I feel terrible today, i have urges all over the place to gamble and i don't know how to fix it...
As background i've been as addicted a gambler as you can be, this is currently my second major break from Gambling and ive currently lasted either 32 days or 21 days depending on your definitions with only 1 relapse from the beginning of the year.
For the first time ever i had someone who i felt special enough to confide my problems in but she is going through a tough time of her own and i can't really load this on to her at the moment.
Its amazing that for the past decade i've always been about 50-60 days from being very well off and now thats come around i was able to make a large repayment to the c£15k of debts i have. I don't know if its a lingering feeling that i now link paydays with sadness, ie money usually all gone a few days after payday but having paid off one loan from Amigo i don't have a feelgood factor to it. I feel like i've got a similar amount of money to spend on a month from my gambling days as i probably overpaid off the debts (thinking i didn't want to have money to tempt me overly) and im finding it hard to congratulate myself.
My best friend is also probably addicted to gambing and when i asked him for help at lunchtime as i was struggling with the urge to bet on inplay football his honest response was to ignore that and bet on the tennis. That made me more sad that he couldn't understand the difficulties i was having.
I don't know what anyone can say but at least the 15-20 minutes writing the above helped while away some more time...
How have other people coped around paydays and repaying debts, any tips or tricks?
Hi HeroPanda,
I am new to this website myself but through calling gamcare and having a chat with them, I have definitely noticed that I am feeling a lot more positive about the prospects of curbing my gambling addiction which has well and truly ruined my finances.
I just wanted to let you know, you are not alone, trying to curb your gambling habits when people aren't supportive of your addiction is a lot harder than people may think. In terms of sorting out my finances, I have actually done this the other way round, sought advice to sort out my finances before sorting out my addiction but I am currently in the process of paying back through an IVA.
My recommendation to you would be to contact the National Debtline who will be able to listen to your story and put you in contact with the right people. If you have debt via credit cards etc, they will be able to consolidate all of them into 1 monthly payment which will be distributed accordingly with your creditors. It's easier to manage and after 'X' amount of time, you'll have paid your debts off.
That's all the advice I can give you for now but if you need anything else, I'm here to listen and hopefully can help you!
Chin up and be strong! You can do it!
Thanks for your response Tavey88.
I'm feeling a lot better about things and i didn't do anything stupid so that was indeed a relief. I've just been shut away in a work event in a hotel in the middle of nowhere with poor internet connection so that was probably a blessing in disguise...
I've always tried to keep my payments up to date so aside from a coupld of defaults about 4 years ago, to the outside world my finances probably look quite good. If i don't gamble i don't remotely struggle to keep up with repayments so the IVA route probably wouldn't be suitable.
I think the main problem when i wrote initially was that i had paid off more than i should this month as i didn't trust myself not to gamble, this left me with a feeling like although i was beating the addiction that i was still suffering with a lack of funds as i have been throughout my darkest hours. I would guess the learning point would be to trust myself more each month but to be conscious that these things can sneak up on you at any time and for me payday really is a trigger for a lot of emotions.
Really appreciate the time and effort to reply and i'd be happy to offer you the same type of support if you ever need it!
Cheers
I am totally with you on this one. Had a few urges this week but stayed strong and come out smiling in the end. I am much happier without gambling and I know that I feel less dishonest and deceitful by not gambling
Gambling is evil!
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