The £5000 fee I paid to rid of my gambling

Welcome oau!

Whilst it's all still raw get yourself
Excluded from as many book maker's as you can. This can be done in one phone call now. The number for the national self exclusion scheme is over in the overcoming section.

It's good to see that you're giving up all gambaling..
The saying is would an alcoholic be able to just drink beer if he was addicted to vodka?
That has been answered thousands of times on here.
Myself I thought I could just do a footie because it was just a fiver
But that leed to a full blowout
Stop away from the first bet you can't place the second?.

Although it's tough at times it can be done. Many forum members are proof of it.

Good to have you aboard.
Look forward to watching you progress

Deano!

Hi Oau and welcome to the forum :)) As my downfall was alway's the Fobt's I feel we have a little in common that and the fact we could never stop I suppose :(( .

Those things are evil my friend and as we both know suck you right in everytime , ptromising so much but delivering nothing but pain and misery . I was quite happy to sit and feed £50 notes into thoise things for hours on end and it's only now that I've not gambled for 14 months since being here that I realise all I was chasing was a maximum win of £ 500 , not exactly life changing money there my friend . What really gets me is that even had I won a £500 payout , it would have all gone straight back in as it stopped being about the money many months before , anything I won or borrowed should I say was just gambling tokens . I've had a few decent wins from them but like you I'm guessing would be hard pressed to think back to anything I'd actually spent my winnings on ? .

You have to change your mindset to succeed in giving up for good , the blocks that Deano mentioned are all great ways of slowing us down and an absolute must when we first arrive but long term you have to just accept gamblings beat you and that your not going back to chase those long gone losses which will drag you back in everytime .

There's no question that you can do this and as your looking to get married youv'e every reason to want to , you just have to want to enough :)) .

Take care my friend and best wishes

Alan

Hi Onwards.

Interesting title and welcome to the forum. I hope you continue to use the forum as it will be extremely helpful to you.

What does strike me is that your post is a mix of calm ways that you intend to deal with it in contrast to losing a large amount and having a debt

I am not having a go as we have all been there. Yes you have to organise your debt but the main issue here is that gambling is a dangerous activity which can take you steps lower to total ruin. It shreds relationships for breakfast and it will affect your partner. Secrets play right into the hands of a gambling addiction and are ultimately not good for you

What Im saying to you is focus on what you already really know. Its needs shutting down with blocks. I know different things have different triggers but the trouble is poker will keep you in the activity and may bring you back to environments where machines are present.

I know for a fact that poker is no easy ride so dont let your mind talk you into the feeling that other gambling is ok....youve drifted over to the machines as many of us did and they are lethal. I still cant fully believe what they did to me.

Coming on the forum is a great move and you will beat this with openness and honesty More than half the battle is knowing you have a gambling addiction

Its a serious addiction which works in mysterious ways. There must be Blocks, blocks and more blocks to combat any triggers. Triggers were instant with me and almost calm. Triggers put aside the fact I have walked home on a cold night with nothing feeling numb with it all and ready for three days in bed with clinical depression.

Please ring gamcare as many times as you like. You have a road ahead but it will be a lot easier if you realise the strong measures that are needed to absain from gambling. These include living on an allowance and proper blocks. Unfortunately willpower alone is very rarely if ever enough

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your encouraging messages and i know it's easy to get ahead of yourself as it's a long road ahead. I'm feeling very determined unlike before hence the reason I'm here. The loss is still raw. But I'm kind of not even too bothered. I don't have that kind of money but am young in the grand scheme. The fobts are my downfall and I'm gonna stay away from poker all together too. It's not right me keeping this from my wife to be. But our finances are seperate and next year I will tell her and show her how far I have come. Thank you

Hi OAU

Good luck. You say your story is not as bad as some and that it doesn't sound bad. IMO losing 2.5 grand in a few hours is absolutely insane. Judging by the fact you're keeping it a secret, you know this too.

Be wary of thinking your addiction is less serious than others. That is a classic avoidance technique. There is always someone worse off than us, which can justify a skewed way of thinking.

Good luck with your secracy. It's not unusual for people to adopt the tactic of 'paying off the debts and then tell them when it's paid off'. To an addicted mind this is quite a delicious thought, which unfortunately won't work in practice.

Hope you treat your addiction with the respect it deserves.

Louis

Hi Louis,

Thank you for honest and direct response. I know it's completely insane, but if I hold on to that then it will put me back where I was before losing it and already being in debt and wanted that big win to pay it all off. I know I can do it. I've done it before and that is why I have come to the conclusion after losing that 2.5 grand never to gamble again. As this has never happened before and if that was to carry on. It would bankrupt me. I will keep you up to date.

Hi onwards, just wanted to say thanks for your support on the chat today, didnt realise you were such a newcomer to the Forum. Given that you are only 28 you have your whole life ahead of you. Dont be like me and countless others who are over 20 years older and ruin your life through gambling. Your problems may not be as bad as others right now but you have the capacity to lose thousands in a few hours so thats not a good sign.

Dont let it get any worse. Me - I have maxed out overdrafts and credit cards and taken consolidation loans and borrowed money under false pretences and eventually had to re-mortgage and then ran up all the debts again. Dont let yourself slip down that path. If I can stay on track I'll be debt free in 7 years but then I'll only be a few years from retirement! Sort yourself out now.

Captain46- Interesting comment, I am 22 and have lost £23,000 gambling, I am broke and honestly, losing this much money whilst working in a factory on minimum wage, makes me feel like it is the end of the world. What you said about the age thing gives me hope, because I can't even sleep well losing so much money.

Oau,
How much have you lost? Is it just the 4.4k...or much more over the years?

Is this your first time stopping?

It will not be easy and you will never be free just keep avoiding everything that can entice you into betting.

That debt is manageable so manage it well and you're be saving money in a couple of years. ...

I have wasted around 150k in 20 odd years and owe 30k but im in a good place now and looking forward to my 40th when i plan to be outta debt.

Mba

Hi Onwards.

Cardhue is spot on. All we are saying to you is that thinking you can handle it as you did before leads to relapses and what happened more recently.

Losing £2500 in a few hours is as intense as it gets. Ive lost hundreds in a couple of hours and thousands over a year. If I had access to thousands it would have been much higher

This really is about blocks and more blocks with somebody monitoring it. There is ultimately no shame in admitting that it got to you.

I feel you are at a stage of thinking you are a grown up and have to handle it but the triggers are always there and you have to be sure about the crazy grip that gambling gets. I was 35 years then 10 months on the forum of thinking come on Joydivider you know its a losing game and you are a grown up so stop it and be sensible.

It was never enough. Sure a month of fear could pass while paying the bills but then it would trigger with any stress or almost randomly based on feeling ever so slightly ahead.

You may be thinking these guys are getting a bit heavy and emotional like we are over egging it or get off on bigging these things up. I can assure you we are not and there are various stages of getting ready to really stop.

I understand thats its a source of comfort to you to think you can pay it all back so nobody will notice but it doesnt always work like that as gambling can trigger just at the thought of your debt repayments over that time

What I would like to see is you telling at least someone close and getting the counselling through gamcare and the doctor. I would like to know you are self excluded and properly blocked

Why? Because I want to see you gamble free and Ive seen countless stories where people are back after thinking they could just get a balance transfer and handle everything. I know you have some pride but a gambling addiction will play with you and shred your pride as it has done on the past...thats why you are secretive because you know that explaining your actions is going to make it look like something took over and you were out of your mind.

We were all out of our minds. Im not scared of the mental term illness and serious addiction but some people are.

All the very best

Thank you for continued support and appreciate all your comments. You are completely right in what you say and I am not disagreeing with you. I have realised what the problem is and that's the addiction and does need to be blocks in place. But so far so good and I am going to go down the other avenues as you've mentioned. I'm getting married next month and with the Christmas period arising I'm in a place where financially I'm not exposed and the reason for the my secrecy is that I do not want to taint the run up to our wedding which we have both worked so hard for and also looking forward to so much. My partner has suffered with addiction before, not from herself but her mum with alcohol and I've massively let her down and know that I don't want to be the same as her. She is very supportive with everything with me and she is very strong but can easily become weak when the closet people around her let her down.

No this isn't my first time I have gambled. The debt on my credit card was around 2000 and on that day it shot up to as shown. I estimate to of lost about 50k over the last ten years. I've always thought it wasn't bad as it's never really held me back from doing anything or missing any bills etc. But what I have become capable of makes it very clear.

Hi onwards it always upsets me to read other people's stories who are a similar age to my own son. I used to think to myself that he wasn't as bad as other people after reading some horror stories but I was fooling myself and he was fooling himself and me by telling me £1200 was acceptable to gamble in one month! No it wasn't acceptable because that £1200 was supposed to pay bills, which then lead to payday loans to pay the bills which lead to a vicious circle of lying to yourself and others until you just can't do it anymore. It's a horrible addiction. My son is 90 percent better than he was twelve months ago after a very hard year for him and myself as his mother (the voice on his shoulder). I really hope you can stick in and achieve everything you want for yourself and your future wife, you have a lifetime ahead of you, make it count, please don't give yourself and your loved ones years of stress, worry and hardship because of gambling. Make your dreams a reality.

Well two weeks have now past. The habit of instantly heading to the bookies when near one is slowly fading away. It's hard and I want to gamble, but by not doing any at all makes it seem quite straight forward. My biggest problem was instead of trying to stop, was having a short break or thinking I will just gamble low stakes. However after a few consecutive wins the bets start getting bigger and that's when the losses quickly follow.