Relapsed recently

The one and only way is to put every block.in place willpower is not enough it just leaves the door open by putting blocks in place such as blocks for your online banking most banks do this now for depositing to gambling sites install gamban on.every phone and tablet ban yourself from bricks and mortar bookies using the moses scheme in the uk.and bacta scheme for amusement arcades 

Hi Matt,

My name is Hannah, and I volunteer for GamCare as an online peer supporter. I volunteer because I supported my husband through his inability to stop gambling.

People are highly complex so I couldn't even begin to try to answer why this has happened, based on the information I can see in just one post. But what I can see, is that you are doing well in so many ways. As the spouse of an ex gambler, I can tell you that the biggest thing that ever caused me distress was when my husband wasn't honest with me. I can see from your post that you have been really upfront with your partner and your family now and I think that that is a really big deal and shows you want help. Perhaps there were times in your past when you struggled more than now to be upfront with the people you love. I think the proactive attitude that you have displayed in your post deserves some positive recognition. 

You seem to be describing a vicious circle where you gamble because you have stresses in your life but then the gambling causes more stress. That sounds so incredibly hard and you have had a lot to cope with. I can see that you mentioned your baby in the same breath as again wondering why you have 'done this'. Growing a new human is stressful in itself and you have had other stresses in your life. Yes you have stumbled and taken a fall but what matters now is that you seem determined to get back up. Hopefully your family will see the efforts you are making.

Are you accessing support from GamCare at the moment to help you? Just wanting to check that you are accessing everything that you need. Aside from the helpline, 1to1 email support with a volunteer may help you if you are not doing this already. Often I find that when I write about a problem, reading it back to myself brings revelations and I further understand my motivations. 

Take care and be kind to yourself, 

Hannah

Volunteer Peer Supporter

@r8mwut7y5e hi 

thank you for that, really appreciate it it. I am determined to succeed this time. 
I don’t think I had the right support last time. I had an advisor but didn’t seem to get on either him. 
They are going to call me in the next few days so hopefully will be able to speak with a new person. 

I am also going to be going to meetings in person with my partner as I feel it would help. 

Any other support would be appreciated if you have any suggestions 

thanks 

@sdblf3n8p1 hi,

As above, don’t try and work out why this has happened, you’ll drive yourself mad. 

it’s brilliant that you’ve told your partner. One suggestion which helped me - my husband took over financial control, could this be something your partner could do? A compulsive gambler cannot really have access to money where no-one else knows about, it’s just an easy path to the secrets.

I’m coming up to 2 years and 5 months gamble free now, but I was at day one once. Even after a relapse, no-one can take away those gamble free days you’ve got. 

You’ve got to triple lock every door, don’t leave anything to chance, it just can’t be that way for a gambler. 

Do you have debt? StepChange can help with this?? 

Please reply if you have any questions. 
Claire x

@sdblf3n8p1 

Hi again Matt,

I apologise for the length of my reply but there is just so much to cover 😆 

It honestly is completely OK to say that some types of support are not right for you and that you felt incompatible with your adviser...it happens.

I am really pleased to hear that you have a call scheduled and I am sure they will go through other options with you in more detail. If you try to explain to them what it was about the support last time that just wasn't doing it for you then you both can perhaps work this out. They won’t be offended. 

Again, I really rate the email peer support service if you want to talk more about your feelings and exploring why you do things (although I may be biased as I am one of the email peer supporters 😆 ). Writing things down is so under rated and I guess it matters less how well you match the peer supporter as it would be more about your own revelations that you get during writing your emails to your person.

I think it’s really wonderful that your partner is going to the meetings and that that is going to be such a huge help. From my own experience, my husband has told me that he would never have managed to quit and remain gambling free if I hadn't been so involved. I think it just adds that extra pressure to keep going and a feeling of you are not going through this alone.

I think ultimately for my husband it was Gamban/Gamstop that lead to his long term success. If you are super duper serious and you think that you need it, then you could try a bank block. I believe your partner can also use things like Gamstop if you feel there is a risk you may use their devices or details to gamble. You can also block gambling adverts with Adblock if you feel that ads are a trigger. These are all of course just general things for online gambling that I’m sure you may already know about, as I’m not sure you mentioned the type of gambling you do whether in person or online gambling. There are other supports for in person gambling. 

I can't really make any more recommendations for online gambling as I don't know much about you and your life with it just being the forum. There are some recommendations that can be made based on the environment that the gambling exists in if that makes sense. For example, if there were named stresses going on in your life that were feeding the gambling, you could be signposted to a service that may be able to help with those stresses. You would be strategically strengthening your environment to make sure that that little gambling monster can't sneakily find his way back into your life again because the next time he tries, he will find no way in or weaknesses to take advantage of if that makes sense. 

I understand that you feel a need to know why you gamble. It was important for my husband that we figured out why, and it was critical for his long-term success but for many people you just won’t ever know why. My husband’s parents passed away whom he would gamble with healthily, he also lost all his relationships with friends and siblings through no fault of his own, they just were not good humans. He was feeling like he had never achieved anything or been part of anything important and he was frustrated with his wage. As soon as we addressed all of those, he began to do really well and rarely thinks about gambling anymore. Do any of my husbands examples trigger any thoughts for you about your own potential causes? My husband is very lucky to have found those things that were driving his gambling. I hope you can find out why you gamble but if you can’t then try not to stress too much about it and remember that many people will never know why either. Just try to look to the future. Perhaps deep down you want to know why because if you can find a cause, then you wont feel like a bad person because you will have something to blame instead of blaming yourself. If this is the case then please remember that the inability to stop gambling can happen to anyone. They have literally replicated it with animals in studies. It is not your fault and it doesn't make you a bad person, it just happens sometimes and you are going to fix it. 

I would be interested to hear how you get on with your scheduled phone call with an adviser and if you need tips for in person gambling let me know. Please don’t forget all the positive steps that you have already taken. You are really working so hard.

Hannah

GamCare Volunteer Peer Supporter