struggling to get over losses

@cd1994 Apart from all the usual advice on here that you have read before, ask yourself if you're a half glass empty or half glass full person?

If you have a half glass empty outlook try mentally changing that view. Consider the half full viewpoint. You aren't in debt and moving forward you'll be able to save money and see your balance grow. Or just consider it the fees for 8 years of being a member of the gambling club.

If you don't draw a line in the past it will haunt you and fester until you go chasing it back. Then you'll be worse off.

Chris.

If its any consolation I have lost £10,000 in just 4 months playing 2 new live dealer games. 

We all have horrible losses mate, but if you don’t shake yourself out of this mindset your screwed, never going to get over it.  Obvious statement but the money is gone nothing you can do.  Chase your losses you’ll lose more and be  even more depressed. Just make sure you don’t ever make the same mistake 

Try this way instead. Would you change your losses for losing all your friends, or losing a relationship, or being homeless or being sacked from dream jobs?

I'd swap £20K for not having to go through any of those things and if you had to choose something for gambling to have cost you, given all you could have lost, the money seems the best option, doesn't it?

Chris.

I should have written off my £25k gambling loss which was over a 6 year period. I kept it on a spreadsheet thinking I would get it back one day, I went chasing aggressively in 2017. Long story short, I have now lost £109k. I still have it on a spreadsheet but two months ago, I wrote it off in my head and haven't gambled since.

My advice is a very simple one, see the £20k as some business you did that went terribly wrong, forget it completely, believe me, it's gone. I am hoping you are back here with the mindset that you really want to stop gambling. The problem is much deeper than the £20k

hi I used to be a member of gamblers anonymous and one of the principles they go by which I still try to live by is the serenity prayer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

Courage to change the things I can

And wisdom to know the difference

I am now not gambling with the help of gamcare but am 62 and have lost in the region of half a million pounds in my lifetime , I cannot change that but I can rebuild my life . Youve done so well to stop , very few do . so dont look back rebuild , very few compulsive gamblers actually stop , you should be congratulated.

I lost far more money in a horribly short time. I didn’t realise I was having side affects of impulse control for a prescription medication I was taking for a neurological condition. It basically led me to a breakdown. I had so much guilt about the amount of money (amongst other stuff) it brought me close to the edge. GamCare organised counselling which has really helped me come to terms with it and see the bigger picture about what really matters. 
You are young, you aren’t in doubt, in reality you are in a strong place. You mention anxiety, well that can make people fixated on things and I think that’s what’s happening to you. You just can’t see the bigger picture at the moment. Please reach out to a GamCare and ask for counselling. They will help you with this, help stop further gambling and let you move on to the next phase of your life. All the best 

You like many of us have made some very poor decisions with your finances. However, despite those losses you are not financially ruined. Please stop obsessing about the losses. They're gone. The sooner you can train yourself to accept that fact the quicker you can move on with life...and not make the same mistakes again.

If you carry on doing the right things you will gradually see your personal finances getting healthier until there reaches a point where you realize you no longer are wasting any thoughts on past losses and are just looking forward.

@cd1994 any of this help you? 

Chris.

I was in the same place as you where all I could think about was the losses, it was constantly on my mind. 

It will take me 6 years to get out of debt on my current salary and it tortured me. But I finally accepted it or so I thought.

Then last night I had a relapse which set me back another 2 months. 

It's still fresh so I might be talking nonsense but I'm starting to think the money is the least important part of this. 

It's the way it saps your energy and eats at you as a person. Changes who you are and makes you lie to the people you love.

I feel like I had to relapse to realise.

Stay strong and you will be alright, you will beat this. 

Money comes and goes. We earn it, we spend it and the cycle goes on. 
It’s replaceable. 
Everything else that can be lost via gambling isn’t always so replaceable