling hurts like hell and it was sometimes better to hurt because of gambling than because of that strange emptiness that I felt inside. When I gambled, I would find it easier to understand the way I felt and weirdly, it gave me purpose. It defined me. I often felt better and energised after a loss because I felt more able to leave it behind. Fixing the mess I made in terms of gambling debt also gave me direction. I think I wanted to make problems for myself so that I could feel good about fixing them. Sounds stupid, but that is the way it was for me. 

I think in some ways I allowed gambling to keep me this way. I put it in my way because I felt like I couldn't move forward and with this in the way, I could stay lost. Even though it hurt so much to live that way, I think it was so familiar for nearly 20 years that it was all I knew. Gambling became a sort of safe place, as I've said before, like an abusive relationship. It hurts so much and it beats you down but when it is good to you, you want to stay. 

Don't worry about the relapse. That is in the past now. Today is a new day and if you choose to look after the present day, then the future looks after itself. A gamble free future happens in the present so don't look too far ahead. It sounds cheesy but I once read 'don't count the days, make the days count'. I relate to that because it's all about making the most of each day and filling your time with positive things until you forget what it is you are trying to leave behind.

Sincere good wishes for you moving forward, Simon.

Well done Joydivider for going 1400 days without gambling. A fabulous achievement. Yes, it is scary to think we did this to ourselves. I don't think you can ever get complacent, no matter how long you go without gambling. It is as you say, so powerful. You always have to keep all avenues locked down.

There was once a time when I was so impulsive that it was a relief to get into bed. It was the ONLY time I felt safe from myself. Online gambling is the worse because it is accessible anywhere and anytime and you don't have to even get dressed to lose thousands. I could go from being okay one minute, to devastated with my head in my hands, the next. I couldn't process all the emotions that it triggered and the speed at which they change.

In a gambling session, you are up one minute, then down, then up, then down and your brain just can't keep up with the chaos. It leaves you feeling drained. Sometimes, I would spend 4 or 5 hours gambling and only come away with a fiver more than I started with. Still, I felt like I had achieved something just because I had got my money back. Was I really that low that being beaten and kicked about for hours made me feel like a winner?

It hurt me so badly because it invaded my home, and my safe place. I felt like I was always at risk, always so vulnerable and frightened at what I was capable of. At the same time, I longed for the opportunity to bet. I was sneaky and devious and part of me was always on the look out for an opportunity to gamble.

I don't ever want to go back and I hope that all of us can see the sense in just being okay. We don't need money or excitement. We just need stability. There is enough uncertainty in the world, I reckon.

@lost-and-found your post from the 15th December, what a superb post that is and one in which I will come back to read. It is one that I and so many others can relate to and really puts things into perspective. 

@daves1988. I am so glad that you found it helpful. I would spend time on sites like these feeling like dying and hating myself for what I had become, repeating the same mistakes over and over to the point that it felt like self sabotage. I am certain that at times I just wanted to gamble to extinction so that it could all be over with. I think close to the end, I definitely wanted that. I wanted to hurt badly enough so that it would stop and my losses got way out of hand. Bigger than I ever thought possible. I was addicted to losing and addicted to risk. I think I thrived on pushing myself past all my pain limits. Looking back now, I realise that I wanted to go with a bang. I wanted it to stop but couldn't seem to do it myself so I went all out to the point that I had no choice but to come clean and be honest with my family. I wanted to hit rock bottom because then there was no way to go but up.

It is great to think that I could help others break free too. I am glad that you were able to relate and take something from it. Really wish you well. 🙂