Hi,
I am a 20 year old student with a self-confessed gambling issue & wondering where to go from this point as my gambling addiction has peaked within the past year or so. I have always struggled with addiction whether it be on a positive or negative activity, I become obssessed with something & focus entirely upon that. I begun gambling shortly after it was legal for me to do so & at the beginning it wasn't a major issue, however, soon I began to chase the money I lost, hooked on the idea that it was possible & I've never been able to escape this cycle. Naturally, when I win I'm happy but when I lose I become extremely irritable & often find myself having to hide my inner frustration from those around me until I go to bed & I try to forget whatever losses I've inflicted upon myself.
I gamble virtually every day that I can on Football, I've always had a decent knowledge of football & so I'll gamble on any sort of stupid market or game & get a thrill out of it. My time recently has become more pre-occupied with gambling than ever before, today for example, I simply gambled throughout the day, waiting for each event & becoming bored whenever time became free. If there's a football game on TV, it is almost guaranteed I've bet on it. This is because I hit a decent win the other day & so I decided I'd have to bet on everything I can to hit more wins.
Often I am without the money to gamble, virtually all my money goes into gambling & I see little else worth spending my money on as I can't escape the feeling of wanting more & seeing the potential for more, often I gamble at the expense of other activities such as going out, there have been times I've decided I'd rather gamble than spend money on going out with friends & I'll choose gambling over buying food.
The size of my bets has increased, I bet on a larger quantity of things & with bigger stakes that I cannot afford to be doing. My shame comes particularly from the fact that part of the money that I am gambling is my parents as well as my student loan (I would estimate at least a third of my student loan in two years has been gambled). When I've ran out of money due to the fact I've thrown it away I'll often ask them to borrow money & it's deeply shameful however I feel as though it is a necessity for me to gamble the majority of the time as it brings me a false sense of pleasure. I cannot bring myself to admit the extent of my issue to my parents though, they are aware I gamble but not to the extent that I do, I cannot admit this to them given I am already a failure to them in my own mind & saying this to them would hurt them even more. How can a parent accept that their money is essentially being burnt 90% of the time?
It is far less often, however, I also have a problem with slots that has arrived ever since a few free spins turned into a £200 win, that put me under the illusion that this could happen often but this is obviously not the case & whenever I decide to play some slots for 'fun' I end up leaving the session extremely angry given these machines are devil incarnate & designed to take every last piece of your balance. I often wish that this never happened as those that control these online casinos reap the benefits of my addiction & I now find myself with a particular distain for whoever allows these to exist despite it being my own fault.
I'll often after a decent win go on slots as I think that money is expendable given it's already in the account (it doesn't necessarily feel like it belongs to myself at that point), however, once I'm down £10 I'm sat there chasing that figure back until I'm down to £0. In my mind, I would rather lose it all & try & hit big to win it back than allow the machine to take a smaller figure off me. I managed to escape this particular issue for a while as I'd managed to convince myself that they're a scam however I fell into this trap again earlier & the happiness that a win gave me was quickly deflated & turned into fury & self-loathing when I lost 3 figures simply trying to get back to where I began.
Even when I win, I withdraw only about half of the money & you can guarantee that I'll have already deposited five more times within a day when I've hit zero due to firing out bigger stakes & wanting to gamble on more things. It is embarrassing to even look at my bank transactions as 95% of it is me depositing into a betting account & never seeing it again.
At 20 it is a sad/pathetic state of affairs that I am focused upon gambling more than anything else, however I am not sure where to go. I do not feel as though I have it within me to quit gambling entirely as it brings me such entertainment watching a game of football with money on but I am aware that I somehow need to control this before I have the potential to do serious financial harm when I am older. The idea of talking to someone has never particularly appealed to me, I've had close ones insist I see a doctor regarding my mental health however I simply refuse because I act under the pretence they cannot help & it's a waste of my time.
Has anyone else experienced gambling addiction at such a young age & what action did you take?
Hi Connor1996
Welcome to the forum and for realising you have a problem with gambling, you have taken a big step in coming on here and posting on this forum. Like most people our gambling starts at a young age and for many years we are in denial that gambling is a problem in our lives. The one thing I will say is that now a days you can gamble anyhow or anyway nowadays on almost anything and this is where I think the problems now lie. You are at an age where you are young enough to make your life very good if you WANT to stop gambling now, albeit it's not easy in those early days and no doubt you feel very ashamed and embarrassed about your gambling addiction? I would contemplate letting your parents know of your situation as I'm sure they might be angry straight away but you are there son and I'm sure they will help you as much as they can ! Have you tried ringing the gamcare helpline and maybe see about some councilling sessions and also maybe see if there is a GA meeting anywhere near you as you will find these very helpful as it's a group of people with the same addiction/illness as yourself. Hope this has being of help to you and I will look out for future posts.
"It's good to talk and take it one day at a time"
All the Best
Darren
I am very recently in recovery from online gambling addiction so I understand all you have said. I am however also a parent of a 20 year old and it would break my heart for them to go through this alone. Please tell your parents. Us parents are tough cookies with a wealth of experience and you will be very surprised what they can deal with. Drugs are a parents worst nightmare, gambling can be dealt with. I'm nearly 40 and I had to tell my mother as I ran out of options financially but more so as I needed help to stop. She removed the security number from my debit card and keeps check on my finances, it's helping. More over this addiction thrives on secrecy, tell your parents and give yourself a real chance of quitting. You are very young and if you deal with it now it will become nothing but a bad memory, a blip. If you try to go it alone you will simply be lead into new lows that will be much harder to recover from. Keep posting, you are not alone in this and give good thought to telling your parents.
Hi I gambled when I was your age, I regret it now. It is wrong on so many levels :
a) when you are young there is too much fever, impulsiveness & lack of self control to gamble successfully. As you get older there is more cynicism, less enthusiasm, more wisdom you can more easily get to the point where you can take gambling or leave it. You learn that the wise choice is to leave it. As Jack Nicholson said in one flew over the cuckoo's nest, you should be getting out there ' ****ing beaver ' having experiences forming hopefully life-long relationships not sat in front of a screen enabling yourself to be ripped off.
b) when you are young you should be spreading wings expanding gambling does the opposite; your life and your head space narrows down to the screen / site you are on & the football match you are watching. It's like a virtual heroin, an escape. You should be living life - real life - not constantly preoccupied about whether the odds on Liverpool say to win are good value. Good value very rarely occurs probably in less than 1% of football matches & in your youth you don't have the patience to wait for those rare opportunities, so you will never win. If you won't win then what's the point ?
c) you should be prioritising going out with friends over gambling ; like any addict you become miserly if your 'gambling money' is at risk of being used up by something else. Think about how one-faceted this makes you. You should be growing, not receding.
d) The reality is that even through your preoccupation / 'knowledge of football' you became lucky or wise enough to win in the long run, i,e. 3% on turnover on average, how much poorer would that make you as a person, for the sake of a few quid ? you would be so obsessed with it, so single-pointed, that you would be much poorer in the genuine ways : in terms of yourself & your life & your wellbeing becoming so limited - would it really be worth it ? of course not. Look up Dr Faustus.
e) didn't you enjoy football when you were a kid, before you had internalised the concept / delusion of 'i'll only enjoy it if i have money on the outcome' ? so don't kid yourself. Don't do imaginary bets either, if you can't watch a big game for its own sake then it's your gambling that has ruined it for you. That will improve in time, i.e. if you stopped betting you would be able to enjoy a match for its own sake after a period of abstinence. You would be enjoying it in a pure form, not a corrupt one.
So please think about the path you're heading *down*, as it is filled with suffering, isolation, endless repeated disappointment, futility, false idolation. The more you gamble the more your 'real life' will suffer as the more energy, time and money you put into gambling, the less you will put into life. The less you put into life, the more you will want to gamble, until you are at the bottom of the whirlpool of your own self-destruction.
Hi Connor,
I myself have 'Pure O' it's a form of OCD. I only found out I had this 4 years ago and I've had it all my life. I'm 30 now, the way you explain that you get obsessive over things, good or bad, sounds very much like myself. I won't go into my mental health issues etc, but I've obsessed over lots of horrible things. Had panic attacks and so on.
I think speaking to a doctor is a good idea. Not for the gambling (obviously a problem) but finding the root cause may help you understand why you feel the way you do? There is so much advice on here too. Hope you get the help you need. : )
Kirsty x
Thank you all for the replies.
I am generally in agreement with all that has been said, the hard part for me is accepting that my day to day life can exist without the entertainment that gambling mainly falsely provides me. I would love to be one of these people who could go on having a bet on for fun & move on quickly if it wins or loses in a sensible manner but it seems though my disposition means this will never be achieved & it's all or nothing.
I hit some big wins again over the past two days & withdrew a huge chunk but couldn't bring myself to withdraw it all & so left £100 in, this lasted a very short time as I then went & wasted it all on a pointless game that I built up to be incredible it my mind. There's a massive truth to the point about me lying to myself in seeing value however I can't seem to reverse this mindset & bet sensibly. I would love to be able to get to a point whereby I see betting as an activity you only engage in for fun & when there's actually value, is this ever possible for an addict though from the position of who someone who has been through it?
I plan to inform my parents somewhat & possibly talk to someone qualified as I don't have any plans to become the sad middle-aged man sat in the corner of a betting shop wasting his days away. The best means of convincing me to quit or at least bet like a normal person is by acknowledging the downfalls of those who have been in my position & so the advice is much appreciated.
It is also probably a good idea to consult a doctor as well as evidently I have a disposition for whatever reason to becoming addicted.
The irony to it all is that I'm someone who is currently studying addiction & yet when you're in the position yourself you feel helpless & clueless in confronting the issue.
How's it going Connor?
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