Hi, I'm currently 23 and gambled most months since I was 18. It's had full control of my life and I've never been able to enjoy cash to do stuff with despite working since I was 16.
The worst was last year, I managed to gamble my way upto 23k before loosing it within 2 days, then borrowed 4K off family and friends and gambled that too.
I've recently had about 3 months or so off gambling due to sorting a decent career but I relapsed a month or two ago. Since then I've spiralled out of control again. I've just had 3 weeks off work and had to sit in the house every day due to having 0 cash to do anything. I finally got paid yesterday and within 24 hours it's all gone, got £900 off of payday loan companies today and that's all gone now too.
The issue is slowly getting worse and I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through another month with no cash to pay bills etc. Go bsck to work Sunday too and what I'm doing needs me to be highly motivated and hard working and I feel like I have no energy to do anything. I feel lifeless and rock bottom.
It get better you need to distract yourself, I'm in the same boat.
There is a lot of advice here which if followed will eliminate your access to gambling with immediate effect. Once you've done that you can start getting to grips with addressing the issues that are driving the compulsion. Free Gamcare counselling and attending GA are good places to start.
If you want to stop it's time to get proactive. If you just want to stop losing the ony thing that will change is your problems worsening every month.
Hello Monkey,
I think giving up control of your finances and self excluding would be a big immediate help for you.
The decent career you've sorted but do you want to harm that by continuing to gamble? Can you choose to focus on your career and where you want to be and use it as your drive to take action against your gambling problem?
All the best
Conradnose
Hi Monkey,
I'm 23 and in the exact same boat as you, been working since I was 16 and betting since I was 18! & it has always been Roulette that has killed me, over this last week I built a balance from 200 to 15,500!
I withdrew 12,000 of it and left 3,500 thinking I could easily do it all again, well as usual I was wrong.. I lost the whole 15,500 since last night and to say I feel sick and destroyed is an understatement! I've never had more than 2,000 in my bank and suddenly I had 12,000 in there! for me that is life changing but for some reason when I have money or playing Roulette I become some robot that has no feelings for what I'm doing and can't stop! It's just greed, I have 15,500 but now I want 17,500 and so on.. before you know it, it's all gone!
Luckily I have no debts so it doesn't affect me on that side of things, but I had planned to quit my job, travel and treat my family after all the s**t I have put them through over all these years, now all that is gone!
Be nice to help each other out..
Hi Monkey
Roulette is a real money sucker and I was in the same boat and got myelf up to £5k profit, of course that was gone before too long and ended up in about £20k debt. I should be debt free within he next year, but cannot afford to have another relapse. That being said life is so much better without gabmling, i had my first payday for a while without spending everything in the first few days! Wish you all the best of luck in your recovery, although it is all in your hands.
Athena
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