Snakes and Ladders

Hey good morning, I totally hear you...I think I'm finally admitting to myself that I'm a compulsive gambler. My family found out in March this year. I quit alcohol, drugs and gambling. The only problem was 3 months later I started gambling again. My wife found out this week and we just had a daughter...it really is an awful position Ive put them in. I feel so bad and awful. The pressure to provide for them has been intense which is why i think I relapsed in June. I realise that Im powerless to this disease call it. Money comes in and maybe I can save for a month or two but then something changes and I get overconfident in myself and think ive got this and i start again. The moment i started again was my downfall. I began chasing losses, being more stressed and in some ways im glad its come out and that I can now take action. In other ways Im very broken sad and upset for my family. More importantly i need to provide for my daughter and want to do everything I can to make sure i dont gamble again. I dont know what to do and my wife doesn't understand how i try to explain what happened in my brain. I think only other gamblers may understand. I dont expect her too either and I feel awful for the position ive putmour family in. Any thoughts help or views would be helpful? I really dont want to relapse again. I can't afford it.

Tomorrow will be 700 days of not gambling minus a few risky investments I left. The hardest fall but not financially was stopping after 7 months and going back to gambling. I genuinely was gutted and upset but looking back that was a stepping stone to make it to 700 days. It’s being open honest to partners and friends that you have relapsed. The sooner the better. Don’t get trapped thinking you can did yourself out of it by gambling more. Take the hit and recover again stronger!

I must say tho I have met people who have done 20 years of not gambling and ended up going back for a flutter. The key here is to learn from it and keep coming back for help. If tomorrow I fall I will rise the next day wanting to be free from gambling again. On a side note I know some one who hasn’t had a bet in 23 years and still going strong. 

my recovery hasn’t been the best and I haven’t worked that hard at It but my god I am so grateful to be free from the torment of gambling and being in trance that just kills who you are and the finances. 

There are a million other things to do than wager your money so if you feel bored or dull do some thing else than think about gambling.

dave 101 

@dave101 i relapsed recently and came clean to my wife this past week. I feel i have fallen badly more gutted as you put it. Really good post. Ive blocked gambling transactions with my bank and just going to try and hit it hard to not relapse again. The first hit was in march. I stopped for 3 months then relapsed for the last 3 months and now out of the trance which is so nice. I need to be strong now. Day 4...a long way to go, but thanks for the post good to see light at the end of the tunnel

I lived a secret addiction - No one except a select few knew. Everytime I relapsed less and less people knew until I was in the gutter on my own. 

I've helped friends who have reached out to me about problem gambling stop but only by being blunt and upfront about my own pain and misery. 

As for sympathetic, personally it did me no favours. It enabled me to carry on and find excuses to ride a selfish path into debt and misery. 

My journey of recovery and relapses has been going on for many years. I always come back stronger and pledge NEVER to do it again but to be honest I never took the GA lines of "Just for today, I will not gamble" seriously - Yet as of now 6 or so months in its whats kept me clean along with Gambling blocks. 

But as for the whole support system all I had left was professional help, I was too embarrassed to speak to family and friends. It was literally my last hope. 

This is something i have been thinking about for a few days, How do they respond? What i find with gambling addiction is that people respond with either their own opinion on gambling if they aren't a gambler, if they are a gambling addict they often respond with an attitude that replicates where they are in their own journey.

I feel on these forums that if you sometimes reach out to people it is all very negative and that gambling again is the worst thing in the world. I feel at times that isn't what people need to be hearing, we all know ourselves that gambling is the devil and something unfortunately not all of us can control, some of us need to stop fully for our own good, some of us can't stop and need more help in stopping, some of us dare i say can even gain back control with the correct circumstances in place etc.

When it comes to gambling everyone responds very differently, a lot of people don't understand it and are very quick to air their personal views, same can be said with people in recovery, as we are trying to not gamble ourselves then when we go to help people that are maybe struggling we try and drill home what we have lost, what it has cost us and what it will likely cost them.

Sometimes all we are looking for in a response is... it's ok, we can get through this, regardless of what has been and what is to come. We need to not be so quick to scare people that reach out to us, we also have to try and understand that people we reach out to for help may not actually understand how we have allowed it to go so far and why we haven't just stopped.

I'm sure from all sides of there is still a lot to learn, what we always need to remember though is everyone is an individual, this isn't a one size fits all issue, like many things in life everyone needs a different approach and what works for you, might not work for someone else and vice versa.

I wish everyone on here well on their own personal journeys