There's still a chance I'll win it all back

"There's still a chance I'll win it all back" - it's this belief that has ruined my life for the past 3 years...

From today, I'm putting measures in place to stop gambling (ever) again.

My realisation - I won't ever win it back. Even if I won loads of money, I would gamble it away again in my current state. The only solution is to accept I have lost a lot of money that I can never win back and just stop gambling (harder than it sounds I think).

Hi,

I'm Joe and today is my 26th birthday. It also happens to be the day I decided to join this forum in an attempt to break my gambling addiction. I've had a look around, and I already feel confident that I'm in the right place!

I've tried to quit a lot of times before (after each of these gambling milestones):

• Lose everything I've won
• Lose a weeks wages
• Lose a months wages
• Lose my everything I have including savings
• Lose the money I've borrowed from family and friends
• Take out a loan and lose that
• Lose my apartment (can't pay the rent)
• Lose the money I had for train fare to work
• Lose the money I had for food

"There's still a chance I'll win it all back"...

Recently I've hit a new low though, which has forced me to try something different as will power alone isn't working.

Incase anyone is in the same boat, this is how I noticed I was in a bad way -

1. Pop into the bookies while I wait for a train to my girlfriends house for a family meal
2. Rinse a months wages (on pay day) on the FOBT (playing all evening and missing the meal)
3. Ignore calls from g/f, go home, take out a loan for several more months wages and rinse all of that on slots
4. Spend the evening in tears asking myself why I keep ruining my life
5. Grab a knife, start playing with how deep I can cut my wrist before hitting a vein (I've never self harmed before)

This all seems overly dramatic now, but it still makes my stomach tighten thinking about it. I've heard depression & gambling sometimes go hand-in-hand, so I'm trying to address both in equal measure.

The steps I'm taking so far -

1. Talked to my GP about my depression & gambling addiction (on meds & might see a counsellour)
2. Self-excluded myself from everywhere I have ever gambled online (some are a real pain to do)
3. Join a forum with people going through the same thing
4. Having my wages paid directly to my girlfriend
5. Keeping track of how long I can go without gambling

I hope this will work better than just trying my best not to gamble.

Please forgive me for the stupidly long post, I thought it might help to transfer everything out of my head to somewhere I can revert back to it later.

Thanks for taking the time to click my intro!