Relapsed Again - Fuming with Myself!!!

I think a fairly innocuous comment has been taken out of all proportion - can we give the guy a break - he is here for our help and support.

Keeplosing - I think it just touched on a nerve for some as the damage caused to partners / family is awful and possibly even the most distressing thing of all about gambling addiction, and people are projecting their own experiences onto you.

But the essence of your comment is right - you've recognised a major trigger for you (boredom) and you are trying to find ways to overcome it (filling your time with other things). That is a good approach. Try and write a list of triggers - you may find there are others for you as well as boredom (e.g. drinking, stress, visual reminders of gambling etc.). Then perhaps write a list of things you can do when these triggers arise instead of gambling. That helped me anyway.

As someone else suggested, handing over control of your money is a brilliant (if daunting) tactic. It is basically the cold turkey approach and worked well for me. It massively limits your opportunities to gamble. It is daunting as I guess you'd have to hand control to your parents and that would mean telling them everything - but I think that is an important step too. If you admit it to your nearest and dearest then you are publicly saying (and acknowledging in your own mind) that you are genuinely committed to stopping.

Good luck - don't be dissuaded from posting here, we are here to help and support you.

Hi, I am new to this site. I have just woken up to the fact that I need help. I have gambled almost constantly for the last 18 months. I have had some great wins but then as we all have done, lost it all. I keep thinking I get a big win and that is the end of it. I won £4,800 in about 30 mins a few months back. I thought to myself this is it my last big win and i managed to not reverse out the win and actually let it hit my bank account only for me to put nearly all of it back on and it was all gone within a week. I feel now it has hopefully reached its peak and this is the end of gambling for me now. I have a good job, good money but have somehow spiralled into the pay day loan debt trap to get me through each month. last month was the worst, I paid nearly half my monthly salary back to a pay day loan. I cant seem to keep the money in my bank. I extend the loan by another £50 or £100 in the hope that I will win big and pay it off plus be able to do things with the money. I have finally fessed up and borrowed money off my family to help me instead of taking a pay day loan this month. I really want to stop gambling but there is a voice that rears its ugly head, mainly of an evening when my littly boy has gone to bed saying this is it your big win is just sitting there waiting for you. It has happened about 4 times, getting a big win so I know how it feels. But how can you get out of that train of thought? To not visit any sites at all? Someone gave me a nexus tablet earlier this year and it seem to start spiralling them. I dropped the tablet (accidently on purpose) so I wouldn't be using it for gambling and now someone has kindly bought me an ipad for Christmas and now I have been constantly on that. I have blocked myself from nearly all the online sites but have found myself searching for ones that I haven't joined before. Its a nightmare and I find myself thinking about gambling almost constantly, especially of an evening when bored. How do I get out of this trap? I have thought about counselling but my finances are in such a mess I can't afford anything at the moment.

yperkins - hi, welcome to the site and well done for coming here and telling us your story, and acknowledging you have a problem.

One thing I would say straight away, is that in all my time being around gambling addicts - whether in GA, in rehab, on this site, wherever - I have NEVER - not once, come across someone who has successfully given up having finished on a win. Perhaps there is someone on this site who will contradict that, but even if so, I guarantee they are in a tiny minority.

So you need to give up the thought that you will win big and then stop. I can 99.99% guarantee that will never happen. We all tell ourselves that, but the nature of this disease is that, even if we do win big, it all goes back and then some. You might not spend it straight away - you might even let is hit your bank account and spend it on some other things. But eventually, you will think "I'm 5k in credit" (or whatever - and of course, this is the self-delusional thoughts of a gambling addict who has probably lost 10 times that over the years), "Another small bet wouldn't hurt". And in no time it's all gone, along with double the amount to chase it back again - I've seen this story literally countless times.

So I urge you to give up in your mind - right now - any thought of winning big and stopping. It just doesn't happen. In a way, once you've let go of that, it's a relief - chasing that big win - the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow - is exhausting.

Then of course you are left with the cold reality of the debts you have and the fact there is not instant way of wiping them out. That is tough - a gambler's mindset is all about the now - instant losses, instant wins. But again, you just need to accept that the amount you are in debt will not change - you just need to slowly, gradually, pay it back.

Of course you need to stop gambling first and that is the hardest part, but is completely achievable. There's lots of good advice on this site with practical advice. In terms of counselling, there are options available on the NHS. I actually took part in the very first NHS-funded gambling counselling course in the UK, and that was about 6 years ago. That was based in London, but I hope there are more of them now across the UK. Either way, it's no bad thing to tell your GP and get the wheels in motion.

As a first step, keep posting on this site - if you get an urge, if you've gambled, if you have questions - and people will try to help. You are not alone in this!

All the best,

Ross

Rossco - your message makes a lot of sense. I will take a lot of the points you make on board, and hope others reading this do too. The third paragraph about winning and being "up" - despite that £100 profit being a miniscule % of the total lost over the years is totally right. And the chasing to get back to where you were after a win is so me. My worst bets come after my first loss at the end of a "good run".

It's helpful to see other people have been there and felt/done similar and got through it.

Can I ask - what helped for you? Sorry if you've shared this elsewhere - if you have let me know and I'll search for it

Hi 2014newstart,

Some things which helped me (and these are some rather different things - some positive, some negative - and in no particular order):

1) Shame / embarrassment

I know this is an odd one to start with but I really think when my gambling went from being very private (i.e. between my wife and I) to relatively public (e.g. my family, friends and my wife's entire family), it was like a slap across the face or a bucket of cold water over the head. Something switched. The extremely intense shame I felt was awful, but in retrospect I think it motivated me to beat it. My wife told everyone - I don't blame her for that, she had reached the end of her tether and she needed help, nevermind me. I also had my father-in-law tell me that there was NO WAY I wouldn't relapse. I'm a stubborn B*****r and this gave me a huge incentive to stay clean.

2) Counselling

In the first instance my wife booked me into see one of the top gambling addiction counsellors in the UK -Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones. But we couldn't afford her (for obvious reasons!) - the cost was crazy, and it was clearly a long-term process, so we had to find another option. Luckily, the timing of my rock bottom moment coincided with her setting up the first NHS-funded gambling addiction counselling course in London, which I attended after getting a referral from my GP (another shameful moment). I saw Dr Neil Smith, who was fantastic. The course was largely cognitive behavioural therapy and it really helped. Unfortunately I don't know that this brilliant clinic has been replicated over the UK - it really should be.

3) Handing over bank account over

This I think is vital - at least it was for me. In those early days / weeks / months, a gambling addict cannot be trusted with money and time alone. I gave my wife complete control of my bank account (massive for me as I am a bit of a control freak and also - partly due to gambling - quite secretive). She gave me a weekly allowance. Again it's quite embarrassing really - but that doesn't matter in the scheme of things.

4) Laminated card

This came out of my sessions with Neil. I wrote a list of all the things I would lose if I ever gambled again and kept it in my wallet (it is still there 5 years later). It's handy to have that reminder on your person at all times - bridges the gap between that one pound in the fruit machine and what it will eventually lead to.

5) List of triggers, list of distractions

Again, this came from the CBT counselling. I wrote a list of triggers for gambling (either moods, certain people, times of day, locations, drunkenness etc.), and for each one tried to write ways to avoid that trigger and, if not possible, a list of alternatives to gambling when that trigger arose (going for a walk, buying a coffee, hailing a cab, going to the gym, whatever)

6) Exclusion

This is an essential step for everyone. It is actually easy - certainly online anyway. Tougher was going into the casinos I had once adored and telling them to never let me in again. I actually think exclusion is important as a mental acceptance that you are moving on, but of course particularly online, it acts as a physical barrier as well.

7) Payment plan

It feels such a big deal giving up the gambling that it almost seems unfair at the time that you have to deal with all the mess it has left behind as well. But you do and it can actually be very satisfying. I had debts all over the place - probably 5 or 6 credit cards, overdrafts, loans whatever. I put them all into one place, worked out a payment plan and stuck to it. Paying that off was one of the sweetest most rewarding moments of my life.

These are a few that came to mind - it's not the same for everyone, some things work for some that don't for others. But as a bare minimum I would suggest self-exclusion (and blocking software etc), handing the bank account over to someone, and some form of counselling, be that GA, one-to-one or whatever is available.