Ruining my life!

Hi Gloves87, welcome to the Forum and well done for posting what you have here,

Everything is snowballing at the moment and the weight of your circumstances weighs very heavily on your shoulders my friends.

What you need to do is take a step back, relax and compartmentalize your life and what has been happening to you. You can't resolve everything at once my friend, and you can't change overnight - draw a line under what has happened, and resolve to tackle one thing at a time, one day at a time.

I would explain to your friends that you are considering giving up gambling; tell them you don't enjoy it anymore, which is the truth. If they are real, genuine friends, then they will respect that and may choose to veer towards non-gambling related social activities. If not, then you may have to take yourself out of the equation for the time being until you feel strong enough to cope with these temptations.

I would then think about installing blocking software on your Laptop/PC - it is always better if you can do it yourself because gamblers generally will always find a way to gamble if they truly want to, but you are vulnerable at the moment and it would be a good, positive thing to do.

Then, I would take some time to reflect on what has happened, where you are going, and accept that you are what you are; gambling and winning money is a form of mental poison to you - it only makes you crave more, which leads to losing at higher stakes. If you lose, then you face soul-wrenching desperation to get it back again, which invariably leads to losing and then spending money that you can't afford to lose.

Nothing you ever do will change that lose-lose scenario my friend. I gambled for twenty years and have now stopped for around six; part of the reason I was able to move forward was changing my mentality - if winning money is effectively worse than losing it, then what have I to gain? Why should I regret bets that won if I haven't put anything on them? It should (and is for me) be the other way - I should fear winning and so should you my friend.

I would take some time to analyse yourself very deeply as well my friend; is there anything that drives you towards gambling? Are there any points or times in your week where you feel especially vulnerable? The key moment is the second before you start; at this point, you have some control before you start - once you do, you are gone, you are lost. Can you stop yourself?

You are not a bad person my friend, but gambling makes you take poor choices and act in a way that doesn't represent your true self. If you carry on, then it truly will ruin your life as you said; urges are hard to cope with at first but they lessen greatly in time; the bottom line is that nothing is worth what you are feeling right now.

I wish you well and hope you can draw a line under what has happened my friend. You have done the right thing and you can be proud of that - the next step is to build upon it.

JamesP

Hi Gloves87, welcome to the Forum and well done for posting what you have here,

Everything is snowballing at the moment and the weight of your circumstances weighs very heavily on your shoulders my friends.

What you need to do is take a step back, relax and compartmentalize your life and what has been happening to you. You can't resolve everything at once my friend, and you can't change overnight - draw a line under what has happened, and resolve to tackle one thing at a time, one day at a time.

I would explain to your friends that you are considering giving up gambling; tell them you don't enjoy it anymore, which is the truth. If they are real, genuine friends, then they will respect that and may choose to veer towards non-gambling related social activities. If not, then you may have to take yourself out of the equation for the time being until you feel strong enough to cope with these temptations.

I would then think about installing blocking software on your Laptop/PC - it is always better if you can do it yourself because gamblers generally will always find a way to gamble if they truly want to, but you are vulnerable at the moment and it would be a good, positive thing to do.

Then, I would take some time to reflect on what has happened, where you are going, and accept that you are what you are; gambling and winning money is a form of mental poison to you - it only makes you crave more, which leads to losing at higher stakes. If you lose, then you face soul-wrenching desperation to get it back again, which invariably leads to losing and then spending money that you can't afford to lose.

Nothing you ever do will change that lose-lose scenario my friend. I gambled for twenty years and have now stopped for around six; part of the reason I was able to move forward was changing my mentality - if winning money is effectively worse than losing it, then what have I to gain? Why should I regret bets that won if I haven't put anything on them? It should (and is for me) be the other way - I should fear winning and so should you my friend.

I would take some time to analyse yourself very deeply as well my friend; is there anything that drives you towards gambling? Are there any points or times in your week where you feel especially vulnerable? The key moment is the second before you start; at this point, you have some control before you start - once you do, you are gone, you are lost. Can you stop yourself?

You are not a bad person my friend, but gambling makes you take poor choices and act in a way that doesn't represent your true self. If you carry on, then it truly will ruin your life as you said; urges are hard to cope with at first but they lessen greatly in time; the bottom line is that nothing is worth what you are feeling right now.

I wish you well and hope you can draw a line under what has happened my friend. You have done the right thing and you can be proud of that - the next step is to build upon it.

JamesP

Hi James, thank you very much for your very informative reply. You have made some very helpful points which I will take on board.

I think you are right in saying that I need to take a step back try and resolve the problem one day at a time. Today is by far the lowest it's ever got for me. I spent £1,300 in the space of an hour on online blackjack - which for me is a hell of a lot of money which I certainly couldn't afford to lose.

I am more likely to gamble when I have spare time on my hands during the day, I have tried to combat this by exercising but I always find time to waste my money away by gambling. I'm determined to beat this problem but need to learn that I can't control my gambling as even placing £1 football bet triggers something in my head which tells me I need to gamble more and more.

Thanks again.

Tom

Hi Tom, you are very welcome,

It is as I said my friend - there was a point before you started playing Blackjack, there was a moment where you could have stopped; this is what you must tackle, this is the time when you must turn away at all costs.

You're right - it is never about the stake, it is what it will lead to; if you had a £1 football bet and suffered a "near miss", or you had what you perceived to be as "bad luck", then there is no question it would drive you to counteract it in some way, which would involve either betting again or playing at higher stakes.

They refer to this affliction as a "vicious circle" - it is; and there is no way to escape it unless you finish with it completely. Accept it and walk away for good my friend.

JamesP