New to this and in need of help

Hi Aaron, welcome to the Forum and thank you for sharing your story here,

Don't worry about your age my friend - this affliction is all relative; the only difference is that you have a chance to avoid turning this from a very painful life lesson, into something that blights your entire life.

Acceptance is key - if you win, it makes you crave more of the same, and then your previous, smaller stakes won't give you the euphoria that you want so badly (the money side of things becomes irrelevant), so you start spending more, which invariably leads to losing. If you lose, then you face soul-crushing desperation and anxiety to regain what you have lost, which invariably leads to losing. Gambling is a lose-lose scenario for you and always will be - there is nothing you can ever do to change that.

Not accepting what is happening, and the fact that you can't mentally process gambling, means you deflect the responsibility of your own actions onto others by taking your frustrations out on them - this doesn't make you a bad person, but gambling makes you act differently to who you truly are. I gambled for twenty years before stopping over five years ago; it made me a completely different person, and after a while, you begin to believe it, as you are starting to now my friend.

Change your way of thinking - winning money is effectively a mental form of poison to you; you want to believe it is the answer to your problems but your biggest win is your biggest nightmare, it only serves to drag you in deeper.

If you feel tempted, then ask yourself what you hope to achieve - if the best case scenario is losing when you walk into a Bookmakers or play online, then why play at all? What is the endgame?

Draw a line under what has happened my friend, then take some time to think about your future - there are a lot of open doors aged 20 my friend; they aren't always going to be there - push yourself to make some plans, push yourself to achieve what you want from life - don't let this drag you down to a point where you have lost more time, and more money that you can ever forgive yourself for; imagine if you were posting here again, aged 30 - there is no question it would have affected relationships, your work, your family and all the adventure and experiences that go with being young; you can't get that time back and I regret that far more than the £350,000 I lost, far more.

Take some time to analyze yourself very deeply; is there anything that drives you towards gambling? Is it boredom? The thought of free money? The thrill of the chase? Is there anything you can do to replace these feelings? The golden rule about urges is that they are only temporary, they soon pass, often much quicker than you think - in time, they will lessen to almost nothing if you maintain a zero tolerance approach.

Aaron, you seem like a good person my friend. Change your way of thinking as I said; nothing you can ever say, think or do will ever change the fact that winning money will ultimately take everything you hold dear. If you lose, at least you might stop at some point - don't allow yourself to believe or think any different; you are clearly better than that & you deserve more out of life.

JamesP

Thankyou for that James, appreciate it, is there any tips you have any sequences that you did or anything like that, that helped you or guided you in the right direction, because the thought of trying to stop is the hardest part to overcome and be able to walk past a bookmakers and not have the urge to go in there?

You're welcome Aaron, no problem at all.

You have to ask yourself what you are trying to stop; the urge that you are experiencing is based on a lie - that you can spend small, win big and walk away.

I received an unexpected bonus at work a while back; as daft as it sounds, I almost felt like giving it back because I didn't want to experience "free money" again; I fear winning money because I know what emotions it will bring out of me.

So should you my friend - winning money is your pathway to oblivion. Ask yourself, before you go in, are you prepared to lose everything you have on you and more besides? Because that is what will happen my friend - if it doesn't happen then, it soon will shortly after.

Run that over and over in your mind when you walk past and make sure you remember all the pain, sorrow and misery that this affliction has made you feel - think about a future where all you know is year of hurt, debt and suffering while you watch all your friends around you have the time of their lives.

Even if the urges are at their strongest, they soon pass, they always do. And each urge that you get through will make you stronger, until, in a few months of so, it becomes second nature - time is the only thing that will get you through this.

I used to run, I used to play video games, I would shut myself away from the world if needs be when I am experiencing these urges. Find out what works best for you - plough your energies and frustrations into something positive.

You can get there my friend - this is the hardest part; you wouldn't experience urges if they banned gambling worldwide tomorrow - you wouldn't have any choice but to feel better. That proves that this is all in the mind, and that urges are nothing.

JamesP

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