Ahhhh

Hi walks,

I can really relate to everything you've just said right now, it can feel unbearable !

I really hope you get through tonight without gambling, hopefully coming to the site instead will help you

Also well done on the 99 days its so tough when your mind makes you just want to through it away even though deep down there's a part of you that really doesn't want too

Lou x

The thing is Walks15 we don't really need to gamble but it creates a sense of excitement, entices you in and the compulsion is strong. I gave up for a year once. I felt completely free from it and hadn't considered placing a bet. I bumped into an old friend who knew me when I gambled on the horses and he liked a bet too. He started talking to me about horse racing and after leaving him I couldn't get it off my mind. I started gambling again and looking at the form. It created a strong trigger.

I've thought about the motivating factor and ultimately it's money. If you could pick money like fruit, from an ever replenishing secret money tree, hidden in the forest, would you use it to gamble or would you revisit the money tree the next day to pick more?

Take the money away and gambling becomes redundant. Often we don't need the money if you draw a line under it and just live within your means. It's the addiction that feeds it, but the addiction is motivated by money. I personally couldn't get addicted to winning marbles for example. 

Recently I've been chasing losses and I've come extremely close a number of times to pulling it off. I'm going to draw a line under it tomorrow and move on. 

There's been times when I've written down a selection of horses, thought about doing a £10 accy, decided not to and the return would have been into the 10's of thousands. It drives you mad. Then the day you do it they do nothing. But when you stop and think about it, it doesn't change daily life. You still have to go through the same routines. 

The only difference is, when you gamble a part of you is imprisoned in a game of chance. It's that preoccupied, absent feeling that is so damaging because it stops you from living life and experiencing the things you are missing, because your mind is consumed by the 'what if' constantly.

As soon as you place a bet a part of you is lost waiting for an outcome, that governs your mood.

We fight for freedom, then imprison ourselves. It's crazy.

I don't want to be motivated by greed anymore or controlled by an addiction. It's pathetic. That's what I will tell myself if I get tempted.

@Lifeisstrange - Good points there. It also doesn't matter if you win or if you manage to win that big bet, because it will never be enough for the addiction. Yes it may be a great win but ultimately you will want more, and then you will spend those winnings again. Whether it's right then and there, the next day or the following week. Gambling, with an addiction, is a game you can never ever win. It is not a level playing field and we will lose 100% of the time, even if small wins along the way make us believe we are winning. That is why it is best to draw a line under it, as you have done, and stop chasing losses.

Every pay day each month that you don't gamble and you keep that money in your bank account is a win. Because you're not giving it to the bookies or casinos etc

Hi walks.

If it was easy to stop there would be no need for this site. The tragedy of a gambling addiction is that it often takes an immense rock bottom moment for people to start a recovery.

You need to reach out for proper reality checks and all the help you can get. Its a drug addiction more than anything. You cant have forgotten what gambling has done to you. It will do that time and time again so your thoughts are delusional to get an adrenaline or dopamine fix.

Tell people close what you have lost. Do you like throwing money away in the street because thats what you have been doing.

I fished old food out of a bin or lived for a month on Baked beans and cheap mayonnaise. The taste of 19p mayonnaise still haunts me now...its disgusting and I feel humiliated thinking about it now. I cant stress enough that one spoonful of that on stale dry mouldy bread was what I used to live on per day....You tell me what gambling had done to me....I was a broken man and a heavy drug addict for gambling at all costs.

I was a drug addict living in squalor. The crazy thing is I used to look down on other addictions and thought I was in some way having a normal life.

I was back doing it as soon as I had money again...it makes me shudder thinking about it now. My therapist agrees I was clinically depressed on a self destruction course and a serious gambling addict.

Dont live in a bubble....tell someone close and get your money protected. You need to remove temptation and protect any money you have

Gambling is NOT the answer...Its a MUGS game and you are ignoring the odds. Nobody has set up an income scheme for you...why do you think people go to work?

What are you escaping from? Gambling is not there to help you escape. Its a money making scam for hedge funds and rich millionaires. The people supposed to protect you from a scam are in on the take...You should be getting miffed  and building the strength to realise your only quality of life is abstention.

Best wishes from everyone on the forum

I would disagree with some who say that money is the main motivating factor. Its complex and money forms part of it but the money soon acts as a pre trigger acting as a cover for the stronger triggers.

How would you explain multi millionaires losing a fortune at the card tables for example? Its starts as enticement, a dabble or recreation  but the hook is in the act of gambling...the"thrill"of expectation. That could be the turn of a card, the spin of a reel or horses racing for the line.

This feeling is addictive. Its considered a drug high or an escape from normal life feelings. More studies are being done and the experts know its a highly addictive feeling or chemical soup created within the body.

Thats what we end up craving. This is mixed with wanting to get back at the gambling den or general jaded feelings about life.

Heres the rub. I was never gambling for anything that would have made a difference to my life. I ended up tens of thousands of pounds down in more recent years gambling. I dread to think what my gambling lifetime took from me. Real gambling scared me or just bored me. In that sense I was playing at gambling thinking I was safe but still losing a lot of money

How do you think I was ever going to get my losses back when I was just thinking a fifty quid "win" would do or facing the real odds of the maximum. Slot machines gave me my drip drip feed of my drug and the temporary escape I was craving.

It was actually very little to do with the money until I had none.  Even when I was twelve my pockets full of coins meant I could go back to the machine. The bulging pockets just meant machine time...I had no other plans for the money and that became a common theme over the next forty years

The money didnt matter as ultimately it was a cry for help if you understand that concept. I was lonely, I was self destructing and any other feeling from depressed numbness would do. Even the feeling of survival as I went to a soup kitchen was sometimes a new feeling that may bring hope or change to my sad life....its very difficult to explain beyond punishing myself for feeling so worthless and empty.

Nobody can tell me its an income scheme. Its risk all the way and all the risk is with you because the gambling den is essentially a large hedge or spread fund. They wouldnt take any bets that would worry them but we lay our housing and food money on the line. We gamble our dignity, self respect and relationships away like there is no tomorrow.

An extremely dangerous addiction. Im saying that if it was just about the money it would be far easier to stop

Best wishes to everyone on the forum