2015 Challenge

Checking in for week on day 96.

Feeling really secure at the moment and looking forward to Sunday for a 3 figure milestone and this site has been a major factor in me achieving this the diary section particularly so thanks to all that contribute to making this site how it is.

Hi,

I would like to join the 2015 challange, I am an Online Slot Addict but am free for 4 days now.. I am new to the forum so really hope that the advice I am getting here is the help I need.. It really is good to talk!!

Clarance

Hi Glads dad checking in doing fine, I'm really happy with where I am at the moment with my position.. Feeling stronger daily.

Good luck to all have a great week wether you are a newbie or a veteran

Cheers

Good luck to all newbies and

Hi,

Im James and new to this forum starting right now. Just had my last depressing evening watching money go down the drain and have now had enough of it so did some research and came across your forum. Im 22 and at university and have been gambling regularly since I was 18. Am a massive sports fan so my main problem has been with football/racing betting although there have also been countless times where ive been sucked into roulette and blackjack binges on lunch breaks at work. I tried to give up gambling for good about a year ago and lasted a few months before falling back into the same old habits. gambling has had a massively negative impact on my time at uni, from not being able to go out with my friends by not having any money to giving me sleepless nights and days of worrying about how to escape this hole I have dug for myself. Not to mention its had a big impact on my studies as i spend most days in the library looking for the next bet rather than doing anything productive. have managed to dig myself into even more debt as a student than i already would have been in and now that im close to leaving uni its really time i sorted myself out and kicked this habit. hope to complete this challenge with you guys and have a bet free 2015 from NOW.

james229 and Clarance123 welcome to the challenge, you have made your introduction, now all you need to do is make a check in post before midnight on Saturday and you will be added to the challenge and checked in. Have a read all the way through this thead to see how it works and also to pick up some valuable tips to help you in the early days of recovery. The weekly updates always contain something I feel will help. Theres so much more than gambling, we all deserve better, you've made the first step, keep it up and make this year your own!

Evening everyone. Today I'm 20 days gamble free and tomorrow I'll be at 3 weeks.

Feeling very low today as I'm seeing the toll my slip 3 weeks ago has put on my husband. He has actually gone to the Dr for help with anxiety and depression. I know that this isn't solely down to the slip I had, but that seems to have been the final straw.

Determined to have the strength to help him through it and keeping gamble free as stressful situations are a trigger for me, but I am determined I'm not going down that route again.

Hoping tomorrow will be a better day for us all.

Stay strong and remember together we can do it

I posted earlier in the week but that wasnt an official check in. So checking in now on day 57.

Checking in on day 46 been busy this week so found it much easier than last week.

Keep going strong all and welcome to the newcomers, hopefully the forum will support and inspire you as it has me.

Checking in on day 62,I ve been busy for the last two or three days planning my daughters 3rd birthday party which was yesterday. It's these events in life that seem to pass you by without a care sometimes whilst gambling. myself I have missed, or at least been in gambling haze in numerous of life milestones, but recovery has made life better.

Hi all, thanks so much!

Tomorrow I will have a few hours spare where I will write a bit about my past and also what has really helped me get through in particular the bad times! I do have my own thead should you wish to read but by 10pm tomorrow evening I will definitely write on this thread, its the least I could do!

Kind Regards

Krishan

Bornagain wrote:

Big well done to Krishan for 600 days today. Please can you find time at some point this week to let us know more about how you beat your problem and what has worked for you and helped you reach such an impressive tally!

TickFollowsTock, well done for being brave and doing the right thing mate! The easiest thing is to walk away, but you came back and posted which shows us all that deep down you want to beat this and have it in you to beat this. It took me a few slips last year to get to where I am now and I'm currently feeling in a better place than ever before. Focus on what it is that made you slip and putting stronger barriers up so it doesn't happen again. Keep your chin up pal!

sonic boom, I've seen all the ads and they are incredibly insulting, no bookies ever helped me or knocked back my bad bettys. Nor did they stop me gambling when I was angry or frustrated. The fobts are not designed for fun punters, they are designed to suck people in and bleed them dry. How on Earth can allowing someone a 100 pound spin be classed as fun?

Keep the check ins coming in troops!

Scrap the above, have a spare 10 minutes now 🙂

Just an update on how it all started for me and where I am on my road to recovery. It all started at 18 first going to university. Online gambling seemed so accessable and i thought nobody could ever know I was gambling. I was very lucky in the respect my parents paid my first year accommodation up front so i had no outgoings. Started with £5/£10 football accumulators and for the first year or so kept the stakes the same and probably broke even/made a slight profit.

Second year of university came, saved quite a lot from year one which I always vowed never to touch. Stakes started to increase over time and broadened my horizons to tennis as it was always a sport I loved so I thought a quick way to make cash was to bet on a player to win a service game, for example, set one game 5 winner. To me at the time seemed logical because I could back £80 on the server holding at odds 1/4 for example. With this stupid theory I thought I could easily make back what I lost on football accumulators. This got progressively worse and thought the more I staked the more I could have won. Also each service game could be over as quick as two minutes so saw it as easy money. This only lasted so long when all my money in my current account had gone. I started digging into my £3,500 savings which lasted me until the end of my second year. That summer I vowed to stop because my year in industry was coming up which was a well paid job so this was my chance of a fresh start.

Placement year came where I secured a job for a chemical company for my year in industry, based in Frankfurt. Lasted about 3 months before I started to gamble again. I was stuck in a bad place mentally, didn't speak German, had no friends at all I'm Frankfurt and didn't feel I had anywhere to turn. I gambled every evening to pass the time. Again I was lucky as my rent was free as I lived on site so again had no outgoings whatsover so really I thought I had nothing to lose as I had a roof secured over my head. Payday would come and I would buy a big shop so I knee I would have food in the cupboard however the rest of my wages would be gone in hours. I went through a period of then thinking when next payday come if I just make £10 a day that's at least £300 a month..how hard could that be. That's when I started taking out payday loans to fund my habit. Managed to take out £2000 of payday loans in a month and thought I could make a profit and if not I could just withdraw what I deposited and pay the interest from my wages. Some months this was fine when I had a good few days so came out of the end of the first month with a profit. Next payday arrived, same story lost all my wages so turned to payday loans and was entitled to more. Lost all that and was at an all time low. Set up a payment plan with the lenders and paid off a bit a month however every payday would come where I ensured I still hand funds to gamble.

My year placement was over and just about paid off all my debts that I owed. Arrived back to my original home in Wales in July 2011 and first thing I did there was secure two summer jobs, one working at a 5* hotel and other working nights stacking shelves at sainsburys. In total I would earn and £1700 a month and did that for three months. I then quit the hotel job and got transferred stores with Sainsburys to the Huddersfield store where I was studying. With the money I had saved that summer not gambling I managed to pay for my first two rent installments and still had some saved for a rainy day.

This was my final year of a Chemistry could so i knew this was going to be tough! So my first term student loan came and went about a month without an urge to gamble..so far I had gone 121 days a thought this was it now..I'm never going back to the place I was in. I was exhausted working two jobs all summer and thought all that hard work must count for something. Slowly the work load increased, pressure from fellow students for my help increased and felt increasily stressed to keep everyone happy. I made absolutely no time for myself and got to the point where I couldn't face the world so locked myself in my room for days on end. This is when thoughts creeped into my mind about gambling as I would complete and submit work early so had evenings completely free. Unfortunately I returned to gambling with initial small £10 deposits then same old story , stakes increased, losses increased. What drawn my to online gambling was the secrecy about it all and the fact I didn't feel I was physically losing as I never saw the money I had lost..to me it just seemed like a number..almost as if it wasn't real. Went down the same route of payday loans/ payday wages being lost on gambling..maxing out my £5000 overdraft and £1500 credit card. I was at an all time low..managed to stay focussed and graduated with a 2:1 in the end but I wasn't happy within myself. All income I had would go straight in gambling. Again payment plans were set up and then I secured my first job relating to my degree which was well paid and this was the boost I needed. At this point I was living at home and had the oldest car given to me so I really had very little (but this turned out to be my saviour as it gave me desire to work towards a new car and my own place)! Still I gambled every day but a little less as I ensured all my outgoings were paid and the rest I had would go on gambling. Got to the point in June 2013 where all my debts were paid off but was still gambling. I opened up to my girlfriend at the time, my family and friends and told them I had every intention to stop.

From that day, 27th June 2013 I didn't turn back! Been through a lot since..I was living in Cardiff and met my girlfriend (at the time) in a queue at the killers gig 5th November 2012 and she was behind me. We got chatting and one thing led to another. She lived in Plymouth and I was living near Cardiff so one weekend she would come up and one weekend I would go down. Opened up to her about my gambling problem a couple of months in (June 2013) and have managed to be gamble free since. Life was going well and in March 2014 we decided time was right to find our own place together. I secured a job in Plymouth and made the move in April. A month in and she ended the relationship with me, stating she wasn't ready for this after all so I was renting a house for us which had stay in for a minimum of 6 months and rent wasn't cheap. Times were tough, I had no connections down here and thought its only a matter of time before I turn back to gambling. The 6 months passed and thought I would move to a shared house where I lived for 7 months and the rent was almost half the price and was an opportunity to meet others. This month I have just embarked on a 1 bed flat that I am now renting which is bliss as I finally have my own space plus I turn 25 on Wednesday which is definitely something to look forward to! To me it is important to set yourself targets and goals with my next goal being the day 700 mark which will be close to two years!

One thing that has really driven me was reading about other peoples adventures and advice they have given on other forums. This thread I see as a big help to everyone also due to all of us having a slightly competitive nature which can drive us all on..its also a great way to pick people up when they are down. The first step for me was giving all access of my money to my parents, to this day I get them to look after my savings so I only live off enough to get by. I ensure all direct debits go out the day I get paid and that leaves me with enough for shopping and petrol for work for the month. Just sheer willpower and determination to keep strong has really driven me forward and also keeping busy with new hobbies such as baking, running, handball and basketball have all helped take my mind of the past and its nice to always have something to look forward to. I myself still have days where I have urges but its channelling that energy into something positive and really stay committed. I am in a much better place now than I have been since the age of 18 when I received my first lump sum of student loan with regards to savings, definitely slow and steady wins the race in this case!

Support from others and opening up to all my close friends has been influencial as they would constantly be on my case and make sure I am getting on fine mentally which has spurred me on to not only do it for myself but for them! If anyone has any questions feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them, I definitely feel I need to give something back because the support I have had from everyone has been sensational!

Kind Regards

Krishan

Hi James, can definitely relate to those experiences and was very much in the same situation as you. It maybe helpful to read the post I have just posted or my thread. Always here to help others.

Kind Regards

Krishan

james229 wrote:

Hi,

Im James and new to this forum starting right now. Just had my last depressing evening watching money go down the drain and have now had enough of it so did some research and came across your forum. Im 22 and at university and have been gambling regularly since I was 18. Am a massive sports fan so my main problem has been with football/racing betting although there have also been countless times where ive been sucked into roulette and blackjack binges on lunch breaks at work. I tried to give up gambling for good about a year ago and lasted a few months before falling back into the same old habits. gambling has had a massively negative impact on my time at uni, from not being able to go out with my friends by not having any money to giving me sleepless nights and days of worrying about how to escape this hole I have dug for myself. Not to mention its had a big impact on my studies as i spend most days in the library looking for the next bet rather than doing anything productive. have managed to dig myself into even more debt as a student than i already would have been in and now that im close to leaving uni its really time i sorted myself out and kicked this habit. hope to complete this challenge with you guys and have a bet free 2015 from NOW.

Wow what a brilliant post from Krishan to mark DAY 50 of the 2015 Challenge!!!!!!!!!! 50 days gone and so many amazing people going strong and making 2015 their year. The 50 days has flown by, 315 left to go in the challenge which will also fly by. By making that choice not to gamble for another 315 more days there will really be some amazing stories to tell come December 31st!

Krishan you have done yourself proud, thanks for sharing your story, keep it up pal.

Keep the check ins coming in troops, I'm checking in on day 81.

Checking in 124 days and 4 months without gambling.

Mba

Thanks very much, hope others can learn a little from my story and despite all the bad times I have also experienced great times! As the days go by you feel a greater sense of achievement which inspires me to keep it up! Definitely going to contribute more to this thread now I have WiFi again!

Kind Regards

Krishan