Facing reality AT LAST

I think it's all about channeling all your energy into something else.

Sorry i'm not familiar with your circumstances so i'll suggest a range of things.

Take up running or walking. Find something your interested in and start some self stufying. Fibd yourself a hobby. Just something you can turn to when you start to feel down or get any urges.

Sometimes just taking your mind off whats going on will do the trick and you will be able to look at the situation from a different perspective.

Sorry i'm new to this so my posts aren't well constructed!

Chin up mate

Thanks TangoR, just the fact that you are there reading and responding is a great help 🙂

I am already a runner but I think part of my feeling down at the moment is because I've been ill all week and I can't do my usual exercise. You're right, it's usually a great distraction. I probably need to just settle down in front of a couple of good films or something.

I am prone to wallowing when I worry; I know I'm doing it and it's not at all an attractive quality but somehow it's such an ingrained habit. I am off out for a walk shortly to see if that feels okay and I'm sure it'll give me a good distraction.

Thanks again and good luck on your recovery too.

No problem. I can see being ill and unable to go for your normal run could contribute to you feeling down.

You took the words right out of my mouth there when you said watch a couple of films. I'm speaking for myself here but I get absolutley lost in some films and TV shows. Could probably watch 18 hours a day (obviously thats stupid but you get what I mean)

Just try to keep busy, even if its something stupid.

Thanks, take it easy

Well I gambled. Obviously I'm disappointed in myself, BUT - there are a lot of new BUTS this time which are making me feel that I am NOT back to square one.

1) I was gambling with small amounts, like a fifth of what I used to. More importantly: 2) I stopped myself after a short while and accepted that I had lost money I couldn't afford and if I carried on I would lose more.

3) It was a lapse and this time, for the first time, I am making sure it doesn't turn into a relapse. It's a new tool, I wasn't even aware there was a difference between a lapse and a relapse before. What I mean is I now have a new way of stopping - instead of thinking "oh god, I've blown it, might as well have a massive binge for days or weeks and thousands of pounds" I realise there is a choice and a point where I can say "no, if I stop NOW it's just a lapse and I can quickly get back on with recovery". And I stopped.

So I'm actually feeling better than I might.

How am I ensuring this is not a relapse? I didn't have a block on this computer (I'm on an old one as my blocked computer died and I'm waiting for a new one) but now I do. I've self-excluded from the account(s!) I opened and told them it's for CG reasons. I have tracked the money I lost in my budget, facing up to the reality so that I'm not pretending somehow it never happened.

With all this in mind, in terms of "day counting" I am not going back to Day One. Perhaps this sounds like "cheating" but, to me, I feel more likely not to gamble again if I continue where I stopped counting before I gambled. If I go back to Day 1 I feel depressed, "what's the point, I'm never going to beat this, I can't do it, might as well give in". If I carry on from day 39, (obviously not actually counting the day I gambled but just "skipping it") I think "yep, had a lapse, but look, I did 38 days, that counts for a lot, each one of those days was an achievement, I can keep going."

I can understand why people might not agree with this approach but I honestly think it's the best one for me.

So it's day 41 and today I will not gamble. 🙂

Oh and I should say that a lot of the barriers I had in place from previous stages of recovery really helped. E.g. I am already excluded from most online casinos, have cut up credit cards, blocked myself from other ways of depositing online (this was complex but well worth it), reduced overdraft facilities and so on. So if you're an online gambler and at the stage where you're wondering whether it's worth it to do any of these things "because I'll always find a way", trust me it really is. You may always find some *small* way, but to have damage control and "slowdowns" in place is incredibly helpful.

Here's wishing everyone a great and gamble-free day.

Day, er, 53 I think.

We have been having a massive family crisis and it's been a really awful time. In the midst of it all though, I'm delighted that I haven't even wanted to turn to gambling, even though I've been on my own for hours and hours with the opportunity. In the past I would have lost thousands by now.

Instead I have cried uncontrollably instead of trying to numb the pain and although that feels horrendous at the time, I realised I could congratulate myself for "being a friend to myself" in that way.

It's one of those hard times when I'm screaming inside about how bad I feel but because of other people's demands I have to push it all to one side and put on a brave face. It looks as if this is going to go on for some time as well. Feeling exhausted already but I remind myself that there are plenty of people worse off in the world.

It's a hard hard time but I haven't gambled and that's so important.

Definitely progress.

I have had a big fall off the wagon. Very ashamed.

Tomorrow will be day 1 again as I can't claim this time that I stopped "in time". I was out of control for several hours and I only stopped because my bank eventually declined a deposit. THANK GOD.

I came into some money unexpectedly and in spite of continuously thinking "I must must must not gamble this away", what with everything having been so horrible at home recently I just lost that sense of "gambling is the worst possible thing I could do" which has been keeping me strong. Instead my mind was telling me it wasn't a big deal, that I had the money to spend and although I knew I would lose it I simply didn't care.

Somewhere underneath I cared, but not enough to even pause. That's the frightening thing.

So I caught myself unawares. It's just so horribly easy to gamble hundreds online. I'm on yet another laptop (a brand new one now) which I have now put a block on. I should just do this every time I switch to a new machine!! But it never seems important until I have actually gambled. Duh.

I know I will continue to be tempted, as (thanks to my bank) I still have some of the money left. I wasn't tempted before as I knew I had nothing to spend. (I have always had access to credit but have at least progressed to the point where I don't just go further and further into debt to fuel my addiction. I used to do that without a second thought.)

Now I do still have some money which is "mine to do with what I like". I find this extremely difficult and have this bizarre urge to "get rid" of money when I have it. I only seem to return to a point of sanity when I've literally only got JUST enough to see me through the month. When I have any more I go crazy. I get anxious when I don't have money and even more anxious when I do. Somehow it's never enough. There's no logic to it but I feel like "I have to spend this now or it might disappear, and if it disappears I won't be able to spend it". It's a nightmare.

Anyway you all know how I'm feeling as I have just thrown away so much money that I could have put to good use if only I could have hung on to it a bit longer and acted more like a sane person.

Hi FF,

Big well done for coming back....hard enough!

Just take a step back and think.......Money....machines......you wont come off till it's all gone!

Your money is worth more that throwing it away eh?

What would you do if a shop short changed you....go and create hell!

Enough said!

Sue x

I know that feeling exactly - wanting to 'get rid of money'.

It almost seems as if money has no value to us whatsoever.

But that really isn't the case. I still look out for offers and will go out of my way to save 50p on a certain item.

Yet feeding £20 notes into a FOBT in the past seemed 'normal' to me.

Have you thought of putting that money somewhere where you can't access it quite so easily? Family? Friends?

Just a thought.

Sorry to hear of your recent woes - just look at it as a tool to become more secure in your fight against this evil addiction. This will have further confirmed what you already know - that gambling is a no-no.

Stay strong, stay positive, together we will all get there.

NT

hi ff

well done for coming back, that shows at least your prepared to fight this horrible illness,is it possible to pass your card over to some one, also have you self excluded ?? chin up mate and keep posting

carl

Wow, thanks everyone, your support means a hell of a lot.

Feeling calmer today but still got the "gambling hangover" which is good because it means I'm too disgusted to be tempted. I am self-excluded and blocked but you're right, I could do with making my money a bit less accessible. I get panicky if I can't get to it quickly "for an emergency"... not that there has ever been an emergency of that type, really. I think it's something about having to ensure I don't ask anyone else for help EVER. Not v healthy I know.

The really stupid thing is that the money hasn't even cleared in my account yet, I just gambled on a credit card "knowing" that the money will come in. It WILL come in but imagine how stressed and stupid I am feeling now, taking a risk like that.

What a nightmare this "state" (I don't think of it as a disease) is.

Thanks again folks.

FF

PS Yeah NearlyThere I'm exactly the same - will go way out of my way to get a coffee 10p cheaper, plan carefully around 3 for 2 offers at Boots, everything! Yet will throw away hundreds and even thousands in a gambling frenzy because "it doesn't matter"...

It's a nightmare, I know. I have experienced plenty of those nightmares in the past.

But all nightmares CAN be thrown out of the window.

Just keep making the right choices for yourself, eh?

NT

Thanks again NT.

I have just read a very powerful story on someone else's thread and I thought it might help me to write down my own.

So I left home to go to uni at 18, no money of my own but my generous parents paid my rent and gave me a living allowance which was the equivalent of a grant + loan (remember when there used to be student grants instead of uni fees?!! They had just got rid of grants when I went but my parents wanted to give me what my older sister had had). I had no clue whatsoever about how to budget. I didn't understand the word "budget" except that it meant "you can't really spend as much as you want to spend". So obviously it was a word I wanted nothing to do with.

In my three years at uni I would go deep into overdraft each year (I never opened bank statements as I just didn't want to know) and then work in the summer to get back to £0. Fine.

After leaving uni I started working (remember when there used to be jobs after university??!) moved in to an unfurnished flat with a boyfriend and got a credit card so we could buy a bed to sleep on. I panicked to see a £400 balance on my credit card so paid it all in one go that month, which took me into overdraft but that somehow didn't seem so bad. I was used to overdrafts.

This may not seem relevant to gambling but my whole attitude to money is screwed up and also it demonstrates the utter impatience and anxiety which seems to be behind much of my behaviour. It also demonstrates that behind it all I was very anxious about money the whole time and it is still about money even though it's about a heap of other things like brain chemicals as well.

Anyway over the next few years working in London, earning a not-great wage but living the life my other friends were living in London, and still not understanding "budget" I got into further debt, eventually mounting to about £15000. The horror, the terror, the panic, except when it creeps up and up like that and the sky doesn't ever actually fall on your head, it's not so bad. And yes these were the so-called "golden years" of the early-mid 2000s where anyone could get any credit they liked. At one point I had access to about £60000 of credit.

Fast forward again through various break-ups, job changes, house moves and accidents which left me out of work. Somehow I could keep going through careful juggling of money. Ironic that I couldn't budget to save my life but I was an expert at moving 0% deals around, meeting repayments out of thin air, etc.

Some wonderful friends took me in and said they'd support me while I got back on my feet and pursued a creative dream I have always had. At that point, on the dole and trying to scrape a few pennies together I discovered a) cashback websites and b) "bonus bagging". This no longer exists but it used to be that you could sign up to online casinos, take their bonuses and play them through very slowly on a low-odds game and come out with a profit. Cashback websites were what alerted me to the existence of online casinos in the first place.

The maths worked and I made a small amount each month, enough to feel oh so clever about. (Seriously though, I don't want to trigger anyone, don't bother looking at this as an option any more as all the casinos got wise to it and stopped it.)

But God I was sick of playing thousands of hands of blackjack at £1 a time over and over and over. I tried video poker and it was like going from drinking shandy to taking crystal meth.

(Second instalment to follow...)

Video poker. Apparently it's known as the cr@ck C*****e of the gambling world. There is a book called "Addiction by Design" about it and other slot machines. Of course, I didn't think of it as anything as low rent as a slot machine. I thought it was a skill game that clever people played. Just as I thought when I was "bonus bagging" that I'd never be so stupid as to actually gamble at one of these casinos.

But something terrible happened - I won. With blackjack you can only ever win 1.5 x your bet at best, but in video poker you can win big - just very very rarely. To take such a big chunk off my debt felt like a lifesaver and I couldn't believe the thrill, it was like I had a money-making machine in my home. Typing that I feel incredibly stupid, but that's how it felt.

So I fell headlong into the world of real gambling ie not to fulfil a mathematically positive bonus requirement, just to get the thrill of chasing that big win again. Depositing hundreds and hundreds online until my debt was far worse than it ever had been. Spending all day, every day locked away staring into my machine until I couldn't see straight and my mouse wrist swelled up. My relationship went down the pan. I would lie awake at night sweating and panicking and know I wasn't in a good place, but I thought the only way out was to win again.

Then one night I had a moment of clarity and I realised "I am addicted". It was like a calm horror. I knew I had to get up and email all the casinos I played at and self-exclude. The next day it was like a huge weight had been lifted. Needless to say I was soon back gambling, but that was "a" turning point at least. Thus began my recovery and a long long long series of lapses, abstinences and relapses. That was 2008.

For about 2 years from late 2008 to 2010 I didn't gamble, it just wasn't part of my life. I'd see adverts for casinos and I'd just think "how weird that I used to be there, thank God that's not part of my life any more". But I got complacent and there were more shakes in my health and I was struggling to get over the death of my dad as well. And I slipped back, just looking for some "entertainment" one night, curious to see what it was I had found so compelling, wanting to "test" whether the sky would fall in if I played again... I dunno. I can't explain it rationally.

Gamblock was a huge help but there were times when I got on other machines with no blocks on. But I would still absolutely recommend blocking software.

So since then I've been gambling for sort of six-week, 2-month periods, then abstinent for up to 4-5 months, then back on again, round and round.

As I've said I am much better than I used to be - a slip tends not to be so terrible and I've done things like forcing myself to keep track of each deposit so that the sick "must stop" feeling comes sooner. I can see progress even though I still have lapses. This is what gives me strength to know I can get to the point where I can feel more confident in saying that I have stopped for good.

I mean, I can say now that I have stopped for good, as I know that I can never gamble "safely" or in any way, and my intention is that I will never gamble again. But I know from experience that I can't simply expect to sit on that statement and magically have it come true.

I am not interested in any other form of gambling (horses - yawn - sports - pointless - lottery - no thrill whatsoever and zero chance of winning) and I would love to get to the point where I feel that way about online casinos. Then I will feel "safe". As it is I do feel scared.

(Last instalment to follow...)

Oh yeah - forgot to say - one reason I played so long and so much (apart from physical addiction) was that I had never understood the maths of the game. I have read that in some gambling rehab courses they educate the gamblers in the maths of what they're doing to help the lightbulb go on, and I can see why.

The game says it has a 99% return, which I stupidly thought meant yay, I can put in £1000 and play for ages and in the long run I will get back £990 of that. No problem eh? Good night's entertainment for a tenner? But of course it means every time you place a bet (£20 a hand for me) you lose 1% of that single bet. So I was actually betting hundreds of thousands over the course of a session and naturally losing hundreds of pounds an hour because of the speed I was playing. When I was losing lots I thought "I just need to keep playing because according to the maths I should be getting back £990 out of each £1000 and it'll soon come right" which was fatal. In fact I was losing exactly the amount I should have been losing ie hundreds per hour.

What a dumbass!

Finally I need to confess to being scared at this point. I had been doing really well and had 8 weeks of basic abstinence, and then suddenly the other day it was like it didn't matter any more. AGAIN.

I know I have made progress but I read other people's stories of how they have lost their families, homes, jobs, everything they have, because of this terrible addiction. I bet they never thought they would get that low either, so how do I know I won't?

It's really terrifying to find yourself doing something "against your own will". Reaching to the high cupboard for the spare laptop which has no block on it, screaming "no no no!" in your head, but your body carries on. Entering your credit card details, feeling sick and desperately hoping your bank stops the transaction as well as desperately hoping it doesn't. It tears you apart. I think if you have never experienced it you cannot understand it, and I understand why people sometimes say "just don't do it" as if it's a simple matter of willpower.

On the one hand it is, and I know because I have had long periods of not gambling and I have achieved this simply by NOT GAMBLING... but on the other hand this can turn to dust so quickly and how do I trust myself not to ruin my life in the future?