day one or maybe - 1

Hey stephy
I did post to you last night ..you must have got another diary...sorry to read you've gambled today....but least you've come back here.....read the diaries on here hun. ...you'll find them usefull .....and I can't encourage you enough to ring the gamecare helpline...stay strong.....gamblings a selfish pasttime.....it will never give you anything ....but it can and will take everything if you let it...keep posting on here....old saying on here is....it's better to ramble than gamble x

Loxxie wrote: Hey stephy I did post to you last night ..you must have got another diary...sorry to read you've gambled today....but least you've come back here.....read the diaries on here hun. ...you'll find them usefull .....and I can't encourage you enough to ring the gamecare helpline...stay strong.....gamblings a selfish pasttime.....it will never give you anything ....but it can and will take everything if you let it...keep posting on here....old saying on here is....it's better to ramble than gamble x

Hey Loxxie, feeling quite liberated today as i self excluded from all bookmakers yesterday, felt good to have the option to go to them taken away from me, that said i dont know how i will fair when im going past them, stong isnt something i feel when it comes to the gmabling, yet strangely i do feel strong in other areas of my life..Bizarre isnt it how gambling is like its own seperate life. " better to ramble than gamble" I Like that!! 🙂 todays a new day so im hoping to start as i mean to go on 🙂 x

Glad you've got those exclusions in place...great start...
I also felt very liberated when I done lifetime exclusion to online sites...
Just aim for being gamble free one day at a time...
Little steps to start with...
Stay strong...and keep fighting xx

Hi Stephy :)) .

Just read your first few post's and to be honest it could have mirrored me in my early day's , promising myself usually after another heavy loss session that I wasn't going to gamble anymore and then to awaken the following morning thinking maybe today's the day that I get all the losses back and that just one big win would do it , also just like you mine was mainly the Fobt's in the bookies so I know first hand just how difficult it is to break their vice like grip and hold they have over us .

Great advice above from my good friend Loxxie above ( was going to say old friend but she'd moan about the old comment ) :)) , it is about taking it one step at a time and one day at a time especially during the early day's . By coming here and admiting you have a problem and then starting to put blocks in place by self excluding is a huge start and something you should be proud of , I can also remember the day I went around all my local haunts Bookies , casino's the lot , pictures in hand it gave me a huge lift to think I'd started to take some control of my life back and now just over 600 day's later I look back knowing that coming here and doing that was one of the best desicions I have ever made :)).

I found that initially I could walk past a bookies no problem but I did get the odd feeling " What if " and " Just one bet wouldnt hurt , would it " ? after all " Who would know " ? . The truth is Yes it would hurt and I'd know , we may fool everyone else around us because as gamblers we get very good at it but I can't fool myself :((.

If you ever get tempted with a Fob't then just ask yourself how much would £ 500 change your life ? , after all that's the most we were ever going to win on a maximum stake on a single number and how many times does that come up ? plenty of near misses either side of the nimber to keep you trying and keep you interested and even the odd small payout to make you want to visit the cashpoint , just one more time of course ( hopefully that sound's familar ) ? .

Like you said " It's not about the money " , as compulsive gamblers it's about the buzz and the ability the money ( or gambling tokens) gives us to keep getting our fix . Your not in debt so be thankfull for that , the day before I stopped I'd won about about £1500 in the morning in one shop and 2 hours later fed it all back into another , plus of course about another £ 500 trying to get back what I'd already had , such is our state of mind and the question is " How much will ever be enough ".? .

Take it from me when you do this you will be far happier than you have been for many years , you just need to let go of all the losses and accept change into your life and want it more than you want your next bet :))

Stay well and talk to you soon .

Alan

HI Alan , thanks so much for your advice, its great to hear from someone who has experienced a similar situation and is winning the battle against it, gives me hope that maybe i could follow suit. The FOBTs are the devils work ....Well a greedy bookmakers, but near enough the same thing right? I try to justify my gambling by reminding myself its MY money that I work for, but in reality im just kidding myself, yes it is my money and yes i work for it but i could be spending it on bettering my life, my future husbands life and preparing for when we may want a family, instead I feed it into a machine, i dont even get any feelings of enjoyment from it even if i win , mainly because i know its inevitable they would have it all back , or if not them (as you have experienced) another bookies gets it ..plus some extra. At the minute it feels like i have a huge wall infront of me... One im scared i cant overcome... I cant really bear to think about what life would be like if i cant break this cycle, What does it take for me to say enough is enough? lose every penny? lose my home? This whole gambling mess i have myself in scares me. Im just grateful i have a supportive finace and family and lots of positive things in life ( with the exception of the gambling) ..Im also glad ive found this place....the one day at a time idea sounds good...here goes.

Alan is correct. Winnings are never enough and we compulsive gamblers always gamble again either side of them.

Hi again Steph :)) .

Your right when you say that we try and justify it by saying " It's my money " and " I work hard for it " and for so many years I kidded myself by saying exactly the same thing " If I work hard then surely I'm allowed some fun " ? but I think it's us just giving ourselves the green light to continue doing what weve alway's done , so no need to change anything then ? but the truth is once we cross that line of "Compulsive Gambling " all rationality just goes out of the window and it becomes a downward spiral very , very quickly . Sure you have enough money at the moment but belive me once the funds start going down and any savings are depleted our minds start trying to justify more gambling and ever increasing stakes as we try to replace what's been lost , it then goes on to become about loans or using credit cards to pay for things so we can keep money aside to feed our need , which has by that time become far more difficult to fill ? .

I'm just speaking about the way I felt and how I found it early day's but when we first stop I think most of us are a bit battered and bruised and my brain felt as thick as pea soup and about to explode as the realisation of what I'd allowed to happen became apparent , the good news is that brain fog does dissappear and you do regain clarity .

Naturally your scared ! , I know I was , after all I don't know how you feel but what was I going to do without gambling in my life to support me in my times of need ? . I sort of think a lot of the fear is just the fear of letting go and I liken it to when your learning to swim as a kid and you don't want to let go of the edge of the pool or give up that last armband for fear of drowning but when you do finally pluck up the courage to leave it behind just as your doing now you find yourself able to push off and swim to the otherside where everyones having agood time , a bit longwinded but I hope you know where I'm coming from :)).

Try not to get too hooked up in the whole blame laying thing either , I find there's not much point in finding a scapegoat in the gambling industry , I just look at it as another business really , all businesses run on profit and at the end of the day nobody held agun to my head and said " Gamble " did they ? , just my take on things and I'm sure others have their own opinion on the matter but it's about looking at yourself for the reasons you gambled ( maybe something lacking in 3d ? ) with me it was more about just trying to escape and switch off from things I really didn't want to face but as we those things still wait for us when we finish gambling , so now I just deal with things as they arise and it works :)) .

I'm glad you have a good network of support around you as that in itself is a huge help , the only way forward is with total transparency and honesty something I sadly lacked for many years .

There's another saying on here that " Nothing changes if nothing changes " so if your up for it " Good changes will happen "

Little steps Steph :))

Take care

Supportive family and fiance are very good news. Use them, starting with handing over control of your finances. Making yourself accountable to someone other than yourself makes it very much harder for you to gamble in secret.