Fallen Mans Recovery Diary

Journal Day Two.

I have missed day one out of this journal as, well, it was just a very very messy painful day. I guess you could call it an epiphany of the sort all of us on here must have had at some point to be where we are today.

Here is a URL link to my first post, which covers how I feel and what I have done in some more detail. (sorry didn’t realize you cant post links to the forum) you can look me up in the new members section - but I ended up retyping most of my story below anyway.

The condensed version is that I have gambled since I was 18 or 19, Im 40 now. For the vast majority of years this was habitual but not problematic. By which I mean I was “that guy that stands in the corner at the fruitie” when I was out with friends, but largely I never did any financial damage or caused anyone else pain as a result. You could also look at it that I lost out on a lot of experiences and fun because whilst the other people in my group got on with the business of a night out, I would be slaving away at the one armed bandit whilst the hubbub of noise and lights of the club or pub faded away behind me. Im digressing. A year ago this all changed. I moved quickly through FBOTs at service stations (I travel for work) as I noticed these suddenly popping up around me, and the new nature of these increased payouts and multiple game machines drew me in just like the old less dangerous (comparatively) flashing lights always had… next came stopping in at bookies ( I have never ever placed a bet in my life, I didn’t actually know how to collect my winnings the first time I played the FBOTs at a bookies so this was new territory for me) to play the FBOTs there, these offered more options, greater stakes and bigger potential wins. Unfortunately as well as moving quickly through the slots as described above I also moved nearly as quickly from winning most of the time and being able to walk away up (in many cases significant sums too, 500 up, 1000 up etc) to losing, and desperately, grimly … chasing my loses.

My final stop was online casinos, again exclusively slots. I began that last September so Ive been at it over a year (even that surprises me) on and off. I had periods of abstinence, but recently I went back to several accounts and things escalated quickly. Ive been through the all too familiar cycle of self excluding (after some big wins, and some fairly minimal loses in the grand scheme of things, but ones that were big enough to make me realize this was getting out of hand) only to be lured back in by one of the 200% welcome bonuses I saw advertised somewhere else a couple of months later (my theory was that if I put in the maximum deposit I could use the bonus to allow high limit bets and then Id finally hit one of those big wins you see on the youtube clips and that would be me done. Idiot. All it did was renew the cycle, the bonus soon went and I followed it with yet more real money I couldn’t afford. I hit several surprisingly large wins - 1500 off a 3 per spin stake (there is no pride in me saying this Im stating it to emphasise the next point….) or such like but I would find that a) id then try to boost that up further by trying different slots, in the instance I describe I ended up somehow getting down to 600 or so from the 1500 won, and then I felt terribly stupid, and attempting to chase the losses was stressful, it wasn’t a pleasurable experience at all, then b) the final insult is Im back gambling again to “try to win more” the very next day……what *was* I thinking ?????.

This Tuesday night just gone a session took me well beyond … everything. I lost 4K in one night. I had been drinking which whilst I don’t consider myself to have a problem with, I think I had allowed myself to get into a destructive cycle with - maybe it drove the gambling, maybe the gambling drove it I don’t know. I remember desperately depositing more and more and more 500 at a time, trying to get one big win to tip the balance back in my favour - I had done similar before but always for much lesser sums. I remember through the drunken haze I was betting 40 a spin at one point, and a couple of spins at 100 per spin. That is ABSOLUTELY ludicrous. I feel physically sick typing this but I feel I need to, to expunge it at the same time.

I have always covered my losses. It has been close to the wire at times, but I have a good job and am well paid. I have always been in work (I contract) but this year due to the recession finally affecting the market I work in I think, I had a couple of months out of work. This is f***** utterly ridiculous but I chose that time to try and cover the money I was losing by being out of with the genius master plan of “winning at the casinos”. What a total ****** I am eh ?. I suspect it was an excuse on my part, a twisted reason to “allow me to gamble” … im doing it for XYZ. It worked for a bit too, but I think we all know how that story ends. Anyway, I have had to agree terms with HMRC on my corp tax (I am covering this and make my final payment next month this is fine) and I am sure I have some more tax debt coming up as my accounting hasn’t been great and Im paying the price now - some of that was down to gambling, and borrowing money I had set aside for taxes, some of it was genuinely down to accounting errors which I paid dearly for (Ive changed my accountant as a result) in any case I exacerbated an already bad situation. I have always passed off any financial issues to my wife as being related to the business and taxes as described - there is some truth in this lie, I have of course left out a very serious and damaging portion of the truth though and I hate myself for this, but I cannot and will not risk my home life, my marriage and all that goes with that for anything. I suspect my wife is not the sort that would be supportive, or that if she was I would live in the shadow of this for the rest of my life. I am doing this alone, I got myself into this, I have to get myself out. I know some will not agree with this, but without getting into more complex and unrelated stuff this is the way it has to be.

(Im actually retyping everything now aren’t I - I said at the start of this I wouldn’t). The despair I felt when I realized yesterday morning (which seems a long time ago already) that I could no longer cover the losses hit me very very hard. It made it all *real*. Almost like a chain reaction this then in turn made me think about what a terrible thing this is that I am doing to my wife and child, I am literally denying them fun, happiness, trips out (In honesty I have managed quite well to keep a veneer of normality on this, so they have not suffered hugely - but what I *could* have been doing for them…) all in the pursuit of me feeding this dirty little secret. I feel tarnished.

I was a mess yesterday. I could barely hold it together at work. I have never cried so much as I did last night, and I still well up now when typing this. It seems to be making me very emotional and I am having trouble dealing with this, but I am trying to keep a lid on it.

I estimate I have lost around 10K in total over the last year and 4K of that was last night. I realize now in being here and reading all of your journal entries that 1) am not alone and 2) by the measure of things I may have actually had a lucky escape (I mean in NO WAY to take pleasure from the fact that other people have “got it worse than me” that isn’t my point, and if I could pay everyones debt off on here I would in a heartbeat - but it was a sobering thought to realize how bad this could have gotten if I had allowed it to continue). My overdraft was at its limit yesterday with 2.5K still left remaining to pay off of the debt from the previous night (which had not yet gone through and hit my bank balance) I began to try to find assets to liquidize - I had actually thought that a pending withdrawal would cover most of the losses… it wasn’t until last night when I realized that (ive always found the casino payouts to be confusing) I had gotten this wrong, and there was 2.5K I couldn’t account for. I went through all avenues but there simply was no more money to transfer, no more CC to transfer, no more.

It hit me all over again. I was a bit of a mess for some time, but then I made a decision. I called my father. Bear in mind I am currently working abroad and I don’t feel like I have been very close to my parents lately - mostly I think because I have been dealing with *this* and I have been grumpy and moody with other people in general as a result. Also I have not asked for my parents help with anything let alone financial matters for around twenty years, I try to fight my own battles. You can imagine I expect how I felt sending that text and making that phone call. I broke down immediately I heard his voice. I still though could not bring myself to tell him the whole truth, I revealed the tax debts and I kept spluttering stuff like “ive brought this on myself”, “ive been so stupid dad”, “ive done some stupid things”. I suspect he would have still been happy to help even if I had told the whole truth but I could not bear to disappoint the guy who has been … just the best to me throughout my life. He broke it down and cutting to the chase he just wanted to help. He transferred money into my account there and then. He kept asking exactly how much I owed but I could only bring myself to ask for enough to cover my immediate debt. I will drag myself the rest of the way out of this hole.

My Father has been amazing. This was not without its down sides of course. I feel absolutely terrible for taking money he worked hard for, despite him saying he doesn’t need it anymore and that hes only too happy to help - the guilt I feel for doing this as a 40 year old man, for being on the phone in wracking sobs and bringing my problems to their door is crushing. The fact that I have done this without actually coming clean about the details just worsens the feeling. But again, this is how it must be I guess. I deserve to feel pain, I deserve to feel broken.

I also feel guilt towards every single one of you on this board who have read this and who replied to me in my hour of need last night, I know many don’t have the option of someone stepping in to help so quickly. That makes me feel a fraud.

Im thinking about things now. I wonder whether I really am a compulsive gambler, or whether this was just a phase of stupidity. I hope it’s the latter as it gives me hope that I can walk away from this situation and NEVER EVER go back to it. Relapsing petrifies me. Then I think, “but that’s probably what every compulsive gambler thinks Jase, you idiot”. I know I have a problem, I admit that, and Ive come here to begin recovery but I hope that perhaps this is like an illness I have caught a minor dose of rather than acutely… such that maybe it’s a cycle of behavior I have a chance of breaking cleanly.

I cant relapse, I cant afford it financially or emotionally. I absolutely cannot let my father down more than I already have. I hate myself for this, and I will bear that, I can bear that.

OK enough with the feeling sorry for myself, I don’t deserve anyones sympathy least of all my own.

Things I have put in place already:

1) Joined here, and although I will struggle geographically and within the remit of my situation to attend physical meetings I will definitely be looking at the online options. I used the chat room last night and ill try to keep this journal updated.

2) I received some advice from a forum member to speak to a counselor. I think I will do this. Just to formalize what I am doing and in some ways to remind myself of the seriousness of my situation, this isn’t something I can take lightly.

3) I have self excluded from the three casino accounts I still held including the one that I had the horrific loss on on Tuesday night. The relief I felt when I got the self exclusion confirmations back from each of these was only overshadowed by the horrible guilt and “returning to the scene of the crime” feelings I experienced when I had to go online and get the account details from each site in order to close them.

4) Im looking at both Gamblock and Betfilter. I have made enquiries with both companies as to their licensing (I need multi user license) and discreetness (I don’t need pop up messages alerting users to what I have had to install because of my own stupidity. I will DEFINITELY be installing one or the other of these products across all my client PCs as soon as I have worked out which one to go for.

5) In addition to the above, it looks like IOS devices don’t really support blocking software and this is only something that android devices can run. I have always been an apple Iphone man, but im going to ditch this and get an android device if that is the only way that I can guarantee a barrier on a mobile device. I travel a lot and I get bored when I travel, one of my biggest problems was always the incredible accessibility to slots. The casino was in my pocket wherever I went, in cars, at work, on the toilet (!), in planes. Everywhere, if I was weak enough to gamble the accessibility was there. I will take whatever steps I can to remove this accessibility.

6) I am consolidating some debt onto a 0% balance transferred CC, ill then continue to make the same payments I have been making despite the interest not being there in order to knock the amounts down.

7) Im selling everything I can liquidate to raise funds, these should go towards paying back my debts and paying my father back.

8) In addition to the above, I have a sports car. It was my present to myself when I was about 30 and represented me having “made it” in my career. It was always my pride and joy, but Its been SORNED for the past year, partly because it wasn’t a priority to get it back on the road, and partly because thanks to business debts and my gambling I couldn’t have afforded to do so. Im going to sell it. I don’t deserve to keep it, and Ill use the money to shore up against further business debts, and to pay back my father.

9) I am not drinking. I have always liked a drink but have never really drunk what I would consider to be a “problem amount” my intake has always seemed around the same as many friends. However there is definitely a link between gambling and being on the beer for a night. I am petrified of relapsing, so Im going to stop drinking at all for some time. I don’t think its practical or honest to say ill be tee total, but at least until I have my head a bit straighter I am not going to drink as I think it allows me to make stupid decisions.

10) Im making my first journal post now, and work and home life allowing I will periodically keep this updated.

Sorry this turned into such a long post. Thanks again to all of you who have commented on my first post on the board - this is the only place I can share my problems and I know the support of people here will give me the strength I need. My resolve is as high as it can get at the moment, I realize that is only to be expected at day one, but I genuinely do not have any desire to gamble and I don’t think it will return either - this has been such a shock that I cant ever regard it as “not really a problem” or just “have a little flutter” again I realize that isn’t possible for me, and I need to take appropriate steps.

My thoughts are with everyone else on this journey (that sounds like such clichd S***e but I mean it) and if I can help be there for anyone else at the same time as I am recovering, I will be.

FM.