6 long months - maybe I can see the dawn?

Something happened in August last year, the detail was not important but I guess it was yet another catastrophic loss, that made me realise I really had to quit.

Dear @jake23,

Thank you for your post today. I'm sorry to hear you are going through a tough time at the moment. Its really positive that you have posted today, you've come to the right place for some support.

You may want to have a look in to some practical support blocks such as GamStop or GamBan to help control your gambling online. We are always happy to talk through these with you as well as any additional support you feel may be helpful.

Please remember you are certainly not alone with this and have come to the right place for support, we are available 24 hours a day on our helpline on 0808 8020 133 or via our live chat. Do get in contact and one of our advisors can talk everything through and look at all of the support available to you.

Best Wishes

Nathan

Forum Admin

October last year, I am at what the 12 steps folk call rock bottom, I think. I haven’t really kicked the a**e out of it, in that I haven’t stolen or murdered for my addiction yet, but my margins are getting thinner for sure. 

My very comfortable four figure monthly wages last about 12 hours in my current account. A big chunk falls into and fills the interesting hole of the maxed out overdraft, and I take the remainder to go win back the money the online casino has been holding on my behalf for the last few years. I just know it will happen this time. 

My walk of shame was shorted than some. Typically it began at the ATM outside my bank branch, which had just vomited expensive cash from my credit card accounts into my sweaty hands. It peaked a few steps later, inside the branch, as I handed over the warm cash to the quizzical teller to try and shore up my current account and meet my mounting liabilities. 

An insight of problem solving clarity hits me, in that spirit of smart-addict knows best that I am full of: remortgage. Reschedule your debts. Relief. 

Except, at a late point in the application process, they tell me they will want to see my last 6 months bank statements. Ah. They make a statement alright, just not one I or any possible creditor wants to hear. This is the paper reality of my disaster. I make my excuses and say I will be in touch. 

It never rains but it pours. I pushed my finances to the limit and then some, and when I realised how I needed to recover, my income dropped and other debts came due. The noise of chicken wings flapping as they came home to roost was deafening. Nothing worse than chickens in the rain, and I deserve to drown, choked by wet feathers. 

Friends, somehow I’ve kept it together. I look at my grid, and see 182 coloured in boxes since the last X. I still buy lottery scratch cards, but a few quid a week compared to a few thousand a night is at least 95% harm reduction, trust me. One day soon I will take advice on rescheduling my debts, and have a better recent financial CV to support my cause. I’ve lost so much,  more than I want to calculate, but little by little, we can prove to ourselves that we can turn the tide, with patience and humility.

PS 

And just to say, please don’t take the focus on me and money in the above account as showing I don’t realise the impact my gambling has had on others. 

I never asked for money from anyone, and always paid my way, such was my fear of shame. But god knows my slots obsessed behaviour must have been obvious. The empty eyed feeling of being physically present but spiritually and mentally absent while my loved ones made conversation around me is a shameful memory. The empty glaze of my eyes, like the closed blinds of a shop, while I am feverishly stock taking behind the shiny front. 

So, thanks if you have read this far, I will unload on the personal/emotional impact of my madness later and thanks in advance if you care to read it. I guess for now the best we can do is live our lives forward, making better decisions for ourselves and others informed by the past, and cherishing the gift that waking up each day is. 

Thanks Dave, glad you are a survivor. The gambling was definitely a distraction for me, but the pain it took away was replaced by larger distress with longer consequences.