First day on Gamcare....

My husband gambles and whilst I try to be supportive of his efforts to overcome his addiction, the thing that makes me the most angry is that one day he will force me to take the decision to leave him. It's not the bank accounts and money that will cause this to happen, but the lack of communication, deceit and lies. These destroy the trust and respect between us. Maybe your wife is waiting for you to show her that you want a relationship with her more than you want to gamble. Why do you want to stop gambling? Because she told you to or because you want to? It's interesting that your post is all about what you won't do, what will you do?

More practically counselling, identifying your triggers, reading some of the excellent books out there and taking all the support you can get will help. Oh and open communication. Good luck - truly acknowledging the problem is not easy.

Tell me to get lost if you feel the need to but it sounds a bit like your wife is telling you to stop rather than you wanting to you. In my experience that is not a recipe for success. Most people would say that blocking access to your account/s is one of the first steps and not a longer term goal. Not being negative but its pretty easy to draw this conclusion.

Agree. Sorry you saying this

'Only restriction are that at the stage I am neither prepared to disable/block my ****** account or share my online bank account with her'

means that you don't want to do this 'nonetheless want to show willing and make her feel that I am prepared, which I am, to take this seriously'

All the 'small incremental steps' are you making sure that you can still gamble.

Thank you "Tryingtobesupportive", I appreciate your honesty and much of what you say struck home...maybe because it sounds all too close to home.

Thank you too DeLorean...appreciate your candour.

Thank you too Dot83....seems I have some re-assessing to do and have a more flexible attitude. I guess my starting point is I don't want to throw away my mararriage, whereas, it should probably be that I wnat to give up gambling!

I will freely admit that when I had to stop - for my own sanity as well as financial reasons - I resented it. In my mind I enjoyed gambling and it felt like losing a favourite toy but ultimately that is just part of the delusion.

There are too many genuinely desperate people on here to indulge those just playing at trying to stop.

Hi DeLorean...I would ask you not to judge me so quickly when all you have to go on is my initial post...believe me I know a lot about the financial ruin gambling can bring, I understand all about chronic stress related illness and the mental health implications, including intense feelings of guilt and self loathing, that are part and parcel of being a compulsive gambler. The intention of my post was to introduce myself and look for some support...I have been surprised by the tone and judgement of some of the responses.

I doubt you would be posting on here if you didn't want to address your gambling problem in someway 🙂

I have personally found unless you put every barrier in place to stop gambling it won't happen and I found a way back to gambling because of this.

So I guess my advice would be admit to yourself you have a problem and you are beaten, let go of the money you have lost so you can move forward and put as much into recovery as you possibly can i.e. self exclusion, handing over finances, distractions....

one day at a time you can beat this forget long term targets for now as you can only beat this illness/addiction in the present one day at a time...

Anyway wish you the best on your journey.

Thank you StoneRoses for your open and honest words. I have put more detail on a separate thread I stared a couple of days again entitled "hello" (original hey) on the new members board...appreciate my goals stated there may be ambitious but right now that is how I view things...I expect my outlook will change of the coming weeks during my conselling sessions!

Hi Paul,

Sorry if my tone seemed off. It's just that a) having been there done that and b) seen many people doing the same things , the 'incremental approach' doesn't work 99% of the time. I've done it myself - been convinced I wanted to stop and put what I felt was 'enough' in place to stop me. It always kept a back door open that enabled me to gamble. I think it's my/your subconcious ensuring that you aren't blocked completly. Go through my posts and look at my first couple to see how naive I was about having some control. Things are a lot worse now but I have stopped.

You will have a much better chance if you block yourself. Even better if you share finances with your wife. People are only being harsh because they have seen it all before, in their own lives and other members of this fourm.

Stoneroses has written it a lot more eloquently than me!

Whatever you do I wish you the best of luck.

Can any one help me stop gambling ? I'm gunna lose my family

Callum1066 - loads of help on here for you, everyone is different though so would have to know a bit about your situation before giving advice.

I guess there are a few things you can do to start.

Self-exclude - if you gambling is online, self-exclude from all the online betting sites you can, even ones you've not yet signed up for

Money - can you trust a family member/ loved one to help you look after your money and only give you enough to live on so prioty bills/debts get paid.

GA/Counselling/GamCare - get as much support as you can from places like these, there are 1000's of people going through the same thing and can help each other through it.

Family - can you tell your family? It's different for everyone but most are scared to death/ashamed to tell anyone, but when they do it's often such a weight of your shoulders and met with love and support.