Hello folks. My last visit & chat on here was back in 2014. The last post I made was me looking to the future after realising the downward spiral I was in & finding a way out to better my life. Since then I have got married & have twins on the way due at the end of March. I have been fairly happy with my life since but one thing that has haunted me & that is my problem gambling.. It's not life threatening as such but it just causes so many issues I don't know why I put myself through it. I've been addicted to slot machines online for years now & while some wins have been decent, the losses as usual are way beyond that. Everytime I gamble I know I shouldn't be doing it & I hate myself afterwards. I've recently found a new form of gambling called forex trading. Basically I choose whether a pair of currencies such as GBP/USD will rise or fall & I know a few people who are literally rich from doing this so thought I'd give it a go myself. It works it really does but you need to have a lot of patience & self control. Greed is my worst enemy by far, I want money & I want it the quickest way possible. To cut the story short my dad took a loan out for me to pay off my credit card debts reducing my monthly outgoings & I pay him monthly in cash so my bank statements are clean not showing debt allowing me to apply for a mortgage again reducing my monthly outgoings. I can't stop myself gambling though & I got thousands in my account to pay off debts. I did pay off over half but then kept the rest to trade with allowing me to pay more debt off which would work is I was patient & not greedy. But greed got the better of me & now I've lost some of the money I needed to get rid of debts. This has made my situation worse so I'm paying my dad back & still credit cards. My wife doesn't know how bad my debts are nor does she know I still gamble. I've been lying to her for a few years now hoping I could pay off my debts before she would notice as we still have separate bank accounts but it hasn't gone to plan. I'm at my wits end I have no idea what to do.. if I come clean my marriage, relationship with my parents & life in general will be over. It's like inside I know I can stop myself gambling & for the few months I occasionally have stopped I have been happy with life, but for some reason I just can't. I'm not gambling for money to buy things, I'm doing it to hope for that one big win that will fix everything & get me out of debt. I NEED help before I completely ruin my life. I'm heartbroken & I know I have nobody to blame but myself.
Hello Beanbert,
I don't know your background story, only what you have written here. If i was to read this and judge from that alone (as i am) i would say it doesn't sound like you actually want to stop gambling. You just want to stop losing. You still see gambling as that ray of hope to you money issuses. You've simply found yourself another way to do it, maybe that made you feel a little better about what you was doing? Gambling is gambling and as compulsive gamblers we can stop if we allow ourselves to do it.
Telling people is a massive power against this addiction. The fact that you held information about debt etc back from the people you did tell kept it partially secret. If you don't allow people to see the power this addiction has over you, you might save them some worry in the short term but you take away their seriousness in the support you need from them. This is serious, this can cost you everything you have.
I would tell you you need to tell them. Wether you do is your choice. If you do, really tell them. EVERYTHING. You need to stop allowing yourself a way around this. If you really want to stop you have to show everyone you are doing everything you can.
You can beat this but only when/if you really want to. Facing up to debt is hard but we have to do it at some point. Don't let it get worse. Do yourself a favour and take all the help you need to beat this once and for all.
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