Day 1 - The Journey Begins

Hi, If you’re reading this thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen to my story and hopefully my successful journey from here on out! 

Just so i don’t repeat everything, this is the link to my first post on the forum about how my gambling started: 

https://www.gamcare.org.uk/forum/new-members-intros-forum/my-gambling-story/

From then to now, I have managed to complete my first year and now just started my second year at university. It was extremely important that I continue my education because thats about the only think keeping me sane. 

Unfortunately, my gambling has still continued up until last week when I received my student loan and gambled all of it away in the matter of hours.

Usually when i lose all of my money i tend to get really upset, my thought process is all over the place thinking of ways to cover that money and to make it back again, I become extremely agitated and angry to everyone I talk to for the rest of the week. 

This time however, I felt nothing. It was a numbing/cold feeling. I’m not quite sure how to explain it but i felt like i was frozen in time. I think I’ve finally realised my true self… and it was quite a profound experience where i was just in stillness without a single thought in my head. 

The next day morning however, was a very different case. I spoke to my councillor/gambling therapist who told me i had to come clean to my family and friends. It took nearly the whole day for me to gather the strength to approach them. I’ve already let them down multiple times and i’d always be an emotional wreck in front of them. Their reaction, after the initial anger, was the realisation of who i was. The amount of lies, deceit and empty promises that I had previously made all led to them finally giving up and not caring anymore. 

I too acted differently, instead of being the emotional wreck that I usually am when i tel them everything, I was emotionless as I too now finally realise the amount of emotional and financial damage I cause myself and more importantly to others around me.

Going forward from here, I have decided to put an end to it. Enough is enough! But the one thing that neither my family or friends realise that i’ve only recently realised, is that gambling has actually altered a lot of things about my life.

Every time i lose money gambling and feel  bad about it, I always think back to before i gambled and how much I desperately wanted to be that person again. These are all the things I can think of that has changed: 

1. I’m clearly depressed. The feeling of loneliness, helplessness, not wanting to engage in social activities. I used to be a glass half full kind of guy now i’m always a glass half empty kind of person - if that makes sense.

2. I definitely have insomnia. From close to 4 years of gambling late at night and then being unable to sleep at night for the following weeks because of the financial stress i’ve put myself in and then repeating the cycle again and again. Now i just can’t go to sleep even with my phone put away and lights and noise at a minimum i won’t sleep until my body can physically no longer stay awake, this is often around 5-6am sometimes i even stay up till 9am have breakfast and at that point im so tired i sleep for the whole day. 

3. I no longer make long term goals. Everything is now now now, be it in terms of money, in terms of wanting something or doing something, i tend to prioritise short term goals which often fail as when i gamble again it all falls apart. 

4. I’ve lost a lot of meaningful relationships. My ex leaving me not directly due to gambling but because of the bad mood that i’d be in all the time due to gambling losses. My close friends and family who have not just lost a lot of respect for me but now have to think twice before believing anything I say. Once I realised this, I started to shut myself off from them and avoid them instead of trying to rebuild those broken relationships. 

5. My relationship with money. This is clearly been altered so much in my mind and for the past 4 years i’ve lost all the good traits that i’ve had with money management. I used to save the odd 20 quid here and there, i used to budget for meals, date nights, nights out, travel etc. Since i became a gambler thats all gone out the window and for a majority of the last 4 years I’ve usually got less than 10 quid to my name for a whole month. 

6. The debts! Oh lord the gambling debts, the main reason why I stupidly go back to online casinos so that i can somehow win it all back. I realise how stupid this is now, I need to put my grafting boots on and through hard work and hard work alone, i need to pay off my £15,000 debt. I’ve realised that stepchange and other charities cannot help because most of it is to friends, families and actual paydays and loans that have already defaulted, so i need to create a payment plan and slowly pay it off. 

7. My well-being overall. I remember a time when i was fascinated by the gym and eating healthy. I wanted to stick to a meal plan and had started a gym routine but since I became a gambler thats all gone out the window. If i gambled and won, i’d order myself a takeaway as a sort of silly reward. If i had lost a lot of money, and i had anything left in the bank account, i’d also order a takeaway to ease the pain. sometimes it would be the complete opposite, i’d stay hidden from everyone locking myself up in my uni room for 3-4 days straight without food, I wouldn’t brush my teeth, have a shower, answer phone calls and just generally be hidden from society. Mentally I couldn’t even imagine going to the gym or even just sticking to a daily walk or jog to better my well-being.

I’m sure there’s definitely other things but these are the main things that I know have changed from before and after becoming a problem gambler. 

Now I genuinely believe enough is enough. At such a young age i’ve been through some dark experiences. I cannot let this continue as I’ve got way too much to lose and if I don’t begin to fix myself up now then i don’t think i’ll ever be able to forgive myself. 

At the moment the plan is as follows: 

1. Get a job to make up for the most recent loss. This will hopefully provide me with enough money by next term to attend uni. 

2. Book a GP appointment asap and get actual medical help be it medication or some sort of therapy. 

3. In terms of counselling, I’ve had it for a year now and honestly for me personally this doesn’t help. If i can lie to my friends, family and most importantly lie to myself, it’s fairly easy to get bored of the counsellor and just end up lying to them and eventually stop taking them seriously. I know that may sound like the most ungrateful thing ever, but I'm being truthful here - This is what gambling has done to me. Instead of thinking oh wow this person’s dedicating time out of their life to help me out, the ego driven gambler instead of me just thinks oh he can go do one. But maybe the problem is that its over the phone and that face to face connection and responsibility isn’t there. 

So, i’ve found this GA meeting at a local church. Not really religious but hey somethings telling me the 2 people that can actually stop me from gambling is myself and god.

4. Make a financial plan to repay people and debts. I’ve been so unrealistic with this in the past but now I realise that with full time education, 15 grand isn’t a small sum to pay back by any means. It could potentially take me 3-4 years to repay all of this but stopping now will only limit my debt to 15 grand, if i continue then it could cost me everything. 

5. Make a genuine effort in keeping my body and mind sane. I need a healthy lifestyle and this step will probably take the longest. Its hard to prioritise mental and physical well-being when theres so much to do but I’ll definitely start making small changes and hopefully at some point i can make significant changes to my lifestyle. 

If you’ve made it this far then once again i’m deeply thankful. You’re a wonderful person for taking time out of your day to read my story. Hopefully i’ll stick to my plan and keep everyone in the loop with updates.

In truth writing this all out kind of feels like a kind of therapy on its own.

I hope by sharing this, if anyone can relate or if i can be of help to anyone, please do let me know as I believe this is something that needs to be worked on together as a community with everyone helping each other in any way big or small. 

thank you!