Sharing seems to help

Hello all,

Let me start off by saying that reading through several of your posts on here has been a big help for me. I think we all know we're not the only ones in this situation, but reading some of the personal stories gives me hope in knowing that this is a shared experience and that with the right adjustments you can see life through different eyes and move on, sooner or later, to a better version of yourself.

As I have been helped by other's, I will share my experience in case anyone can relate:

I was introduced to online slots over the 2020 lockdown through some mainstream content creators, I was in my late twenties. For some context, I had previously spent almost 10 years solely focused on work and saving up money. I was living alone and had little social life, so my savings were just piling up, I never did anything meaningful with my money. One day I decided to try out online slots, and it was a slow progression from there. In my mind I was just going to bet until my bank balance was an even round number, it wouldn't be over 100€. I eventually reached that point, but soon after I had some other legitimate expenses that brought my balance down under my threshold, so it gave me an excuse to gamble again until I reached this "clean round number" limit. Rinse and repeat, week after week I would tell myself that my current limit would also be my last, but what started off as entertainment was soon becoming too expensive to be justified as such. I would set my new limit to round down to hunders, and eventually to the next thousand, or ten thousand's.

After losing I would feel horrible and promise myself it was the last time and go to sleep, only to wake up the next day and fall for it again. In  some ways it was like having two personalities. Even when I won a considerable amount more than I started off with, my mind would tell me I could fix all my problems if I won enough to get back to my starting balance - the same loop everyone has been through. Sometimes I would even gamble for so long I would get tired, and increase my bet size to the point I could lose everything I had been working on for hours in the next 10 minutes. I felt emotionless and lacking any appreciation for the value of money while I gambled, only to have the reality of it sink in as soon as my casino balance got to 0.

Fast forward some months, and I was in my first relationship in years, I could finally use my money to live experiences and to share things with my significant other. The only problem is that my addiction never left my side, by this point I was almost reaching the end of my savings. Everything I had worked for during my twenties, at the expense of living life, had blown away in less than 1 year. I felt disgusted at myself.

I would eventually continue to gamble until I had nothing left, partially under the same idea of getting some money back and partially, subconsciously, so see if my actions had any consequences - spoiler alert, they do!

During my relationship, my girlfriend eventually questioned me about my finances when things didn't add up, and I opened up about Gambling. By then I had already taken some loans to help me pay through the month, which were eventually also feeding my gambling addiction. For months I have been in a loop where I gamble my salary and get micro credits at a high interest rate to get thorugh the month. Which means next month I need to use all my salary to pay my loans, constantly anxious about covering up my situation.

This week it happened again - she found out i had 2€ in my bank account and after initially lying and getting her to believe something I stopped and decided to come clean, and admit I have a gambling problem. 

Just being able to speak about it has relieved me immensly. Short term it will take me a lot of work to gain trust back, and several painful conversations. But today I am hopeful, I feel like having someone else know about my situation is a big help. Some things I have listed to do during this transition to help me get past this are:

- Share my experience with close ones: Once your problem isn't a secret it becomes harder to think you can get away with it. It also becomes more obvious that you are harming yourself and others. For now I've spoken to my girlfriend and my brother, it has been hard but I feel immense relief.

- Auto-excluse myself from everywhere possible: I have done that, although some sites will still let me signup using any random email, so ultimately it's just an added layer that i need to focus on.

- Set up auto-exlusion software: I'm hesitant on the usefulness of it, but if anything, i think that having to think of tearing it down to gamble again is just an added decision I hope would defer me from doing so.

- Understand my regret from a logical point of view: Yes, what I've done is terrible and I wish I could go back in time. But if I look around me it seems like everyone is dealing with that in one way or another in their lives, I just hope I can start focusing on the future instead of lamenting the past.

- Set up financial goals: Trips, gifts, houses, starting a family... so many things I want to do in my life require money. Discussing them with my partner and agreeing that they are things I want to do is helping me appeciate money and want to start saving towards them.

- Track my monthly savings and loans: I agreed to track my monthly financials with someone close, to help me through the first months. I don't think a police-like figure is healthy, but in the context of recovery some agreed-upon checks may benefit me.

I hope I can look back in the future and see that opening up and coming clean was the best decision I could have taken, and that the long-term benefits make today's pain a grain of sand in the desert.

Sending out a big hug to anyone in a similar situation out there