The last straw

Hi everyone,

I woud like to share my story. It is probably very smilar to everyone's. I am 26 years old.

I began gambling in March 2011. I remember my first bet was an accumlator on Premier League darts. I put £10 and won £40. I thought "Wow this is easy". I withdrew the winnings and was very happy. Next week I placed another bet on the darts. This time I lost. I shrugged my shoulders and said I was still in profit from the previous week. Throughout the year I began to gamble more frequently, mainly on football matches. These were largly small bets around £10-20. Around October, time I was flicking through the TV stations and I stumbled upon Horse Racing at Doncaster. There was a horse called Camelot and it was around Even money. I don't know why but I decided to place a bet on it. The horse won so easily. The jockey was never off the bridle. I thought "Wow this is easy money". From that day I have been hooked on horse racing. The bet's started getting bigger and bigger. £20 to £50, £50 to £100, £100 to £200. I received my bank statement around Christmas time. Opened it up and I had lost around £4,000 in 2 months. I forgot to put the statement away and my dad seen it. When I came home he asked me about my gambling. I broke down and admitted I had a problem. He then told me he has his own problems gambling when he was my age. He told me to quit immediately.

I did quit, but only for a month. Up until April 2014 I basically gambled everything I had earned. I had little to no money. I never went on holidays because I couldn't afford it. On of my lowest points was in July 2013. I got on one of those rare runs. By the end of the day I had won £7,000. I remember sitting with a box of pills in front of me. I was ready to end it there and then. For whatever reason I could not go through with it. I thought of my family and the pain I would leave behind. So I decided to stop. I self excluded from all the sites I was signed up to. I saved a bit of money up. Until October came; I signe dup to another site and I lost everything again. I just felt empty this time. Again I tried again to quit., self excluding from the latest site I had signed up to. I lasted to April 2014. Again I lost everything after joining another site.. I then got a flat tyre and needed to pay for a replacement. I was fortunate enough I got paid that day and I could pay for this. I don't know why, but it hit me there and then that I needed to stop for good. I went onto all the online companies and self excluded. By this point I had lost £28,000 in 3 years.

I did not miss gambling at all. I was a happy person again. I had money to start travelling around the world. I had money to buy the things I always wanted.

However, once a gambler, always a gambler. In March this year the dreaded Cheltenham festival was now on. I had thought I had been self excluded from all gambling sites. Unfortunately there were about 10 new sites online from when I quit 3 years previously. The rollercoaster had begun and in two months the I had been derailed. I lost nearly £16,000 I had saved up in the 3 years. I self excluded from all these sites yet again apart from betway which had a "Cooling off" period. From May to the middle of August I had managed to save £5,000 again. But once again I decided to have a small bet on the PGA Championship. The last two weeks do not seem real. I had managed to win £4,000. I withdrew it and felt very happy. I had even considered contacting betway to self exclude at this point. But I didn't. Gambling had took away my control again. I am back to square one. No money again. I self excluded from betway yesterday.

I have long been a lurker of these forums. However I don't feel like I can talk to anyone in my family. They are totally oblivious to my problem and I don't want to upset them. I feel ashamed of what I have done. I hope writing this down can be some kind of therapy to help me get on the right path. Reading other people's stories has comforted me and gave me some hope that I can get better. I have to accept that money is gone and will never be gone. I cannot change that. But I can change the future. I have no debts which is a good thing I suppose.

P.s. my gambling has been exclusively online. I have never been in an actual bookmaker shop.

This is day 1 without gambling.