Family comes first

Hello all,

This is day 2 of not gambling. I have pasted my intro story below for you to see. I think it might be helpful to come on here once a day and post my thoughts as I attempt to get rid of my gambling addiciton.

Yesterday, I went throught the day with no gambling. I also played football at night with my colleagues, which I always really enjoy. Ideally, I want to substitute the time at nights I waste gambling with something more psoitvive, like play football or go to the gym. I have self ecluded from all bookie sites, and my wife is in charge of my money. Felling quite positive, but I know the tough time will come round when payday arrives. I have my wife with me that day and I have agreed to give her all my cash to look after.

I have given my diary the title of 'Family comes first'. I want to do this for both my family and myself. I want my wife to have money in the bank so that every month is not a struggle. So she doesn't have to make excuses and lie on my behalf anymore for all the things that we can't afford. For my wee boy, who deserves to grow up without this disease hanging over all of our lives. I'm going to do this.

All the best everyone.

Al

---------------------------------------

Unfortunately, I have been here before. I just did a search for my username, and looked at how I tried to stop gambling many years ago. I have manged the odd few days here and there, but have never managed to stop properly. The time has come for me to now stop all gambling before I lose my family. I have a wonderful wife and son; been married 4 years, and we have a wee boy who is nearly two. My wife in particualr has suffered massively due to my gambling, and I so want to stop and get a better life for her and my wee boy.

Today, it has happened again. Another day of losses and lies. I told C (my wife) that I had direct debits coming out today totalling £155. ( I do have them coming out, but they didnt come out today as expected so the money was 'available'.) She knows when I am lying generally, but today I guess my story was plausable and she gave me the money. Straight into the bookie site it went, and I turned it into £498. At that point, I should have used it to pay the bills and do something nice for C with the rest. But I didn't I have since lost every single penny of it, and I am feeling deeply troubled, ashamed and depressed. I earn a decent enough wage, but I spend many hundreds of it each month on gambling - money that I should be giving to my family. I love my family with all my heart and hate to see C or my son upset; to the extent that with every other single thing in life, I try really hard for them. But with gambling, it seems that I can't try anymore. It just keeps happening month after month after month. Lie after lie after lie. I'm upset right now at the thought of telling C the latest thing I have done; and dread how upset and angry she is going to be. I know that the time is coming that she is just going to take our wee boy and leave me if I don't do anything about this. So I AM going to do something about this, starting now.

I have self excluded from the bookie sites, and tonight am going to phone my bank to ask them to block all gambling related transations that I try to make. The latter is something I have not done before, and will hopefully help a lot. I'm also going to cut up my credit cards, and give all financial control over my cards to my wife.

I am not feeling positive at all right now, possibly because of the worry about telling C about what happened earlier. But I am going to take it one step at a time, and try to do what is right for my family and I. Family needs to come first; that is what I must tell myself from now on. I love them both very much; and I think they know that I do. But I have to get the actions right as well, starting from now.