Brutally honest opinion please...

Hi Stop4Good,

I believe we're all solely responsible for our addiction. Your "friend" was in the wrong with what he did, but it was still you who chose to gamble. I'm definitely not one to judge and I would imagine many people on here would have similar stories to tell. When you lost that initial money, you went chasing with the £1500 you had. It was a mistake. No doubt about that. But don't beat yourself up about it. Move on and learn from it.

First things first. Dump this so called friend you have. He sounds like a nightmare and is a terrible influence on you. You're better off without him.

Then focus on your own addiction. Try and get to understand it. Have you went chasing like this in the past? Many addicts have the same problem. Not being able to accept any losses no matter how small. I remember losing £10 on a football match once, and before I knew it, I had lost over £1000 off the back of it. It's craziness. It's illogical. But this is what makes us addicts.

Maybe set up a diary here if you haven't before and keep track of your progress. It's really helped me and I've made a lot of inroads over the past few months in large part down to keeping track of my emotions.

Good luck buddy.

bad company destroys life , whatever gone has gone , don't think about that money , make some goods friends

I suppose the last thing i would tell myself, is never mind, or i won't do that again. I faced up to my addiction more than ever recently.

I do everything in my power to hate gambling, not myself. The truth is, as a habitual gambler, without seeking help. The 1500 quid you spent, was in fact destined to be gambled, think of it as an advance.

However, we all have relapses and feelings of negativity. That's what keeps us going back, we taste the lows to feel the highs.

My best advice to you, as I have found new ways to tackle my addiction, is read and research the problem of gambling. Youtube has some great clips, which will open your eyes to other peoples problems, at least then you will realise other people are in the same boat.

I used these two clips for inspiration, face up to the problem head on.

Search these clips on youtube.

*** C*****e of Gambling BBC Radio 5Live 15-05-2013

BBC Moving On - Punter - Part 1 Of 3. "watch all 3 parts"

both clips inspire me...good luck

My friend truly you speak of this so called "friend" of yours, I am 100% assured he had been a bad influence on you all the time, not just this time - the 30 pounds being fooled for basically.

I have a lot more stories similar to this one, when buddies from different casinos came up to me and asked for money promising to give them back, or I just gave money away when I was winning, and only then. I might have left the casinos on several ocassions giving out to personel and other people around more than 100 pounds. On one ocassion while winning i gave my brother without the slightest thought $500, which he gambled away in minutes.

I have been a heavy gambler and have lots to tell, i might just go and write a book about all this just to help others.

Getting back to the people who badly influence you, yes it is not their fault legally but morally and psychological they do actually make you gamble. Trust me my friend energy vampires, toxic people, people with low self esteem who try to pull you down just because you are doing well, all these losers can make us gamblers losers. Trust me my friend. I have had these feelings for way to long now and its no longer a coincidence or a thought its the reality.

Examples of times I went on to gamble after beeing clean for god knows how long at a time, once or twice 8-9 months. Having a bad time with friends, people who sucked the energy out of me, I having a low self esteem have chosen these people, and they were the only ones who i hanged out with, so I went on even though they were influencing me in a bad way. These were poisonous relationships for me. And almost every time i had a bad time with one of these so called "friends", I kinda felt a guilt, I thought of myself being guilty for having the fight or contradictory discussions etc. No, it is not guilt what we feel it is, but in fact its the low self esteem, which makes us anxious and is messing with our minds, therefore we must punish ourselves. We all know it gambling is well known among people with addictive personality disorders, depression, OCD, borderline, bipolar and many others. All these conditions give the false feeling of guilt and therefore we punish ourselves. Even though we are aware we are losing our hard earned money, in my case in hundreds of thousands, house, friends, self esteem etc. For me it is depression and i suspect bipolar type II, or borderline. Lows & highs when having money on my hands high gambling spending etc. lows when no money is available.

To get back to the point, sorry for making this long but your subject really touched me. Its not about the money, at least if you think about your case it was just 30 pounds, I say just because I as I've said before have had similar situations where a lot more money was involved. Yes people do influence you and a lot. I will end this by telling you a little personal story of myself and 2 people involved in my life who were very special people, at least I thought so at the time. Its my ex girlfriend who I've spent over 5 years with and my brother.

Well to make the story short, my ex girlfriend has always been, from the the start a very material girl and I having money on my hands and lots of it, out of my business was foolishly buying her expensive presents and taking her out almost daily to expensive restaurants, on vacations etc. Story to be short I was felt like i was being fooled but yet as money was not a problem i kept on doing it. And yes this made me feel through time that I was a loser and she did almost nothing for me. Everytime time we had a fight it was all about money, at least 99%, she only cared to be with the man who can provide even though she earned her own money . So I went gambling, question is was I afraid I would be fooled all the time and spend my money with her? Let it burn in them d**n machines. Now things are more clear to me. Well I will make this shorter about my brother, I felt the guilt of not providing for him enough, even though he never really provided much for me, and was very envious about my earnings. I gave him loads and more, buying him lots of expensive things and giving him money like I owed him something - self destruction. Total self destruction, this is the mind of the destructive person. If I had a fight with him I would just go on and gamble. If I had a fight with my so called friends I'd gamble if I had a fight with my gf I would go broke.

The advice I can give you is to not ever believe people don't influence (make you to) you to gamble or self destruct.

I have stopped gambling now for more than a month and dont believe i will gamble again, I just have this feeling. Money is also very short. I took up binge drinking for the past last year, when i have gambled on rare ocassions as usual but only lost about $25k, which is small compared to the previous 4 years, year overall. So I took up drinking because my gf has parted away seeing me down and suffering a lot. It is not worth it. Run from people like these as fast as you can and never look back.

To resume it all up, I am not guilty for being ill. Gambling and other addictions at a certain level are illnesses. Let's not allow other people make it worse for us, and find people who can support us & help ourselves in any way possible.

I wish you the best of luck. Just look around yourself whoever is there to support you (and you do not ever feel any guilt for anything you say to them or do - (but being a nice and honest friend ) those are your true friends and will stand by your side no matter what. For me truly nobody is there besides my mother at the moment, and I've had very bad times. Nobody is there any longer, but I am happy because I realize the fact that those people were a bad influence over me.

Cheers my friend , forget the 2k 20k 200k 2 million pounds. Make better choices and all will be fine, try to stay in control.

I am now staying in control from drinking, gambling, and toxic relationships, building back my life, my self esteem and overall building up my old self back.

Hope this helps.

Mods. Please delete, duplicate post. This refresh button is like stuck to my finger sometimes. Sorry 😀

Hiya,

What a cr*ppy night for you; you must feel terrible, and your "friend" is no friend at all - you must make him an ex-acquaintance as he stole that £30 from you. In my opinion you should let that £30 go, though, and just cut him off (think of it as a small price to pay for learning that this person is toxic), don't bother trying to get it back as it'll be all "oh, come out for a drink with me and I'll give you it" and the poisonous relationship will just continue. He doesn't deserve a minute more of your company.

However... that's where his fault ends.

(What "brutally honest opinion" is it that you want? I wasn't sure, reading through the story. Anyway, I'm going to give you one 🙂 and you must take it in the caring spirit in which it's intended.)

You say "After he left I wanted my £30 back. I had £170 on me, I couldnt handle leaving there £30 out of pocket... So I gambled..."

This is the huge red flag with alarm bells ringing and big blaring neon skull and crossbones flashing around it!! "I wanted my £30 back... I couldn't handle leaving there £30 out of pocket". Yes, you wanted it back, but you COULD have handled leaving without it - what harm would have come to you? What I'm trying to say is, if you stop and look at what your thoughts are doing here, they're telling you "I can't stand not having this £30". This isn't true, your thoughts are wrong. You will not die without that £30. If you can just take a minute to stop and challenge that thought of "I can't stand this, I HAVE to do something about it NOW", you will often find that you can stand whatever it is, and that by not acting on the emotion you're feeling, it will go away much sooner, without taking you into terrible consequences like those you ran into.

You say "The hole just kept getting deeper... Lost the entire £170. Then the next bit is kind of my fault." I can see that you are willing to take some responsibility for the awful night you had, but really it was the point BEFORE this that was where you went wrong. Buying into the thought that you couldn't stand losing the £30. With the best will in the world, mate, it was only the initial £30 loss (theft) that was not your fault.

I know you were basically stolen from, and led a merry dance by this "friend", and that is a seriously sh*tty way to feel - feeling ripped off, taken advantage of, all that AND losing precious money, is enough to make anyone lose their cool - I totally get that.

HOWEVER... I think one of the reasons we all get into this cycle of compulsive gambling is that we start running to gambling when we feel angry/disappointed/hurt/insecure/bored or any painful emotion you can name, and it's easy to blame someone else for triggering those feelings, but it's ALWAYS our choice to act on those feelings in the way we do.

I've really found it helpful to try to learn how to accept painful emotions while they are happening, and even more than that, to make sure I don't "buy into" my thoughts which tell me I have to act on them to "make them go away". The only thing that happens is that I feel worse, and it all goes on for longer, whereas if I had not acted and just managed to ride out the storm, the emotion ALWAYS goes away on its own.

This is getting long, but what I'm actually trying to say is, you are much stronger than you think. You CAN stand those awful feelings without turning to gambling, no matter what S**t he&ds like this "friend" put you through.

Gambling was not the answer to feeling bad about being stolen from. "Whatever your problem, gambling is not the answer."

Next time your mind is telling you to gamble because you think "but I can't stand this, I HAVE TO gamble", believe me, you CAN stand it (whatever it is). Your addiction is telling you to "run" back to your habit to "solve the feelings". But the feelings won't actually hurt you any more than you're already hurting, whereas gambling WILL. Don't make your life hell by following that thought.

I feel for you, I really do, but try to imagine looking back on this in a year's time and thinking well, that was an expensive lesson, but I really learned a) who I need to avoid and b) that gambling is not the answer, however I'm feeling, full stop.

Yours in sympathy and "tough love"!

FF

i wonder what it is about Gambling that creates the instant reaction to try win back money we have spent even not on gambling.

I can look back at so many scenarios over the years that have resulted in heft losses due to the fact that i wanted reimbursing for something that happened, and i know its some kind of emotional attachment that you need a counter reaction from.

For example, in the past if id been out for a meal ive not enjoyed, or out for a few drinks with my mates and not got drunk, or got an unexpected bill in that i hadnt accounted for, my 1st reaction used to be, i can win that easy....despite the huge overwhelming evidence that it never worked out that way.

Yes, half the time id win it, then think i can gamble the winnings and if that loses im no worse off, then re gamble the stake, then deposit more, then .. we you know the rest, we all do.