Start of Recovery

Hey, let me tell you a story and to tell you its okay. You have a risky personality like me and I love my dose of endorphins. I wanted money so I went into matched betting. That's fine.. but of course, i want more money! I'm on a win streak!, o*g i'm a excellent horse picker! I think the next horse is going to lose/win definitely so i will bet/lay more than i can afford on it! 

As my risk tolerance goes up, I am not matched betting anymore. I start to gamble, betting on horses with absurd amounts and winning huge amounts. o*g £1000!! Oh my god I'm in heaven! I am going to win £10k this week. I play my dream in my head and a life of Ferrari in a Caribbean beach. I decided to continue to be riskier, I thought I could pick the right horse every time, outsmart the house. No, no its not like that. The odds are against me my friend, and I have just lost £1000 on this horse. Now I think Oh.. i can win it back, lets gamble £1200 next horse... hands shaking.. d**n it.. i lost again.. okay... i'm at a loss, lets deposit and win back more. Next horse loses. Thats 7k blown.

Time to.. quit, cry myself to sleep, do bad things to yourself..  mental breakdown. I got a taste of real life gambling. I thought was not a gambler but here I am... Those betting offers are meant to entice and trigger us to gamble, not play them by the book and they hooked me in real hard.

You see why being rich is useless now without proper risk management? the same way matched betting is to gambling, the same way investing is to buying poor penny stocks. 

Lets me to kind to ourselves, we have addictive you only live once personalities, take no for the answer, throw money down the drain for fun. But online money/casino/betting offers are about discipline, and it seems we don't have 100% of it. but that's fine, we need a break. Lets put those bans to place to refresh our minds, to cleanse ourselves of offers and heal our soul from the never-ending barrage of triggers.

Lets use our time to use the things we take for granted like taking offers of new job, a offer of spending quality family time, an offer of continuing to build friendship among your circle of friends. lets recover, lets breathe outside in the spring air, lets rebuild our discipline, heal our minds, remove the triggers, find our next adrenaline game outside the world of gambling.

I hope this helps for the start of your recovery. I am recovering too so I'm helping others as I'm going along 🙂

Hi James,

That's how I got started too. I fell for the free spins though. I knew it was becoming a problem but thought if  I could just stick to the MB and leave the casino/slots alone, I'd be fine. It wasn't the case and I just realised this yesterday. I've downloaded Gamban, registered with Gamstop and also blocked betting on my bank card. MB is not for me anymore  and it was a relief once I realised that. Best of luck with everything! x

Hi 

Thanks for responding. Reading your reply and everyone else on here has made me realise I was not alone. Reading other people's stories has been really inspiring and has given me a lot of confidence in my own recovery. 

I am trying not to dwell on the past and focus on the future because that's what I can control. 

There's one thing I have already learnt and that is the true value of having money. You see I am from an upper middle class family so I have had a very privileged life. I have had everything handed to me on a plate. I've also lived off the bank of mum and dad all my life. They have paid for everything including university. I thought I knew how lucky I was but I didn't really until now. 

I have realised that I need to take some responsibility for once and take control of my own life. I need to find a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning. So yesterday I applied for a job and got a call today saying they want to interview me next week. 

This is the start of a new beginning for me. 

Congrats on getting a response for the job! When you have a job, you will realize you won't have time for gambling at all as you will be tired by the end of the day.

I have come to realize these bans, limiting deposits, banning yourself are actually risk management strategies that mitigate risk in the same way fire alarms and fire doors mitigate fire. You might have an urge to go on a gambling streak, but the bans forces you to stop in the same way a fire might start, but the fire door prevents it from coming out and the fire alarm alerts you to detect it right away and put out the fire.

I agree you can't control the past, but its important to learn from the past to prevent it from happening in the future. The Gamcare course here on this website is good I would recommend you take it if you haven't already.

Hiya, just a quickie on practical barriers.

Strongly suggest registering with Gamstop for 5 years. As it stands you have left the door open to more gambling  cos its not difficult to get a new device, unblock with the bank or get a new bank account. Without meaning to be an advert for gamstop, it is good it will block you from 98% of gambling sites and the ones that are left are dodgy as f**k, illegal to gamble with, registered in South america or the far east and more often than not will refuse to pay out.

Good luck with your interview

Hi LouLou 

Thank you. I think MB gives you a false sense that you are the reason that you whereas now I realise that it is the method/system is the reason you win. Best of luck with your recovery.