Feeling hopeless!

Because what you have said is exactly how it works, like what is £10 your getting £40 bonus money too surely you can turn a profit and make a cashout, thats what a gambling mind will always tell you, it's only 2 scratchcards it's not like your involved again, what is a couple of games of cheap 1p bingo it's fun. And the thing is it's not fun when the gambling mind watches your every move and knows if your feeling down when your fed up and will take over your thoughts like a spell and smile as you reach for your debit card for just that one small deposit, like the evil queen with the poison apple "Just One Bite". You can do it just abstain from all gambling no matter how harmless or low stakes your gambling mind will tell you.

Thanks for your reply, I know I need to stop everything complety I've just found it hard to imagine no form of gambling ever again, I told myself If I could just stick to bingo and away from the machines id be ok but it was impossible as the thought of gambling was still constantly on my mind. I don't want to be addicted anymore!

Dear TFHS,

Welcome back and sorry to hear you've had a lapse.

I know you have been on the forum for a while, however I wondered if you have considered counselling?

You can always come through on the helpline 0808 8020133 or netline and speak to an adviser who could refer you for our free counselling.

The lines are open 7 days a week 8am - 12 midnight.

Take care,

Victoria

Forum Admin

Thank you, I'm not sure why I didn't try counselling in the past, probably thought I didn't need it ! Think I'm ready to try anything now though, I'll ring the helpline tomorrow when my daughter's at school.

Wish I still had the same determination as the first time I tried to stop, at the minute I just feel numb like I don't care enough anymore. No suprise I didn't even make it 24 hours, only a scratch card so no big loss but just showed me that I'm not trying hard at all! I'll keep coming on here and just hope that by reading other peoples success stories that I'll be able change my frame of mind!

sorry that you have hit alow.sounds like you are giving yourself a bad time.accept the loss and start again.live from now and for now.its past and you can't change it but you can change tomorrow.take one day at a time. hope you feel better this week

Thanks cookie, I'm just feeling abit deppressed about the whole situation at the minute, reading my old diary seeing how determined I was then and how happy I was and knowing I ruined it all, I feel beaten at the moment but it will hopefully pass! Reading other peoples stories helps.

Day 1 gf, no real plans of what I'm going to do different yet, but today I will not gamble!

Deleted

Thanks for your reply, your right it's exactly what I need to do!
Day 2 now and finally taking some first steps, self excluded from my bingo accounts, cancelled my bank card and when my new one arrives my husband is going to scratch off the 3 digits in the back so I'll never be able to use it online, I've been reading lots on here and also reading up about how to rewire the pathways to the brain (interesting read) feeling abit more positive about it all now, confident that I will not gamble today!

Glad you are feeling more positive. It's a horrible, horrible feeling being in your position.
The good news is 'it can be done!!'
You can take that cloak of despair from around your shoulders, grab that dark heavy cloud that permanently sits above your head and throw them to timbuktu - never to return!!!
Take action, take control - get those blocks in place. There's no shame, no remorse, you're not the only one who's fallen into this trap and there are times in everybody's life when we need a helping hand. Take the help and walk proud, you are now back in control. You don't need all that brain washing cr@P that robs you of every penny, you have a new life to live, one where you dictate what is going to happen. Goodbye misery, hello happiness!! x

Hello TFHS,

Deep down you know you can do this. Its just about finding that drive within yourself to put everything into place to make it happen. You've done well before and racked up a good number of GF days. You know it'll get better the longer you stay away. Don't forget recovery is more than just not gambling but that can be delt with along the way. Right now its about breaking that cycle again.

All the best.

Thanks little miss and sjw, no more self pity for me now, just onwards and upwards! Luckily I'm not even thinking of the loss or wanting to chase it, the thing that upset me more was the loss of control I was more disappointed in myself then anything else, but another lesson I will learn from.

Day 3, been thinking of gambling alot but not wanting to, just thinking about how I've become a cg, and how I'm going to break this cycle for good this time. I've realised after reading so many stories that even though there different amounts of money lost, different ways of gambling and over different lengths of time, we all go through the exact same stages (I think anyway, correct me if I'm wrong)
1. Playing for fun, low stakes not very often, if we lose it doesn't matter but when we get a win it's amazing, treat ourselves an our families. It's like getting money for nothing, seems so easy!
2. Because it's so easy and fun we start doing it more often and up the stakes, get a little greedy wanting bigger wins. We start to loose a little more and cash out less when we do win, but we then start to justify it by thinking well it's only money I won so no big loss. Not really noticing that were no longer gaining from it at all.
3. It's now a big part of your life consuming alot of time, thiughts, energy and money. We start spending money we can't afford to lose and chasing it because we really need it back, feeling really low after big loses. But we're sure that were due to win soon, so caught up in it we keep going at any cost.
4. Then we realise we have a problem, that once we start we can't control ourselves because even when we did win we kept going till we lost it, we feel shame and guilt, and decide we're going to stop.
5. We try for awhile but that feeling soon passes so we make a decision to rather then stop just try and go back to stage 1, when it was fun low stakes and we kept our winnings!
6. It's not long till we're back at stage 3, and after loosing alot more money we soon discover it doesn't work like that for us anymore, we've past the point of no return, we either get help to stop completely or we spend the rest of our lives in this vicous circle.

Stopping for good is going to be hard but I'm gonna do whatever it takes this time! No going back.