Hello
I haven't been here in quite some time now. I didn't gamble for about 3 years. It was sometimes in the back of my mind but generally all good. I got myself out of a lot of debt and for the first time in 15 or so years had some money behind me so i am more annoyed with myself than anything that i have let my guard down and got sucked back in.
This month for some reason i opened 2 accounts (i self excluded myself from one after winning my money back) on betting sites and started with small accumalator bets which as you probably know escalated into larger bets, £40-50 on over 1.5 goals in the first half type bets. Before i knew it i was down 1.5k then i got it back, then it went back down to 2k then won it back and i did this 2 or 3 times before last night i (hopefully) called it a day with a loss of about £1.5k, which to me is a huge amount of money. It hasn't left me in trouble as such as i have money in my bank so i don't feel as low as i have previously when i had lost 10k+ on a gambling binge. i have been trying to be positive on the inside, telling myself that money isn't everything and it's not worth the pain etc but truth is the losses have always eaten me up.
I am struggling with the thought that if yesterday morning when i woke up i had withdrawn the funds i would be all square. That's tearing me up a little bit but i also know it's not as easy as that. It's almost like i needed to lose to stop again. It makes no sense to me right now, that i would keep going when i had won back what i lost. Just to try and add a couple of hundred quid to my bank account. I felt really low this morning, but i know that it does no good.
I suppose im looking for some advice or explanations of some kind. I know everyone is fighting their own battles and many are harder than mine. I have been here before and in way deeper and darker so i suppose i can feel lucky as i type this i have no intnetion to try and win the money back. It's the times you're home on you own bored that are really tough as within 3 clicks you can be back in the game so to speak.
Starting again anyway, really dissapointed in myself that i am here again to be honest but i am, and it is what it is. The feelings of being a low life s**m bag are there but i am sure they will pass but i certainly am not feeling to great about myself again as with many people on here.
Thanks for allowing me to get this out of my head.
hello ringo,
I did the exact same thing last week.
Long period of control and abstainance, then for some unknown reason I went batshit crazy and dropped the motherload.
I've been analysing why I did it. We are all different, all have different triggers. But for me it was once I depostied and "broke the seal" so to speak I felt the rush of power. I just "knew" I would win.
When I didn't win I got annoyed and deposited again because I was brought up to believe "don't be a quitter" and also "if only people knew how close they were to success when they gave up, they'd try a little bit harder, push through, become winners".
This is great for life, but very dangerous when applied to a gambling situation.
So many times in the past when I used to gamble heavily I'd be £1400+ down, try a stupid last £100 and suddenly end the night 2k up! I'd go to bed thinking "thank god I didn't listen to that little voice inside me telling me to stop".
You understand?
Very dangerous. The only answer, for me, is to not start in the first place.
Use your loss as a great reminder from the universe why you shouldn't do it. Be grateful it was "relatively" small loss in real terms. Otherwise, I'll see you back here posting again in a few days/weeks/months saying "Oh if only I'd stopped after losing x, now I've lost x+xx+xxxxx, etc...
Wishing you strength. Mx
Molehole wrote:
hello ringo,
I did the exact same thing last week.
Long period of control and abstainance, then for some unknown reason I went batshit crazy and dropped the motherload.
I've been analysing why I did it. We are all different, all have different triggers. But for me it was once I depostied and "broke the seal" so to speak I felt the rush of power. I just "knew" I would win.
When I didn't win I got annoyed and deposited again because I was brought up to believe "don't be a quitter" and also "if only people knew how close they were to success when they gave up, they'd try a little bit harder, push through, become winners".
This is great for life, but very dangerous when applied to a gambling situation.
So many times in the past when I used to gamble heavily I'd be £1400+ down, try a stupid last £100 and suddenly end the night 2k up! I'd go to bed thinking "thank god I didn't listen to that little voice inside me telling me to stop".
You understand?
Very dangerous. The only answer, for me, is to not start in the first place.
Use your loss as a great reminder from the universe why you shouldn't do it. Be grateful it was "relatively" small loss in real terms. Otherwise, I'll see you back here posting again in a few days/weeks/months saying "Oh if only I'd stopped after losing x, now I've lost x+xx+xxxxx, etc...
Wishing you strength. Mx
Yeah you are right. it is the same feeling for me. I was willing goals to go in so i would win to get back to level terms. and when they came in the rush is amazing. i think if i was honest then yes the rush and the feeling of adrenaline is a little addictive maybe. i would spend 45 miuntes willing 2 goals to be scored. for some reason i felt these were 'safe' bets. at the end of the day i got greedy, either for the money or just the rush. either way it's something that needs addressing. i have a lot of really postitive stuff in my life, which makes me feel worse in some ways. but in other ways i am lucky and i haven't let it go tot the extremes i have previously. i will be emailing the online site to self exclude me. i asked one to do it for life and they said they could only do it for 5 years. that in itself is a scandal really. i do have a lot of resentment for gambling companies. i see a lot of bookies in poor areas with poor people making themselves even poorer. it's so wrong. i now ultimatelywe are all to blame as we make those decisions but it seems like there's little in place to stop these ocmpanies praying on weak (in terms of gambiling i mean) people.
anyway i am not going to lie i am sat here now missing the adrenalin and missing watching the computer screen waiting for goals to go in. but i am also very aware that i risk losing way more money, a lot of the confidence and self belief i built up the 3 years i didn't gamble and giving the absoloute filth that is the bookies more of my money. they've had a very good deposit for a house from me and i think that's enough. part of me says exactly the same thing you mentioned, don't quit, don't let it beat me as i don't let that happen in many other aspects of life but ultimately i'm getting repeteteively beat and even if i won 50k tomorrow i would start believing it could be a new carear path such is the wayward thinking that is part and parcel of gambling.
thanks for the words and keep on beating them by not depostiting a penny, i think that is the only way.
100% agree mate. Something else I've found though is that adrenaline rush can be found in other ways - even online sat at on the couch. Silly example, but if you're on Facebook, search for a girl you used to really fancy and send her a crazy message. The buzz you get when you see a message come through from her is similar. Or create an anonymous blog and write about everything you've ever wanted to say in one long post - Then when you start to get comments, there's a real adrenaline buzz - will they hate you, agree with you, etc.
Not in the same league as the gambling buzz, but I find it very similar - it's all about taking risk and hanging your a*s out there to be shot down. Win/Lose. Death or Glory, black and white thinking, etc.
Point is - there are similar buzzes out there to be had that don't involve losing money.
Mx
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