Hello,
I am a gambling addict. On the last calender year I have lost more than 30000 euros on casino games/sports betting. I was studying last 3 years and I had been taking student loan which is currently around 12000 euros. Every time I got a part of the loan I instantly paid my bills and gambled the rest away, leaving me with little money to spend on food or any other necessary things. After graduating last July I got a part time job which will end on June this year. I have been gambling away most of my money every pay day, most recently this friday I lost almost everything I was paid. My student loan is scheduled to be paid back in 2025 and the first payment is in January 2020 and from then on that will be a monthly routine to pay it to the bank. I am very worried about my future since I cannot continue at my current job for a personal reason after June and have no job after that. I hope to save up some money from now till June and I will hope to keep everyone here updated how my recovery goes. If anyone has any good tips how to stay off the gambling books feel free. And sorry about my bad english, it is not my mother language.
First step was taken today, I somehow managed to save at least 200 to save for food before the next pay day which is 16th of March. This is big for me as I usually gambled every single euro I had left on my bank account, hoping to continue from here.
day 2, I have already (kind of) failed. Today I had an email pop in which offered free spins on a site I used to play for free so being me I went over and played the free spins without depositing anything, managed to somehow win 33 eur and it felt like a jackpot and ended up withdrawing it. What do you think about free spins which you get randomly even without depositing anything, do they help you stay off the deposits or do they make you feel like gambling more of your own money.
TLDR; played free spins which cost nothing and won some money.
No free spins. that kind of thing leads to more involvement usually, I think. My experience is that my gambling escalates even with entertaining the idea of doing it in the way way future at some point. Just gotta forget about this activity and the damage it causes. okay? tara2
Thank you tara, I am certain you are right and from now on I will be staying off anything gambling related. Next big test is gonna be on 16th of March when the next pay day arrives, no gambling today hoping to update the next friday.
I used to think that free spins or loyalty points/cash back etc was fine as I wasn’t depositing my own money, but you will never always win from this money. Once you have played and got a taste and lost with free money your 99.9% likely to then deposit out of your own money. Even if you kept winning for a while it’s continuing the dangerous thought process gambling creates and you are still deep in an addiction. You need to break free completely. When I have had a bad day I used to use free play on sites to try and control the urges, but what’s the point in continuing like this. Breaking free means to stop gambling in any shape or form, and get on the road to recovery. I have not stopped gambling completely for a long time, but something has switched on in my brain this time. I want to fill my head with books, board games, socialising and playing with my children. If you stay away from gambling you can start to regain a healthy mind, and realise the simple joys in life again that gambling shuts out.
Fully agree with the above comments. particularly echoing Hopeful25's comments.
Playing with free spins is inviting the mind to get dependant again on the feelings it creates in the brain when winning... so is actually poison if you want to stay away. For me personally, when I lose (even if it's money made from free spins), I would feel bad and want to instantly get back to how much money I had when I felt "good" i.e. the highest amount. So I would deposit money and use the Martingale system, i.e. if I won £30 using free spins, but then lost all of that (whether quickly or slowly), I'd then deposit £15 and spin on red on roulette or something to try to get back up to £30 (which is daft anyway, as I'd only be £15 up as I would've spent £15 of my own money... but the balance would say £30, which tricks the mind into forgetting how much you've deposited to get that balance). But often doing that £15 spin wouldn't work (I'd lose of course) so then I'd feel like I was £45 down. So then I'd deposit £45 to try to instantly win it back, then I would probably lose that.... and .... you can see where I'm going with this.
Instantly, you're back in the routine of gambling again, trying to chase your losses to get back to that "high". At least this is often my experiences, and I expect it is the same for others too.
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