2010

Temptation has been put in my way today. In November last year my sister was gambling online at my home...as is usual with a cg she lost a shed load. I let her use my daughters email address for the account as her only email is works and her secretary opens the mail. My daughter had an email today stating £500 had been credited to the account, it could be used for play or withdrawn. I logged onto the account as I wanted to withdraw it for my sister immediately, I knew this was right. I had a little niggle...should i have a few spins....but I didn't. I also contemplated telling her but I knew she would just blow the lot. I have withdrawn the money to her card and told her to expect some money. I dont want to tell her where the cash is coming from as it will trigger her gambling and she tells me she has abstained for a while now.

I know it is dangerous being involved in something like this...i was piggy in the middle a few months ago but she has now got her own PC so it's nothing to do with me. I'm just proud that I didn't indulge...crazy really...because if i had and i had won i wouldn't have seen any financial benefit anyway as the account is in my sisters name. A few months ago there would have been no stopping me...I can now be trusted. I can't win because I can't stop.

I have been in my bed all day today as i feel really unwell, headache etc...so feeling a little sorry for myself. Going to make myself a hot drink and add a wee dram.

Bye

Morning,

Feeling really ill. Flu?

There are two things today.

ONE . I have spoken to my sister about the £500 which will hit her account tomorrow. She doesn't know its from a gambling site but she may when she gets her statement. When she is talking to me about this surprise cash it's like she has won the lottery and yet £500 gambling online is peanuts. She is going to give me £50 and I'm going to treasure that cash.

TWO. My husband is ill too, definitely the flu. He has had to drive miles today to a meeting in Hemel Hemstead. He has just called me telling me he feels really rough and has had to stop off to be sick. The only way I could move on in my recovery was to try to forget the losses. It's times like today when that becomes incredibly difficult. He daren't go off sick. We don't discuss it really but it's definitely because of my gambling debt. Feeling you have to go to work because of fear.

When we first got married and bought our home the mortgage interest rates were 15% and we were paying my whole salary out in childcare. We were skint. We are still skint but it's now down to my gambling over a period of 13 years. I hope things will improve but it's such a slow process and today it's***t home. I feel s h i t.

The most I can do today is to remain gamble free and cook P a nice meal for when he returns. I am worried about him today.

Hi Jasmine... I remember the days when credit for me was plentiful and £500 didn't seem like a huge amount of money. But then as my addiction progressed and i became skinter and skinter £500 became like a pot of gold.. maybe thats how you sister feels about that £500's.

Like you say, treasure the £50's she says she's gonna give you. Money is the root of all evil I think, but it is a necessary evil. For me now that I am not gambling I have re-found the value of money and that it is a precious commodity to be budgetted carefully. Blimey budgetting, not a word that gets used very often on this forum.. lol

Anyway I hope that you and your husband start to feel better soon. If there is any leftovers from that meal.. I will happilly polish it off.. cheers.. S.A 🙂

hi jasmine,a quick update from yesterday, the great north run is usually sep/oct time which would give me nearly 2 years to prepare. its still miles away but i am definately thinkig of doing it next year...as for yesterdays birthday i got a happy birthday text from my ex and the kids inviting me round for tea so i let her get home from work.i then texted to say is tea still on and was told that i was in her face all the time to which i decided to treat myself to a takeaway but did nt really enjoy it as i was silently fuming..after my takeaway i thought stuff this so i texted and phoned to say i was on my round to which i got no reply.i went to the door and she was ok as if nothing had happened.i put it down to pressures from work but as ive said before talk about jekyll and hyde??....sorry to hear your having a not too great day but im sure you and P will feel better with some of your home cooking....oh and have yourself another wee dram to enjoy with it.i have nt heard of that word in years and it makes me homesick lol...enjoy the rest of your day

hello jas , you are worried about hubby you are comparing the way you've let money slip thro' your fingers to how much you once struggled to make ends meet for other reasons, i reckon you are painting yourself the big picture here so keep thinking the same way and you will do great. john.

Lovely post John..made me cry. x

sorry jas i must be getting soft in me old age !! but you are doin great girl !!

Been skulking around the house today in my jim jams..how lazy is that. I have done a few chores and cooked a chilli con carne but haven't the energy or desire to get dressed. My hair is scraped up on the top of my head with a scrunchie...P has just come home and he will be really happy our evening meal is done.

Come on Jas...shake a leg...you miserable so and so.

What's this got to do with gambling...nowt...but how you I am feeling is important to me as in the past this would have been my green light to gamble.

Anyway...who said we had to be on the top of the world everyday. It's unrealsitic.

Hi Jas

Nice post.

I would love to sit about all day dont knock it. I envy you. Im working outside and have to travel over 100 miles a day to and from work.And then the weekend. Well i have 4 kids 10,8,6 and 5 so no sleep in lol.Wouldnt change a thing though (maybe the job).Hey Jas that chilli con carne smells nice lol.Hope you feel better tomorrow.Anyway you cant go the bookies in your jim jams lol.All the best Jeff.

Keep up the good work Jasmine.

I just wanted to pull Jeff on his last comment about not being able to go to the bookies in your jim jams. Well Jeff you have may have been born in Liverpool but you obviously have not been back there recently as it is oddly quite common for girls to take to the streets in their jim jams!

Very strange.

Hey Curly...going out in your jim jams...really....I must be getting old!

I don't have a gambling blocker on my P.c. There are are various reasons for this and the main one is that P works from home and all the pc's, broadband etc...are provided by work. They know all the software on the computer...remote access...and gambling blocking software would be questioned. Where is this leading? Well, P still does the lottery, not my choice his. After all he isn't a compulsive gambler like me so why shouldn't he? Anyway...he was ill yesterday and he asked me to log on and do his regular numbers. He actually trusted me to do this. I logged onto his account and deposited some money...just enough to buy the ticks. You know the first thing i did....I excluded the account from playing the scratch cards or instant wins as they like to call them.....more like instant losses lol!!! I wasn't tempted but just by logging on it was like planting a seed in my brain...to be used later.

P has cashed his ISA in and this will be used for a holiday to Egypt later in the year. Going to check out some holidays now. Got to have something to look forward to. The cost of the holiday...seems expensive...but you know something I have lost more than the cost of this holiday in less than an hour previously...when I was gambling.

I promise to get dressed today. Just looking out of the kitchen window and i have a robin looking back at me...thick snow is falling and he is obviously starving. Will go and feed him...make his day.

Like you I have been looking at holidays and thinking blimey thats dear--and just like you I then realised that I used to blow more than that in a few minutes and then think never mind I'll get it back the next day and then blew even more!! Holidays are cheap when you look at it like that.

Stay strong

Stumper

Hi Jas, not spoken for a while but glad you're doing well, albeit with a few things on your mind....

I personally think it was really out of order for P to ask you to put his lottery numbers on? Am I wrong here? But someone who is being supportive of a problem gambler would never ask them to go near any form of gambling surely?

Anyway I'm glad you were not tempted and that actually you passed a test in a way - however that was probably a big danger time that you overcame. P should have asked a friend or someone else to put his numbers on in my humble opinion.

Stay strong, looks like you are - and you're not a criminal you know! Enjoy the generosity of the holiday and take it as a reward....I have found also though that you become the tightest, meanest, most frugal person when you stop gambling - money starts to have value again and you realise how hard it is to come by even a spare few hundred quid - something you would never have even noticed before when the deposits were being made. But enjoy - you do deserve to go on holiday as much as the next person, and you do deserve to have a good life. Stay strong - Matt

Hey, thanks Matt. After your post I chatted to P about asking me to put his numbers on. I never gave it a second thought and it seems neither did he. At first he said that he didn't think it would be a problem to me but then when we discussed it further he understood that it would have been very easy for me to have made deposit after deposit playing on the instant wins. He said that perhaps, because I have not gambled for quite some time now, that he had become complacent...even to the point that my addiction had gone away.

I had been really P***** off today with him...he is ill so I didn't really "have a go" but one of my problems has been I have the total control of our finances. It's always been this way but I have have had many discussions about the pressure I feel. I would like to sit back whilst everything financial "just gets sorted". Today I was doing our bank statement...reconciling it...we don't have an overdraft facility (through choice) but that means I have to be very careful it doesn't dip into the red...CHARGES. Anyway, he had pulled some cash out...lunches...switched a few things...petrol...and written cheques to the coal guy...but he hadn't shown them on my budget. AAAAAAAAAAArgggg he said he was going to help me and yet he clearly had not. Charly gave me some advice..she said look at the problem...is it of your making....is it a problem to him...obviously not. So why oh why does this wind me up so much.....the bits he spends in the grand scheme of things are miniscule amounts in comparison to the amounts I would regulary spend online gambling. If there was a bit more floating money in our account then this wouldn't be an issue. I am now going to try my best to build a "float" in our account as I think i am going to have to accept that after over 22 years together it just isn't going to change.

Anyway...today I had a saving application through the post. It's a cash builder...it starts low and then over a period of 5 years the monthly payments increase and then remain level for the next 10 years..it also has life cover built into it. I looked over it when it came through the door and was going to shred it because i though 15 years!!and then something popped into my mind.....my gambling....started big time about 14 years ago...you know that time has gone in the blink of an eye. This savings plan is for 15 years....better to be putting it in there rather than keeping some online s***s in a job.

It's good to moan :-))

Seen a holiday! Watch this space.

Hi Jasmine,

The float sounds like a great idea. Like you say we cannot change other peoples behaviours (including loved ones) all we can do is change ourself and our own reactions and behaviours.. echo's of the serenity prayer.

Its good to moan though.. absolutely.. cheers.. S.A 🙂