Get this poison out of my system

Just to say welcome.

Thanks Graham. I have been looking at some other people's stories and I am kind of grateful that I am only 20 years old and don't have children to juggle with gambling. I have stopped just in time before I hit 0 on my bank account. That means I never reached the stage where I am borrowing/stealing money in order to fund gambling. I am just relieved that I have this opportunity to clear my mind and use this forum to stop the gambling at 20 years old, so that I can live a freer life in the future and be able to raise a family.

That is the dream for me. To use this experience to better myself and be able to live comfortably with my family in the future. It is much better than the dream of becoming very rich by gambling, because that dream is a fallacy and a delusion.

Hi Sirgamblealot,

Well done for having the forsight to quit now while you are still not in any major financial mess.

The good things. You can recover the money via work etc. You still have savings left.

I was in exact same situation had even more money in savings except after uni by working!

Now 10 years on of work have lost all the savings and took out overdraft first then loans , thena huge consolidation loan to cover the other loan and o/draft. All to basically pay off debt but then just gambling it away again.

My problem ROULETTE, (machines in bookies) then online which has just led to compulsive gambling on anything.

So what I am saying in short is things would get much worse than now if you continue in the cycle of gambling. It is hell believe you me when you have lost all your hard earned savings, then owe as much again in debt!

It can happen to you! I never believed I was addicted but I do so now.... Even small bets on the lottery do me no good as they can sometimes make me want to gamble on something else... In fact a win for me just fuels more gambling.... I will never make back what I have lost at least enough for half a house I should imagine...

I have had plenty of chances to bank sizeable sums but have found as I have become more and more addicted is all I want is the action. If I win then I just think I can do it again. Sometimes you do but eventually the so called 'luck' will run out.

That is why the casinos and bookmakers can never lose as they know you will be back for more action and eventually you will give them a more than tidy profit...:(

Just wrote a huge post on my diary about a relapse today lost £140 online roulette after deceiving myself that I could win. All this depsite being 1000s in debt from gambling...

Unfortunately the internet crashed and so I came by your page so you will not see the post.

Hope I have been of some help to you and may be of some help to myself along the way. I believe the longer you gamble for and the deeper you get into it, and the conequences (financial and emotional, addiction etc) the harder it is to make a recovery.

Please stay away from it and dont become another statistic.

I dont want you to struggle as I am now. Well done for having forsight to recover before you ruin your life.

My advice would be reach for your dreams and forget about the money lost spend wisely on education etc and build a secure future..

Awayout

Hi awayout, I see we are both in the same boat. I started with poker, but after several months gambling-free, I lost thousands in weeks at online roulette. The thing is, with casino games such as roulette, it's impossible to win in the long run because of the house edge. Also with a game of skill like poker it's impossible to win because of the house rake.

I posted a link on another forum that I think you should read; it has helped me to understand the futility of roulette better. Here it is again:

****

****Edited by GamCare, the site contained links to gambling sites.

Please have a look on the gambleaware website to see how gambling works.

http://www.gambleaware.co.uk/how-gambling-works

Hi there

And welcome to the forum.

The younger you are when you realise you have a problem the higher the chance of living a debt free long life.

I am always happy when I see people as young as you join forums like this one to share their misery with others.

Download gamblock and you will not be able to go on any gambling sites. It is a barrier to make it that little bit easier for you to stop gambling.

i wish you well

God Bless

Charly

Okay, I have just got home from work and have no desire whatsoever to gamble. Still feel gutted about losing the money, but I have abstracted the pangs of money loss from the urge to gamble, at least for the moment. I have also devised a plan of action to keep me content and fill the void. For the moment, I will be playing free online games (sports games) to amuse me of an evening. I hope soon though that I will not have the urge to gamble at all of an evening (which is when 90% of my gambling was done) and can just relax.

Otherwise, I basically have a two-pronged approach in the long-run: music and running (and sometimes both at the same time). I am/was a keen runner, with aspirations to run a marathon. I want to get that started again, running about 3 times a week. I also find it soothing to listen to happy, relaxing music and just chill or sing to myself (well, who doesn't?). I am actually thinking of selecting one particular tune that I have in mind to play every time I have the urge to gamble, as a kind of sedative and deterrent.

Lastly, I have arranged to meet up with my good friend next week who I have neglected for nearly a month and have some fun :-).

To charly, thanks for your post. Like you said, I really feel grateful in a way that this experience should allow me to live a happy family life in the future, without gambling intervening. I have a Mac so it's not compatible with either of the blocking sites, but as long as I don't join any new gambling sites (which I certainly can't see happening in the near future), then I can't gamble online, because I have self-excluded myself from the sites I was using. I also have never gambled offline (except for a couple of lottery tickets and arcades once or twice), so I don't see that happening either.

To put all these things together, I have a little tune I just thought of (based on a Beatles song):

When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now,

Will I still gamble, I know I won't gamble,

When I'm sixty-four.

They say the younger you are the more impressionable you are. Well in this case that's a good thing, because I've bloody well learned my lesson. Now I just have to be sensible and use that lesson for good.

Much love to all the jolly souls who have helped me and others on the road to recovery,

SGL xxx

I just received my bank statement in the post and it's 3 pages long. Seeing all those figures under 'payments' makes it much more real than when I was making all of those deposits online. I think that's the trouble with gambling online, you just see "500" as a number, and not, for example, 50 banknotes.

Hi. just been reading your last couple of posts. I see you like running.. like you I want to run a marathon some time.. have already done a half-marathon recently. Running has helped my recovery lots. Today I managed 10 miles in 1 hour 33 minutes down the gym which is a record for me.

Secondly I can sure relate to the bank statements. My statements use to come in two separate envelopes cos there were so may cash withdrawals. Not anymore though. All the best to you and your recovery. Day at a time is all any of us can do.. S.A 🙂

Thanks Starting-again. I don't belong to a gym, but I like running outside (especially on grass) anyway. Well done on that time; 9.3 minutes a mile over 10 miles is very impressive! The most progress I made when I was running a few months back was 4 miles in about 32 minutes. Just keep running. See you at the London Marathon!

A quote from Forrest Gump:

"My Momma always said you got to put the past behind you before you can move on. And I think that's what my running was all about. I had run for three years, two months, fourteen days, and sixteen hours".

I'm not suggesting either of us go that far, but you get the idea...

Day 2 begins...

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

Gamble-free since Wednesday 5 August 2009, 10:30pm

Hi SGL,

Just read through all your posts and really empathise. We are both fairly young and at least the damage that has been done can be fixed without it having a major impact on the rest of our lives financially.

As for your running and music - great idea! You cant take an addiction out of your life without filling the void in some way. I found exercise really got me through the first month or two and also uses up a lot of your time and keeps you occupied. Music is another great outlet - sitting strumming my guitar and singing away was some of the best therapy I ever got!

Anyway good luck with your recovery ~ this site really makes a huge contribution to recovery and from reading your diary you seem like a really intelligent and determined person.

Eyes X

Thanks for the support Eyes.

My savings bond just matured, and I have just this morning renewed it for 3 years, so around 90% of my life savings are safely tucked away in that account (I can't withdraw money from it).

The bad thing is I should have £7,000 more on my debit card, but lost it to gambling...

My Mum was telling me this morning about opening an e-savings account (another high-interest account; this one you can make a maximum of 3 withdrawals a year) with most of the money I've earned this summer. I thought, great, but I've lost most of the money I've earned this summer (she doesn't know I've ever gambled at all). I'm just waiting for the final gambling transactions to come through on my account, and then I will not really have enough left to make it worthwhile to open up this separate account (about £900). Basically, £900 is about the amount I would have left on my debit card anyway (and put the other 7k in the e-savings).

Just so my Mum doesn't cotton on, I will open up an e-savings with £100 in it, and that means I will have enough to live on for the time being.

Sorry for rabbiting on about the minutiae of my finances, but it feels good to have put most of it away in a bond again.

In short, I am in basically the same position financially as I was 4 months ago when I started my summer job, (which I guess would have happened if I just was lazy this summer, and didn't get a job or go on holiday, so my finances stayed the same). That isn't nearly as bad as happens to some other people, so I'm grateful I've seen sense at this stage.

Will be back at uni in October and will try and earn some money part-time during the academic year too, so that I can start to earn my money back the only way I can - through hard work, rather than gambling.

Much love,

SGL

Thanks for posting on my dairy today cheered me up no end.

I also have large debts to pay as you know. I am keeping record of it, although I am in debt very slowly it is going down.

I know what you mean about analysing the debt in detail I do that myself. Part of the reason a win is never enough in gambling.. You just remember the stage when things were even better and want that back again.

At least you have savings so be positive and well done for tying up your cash.

I remember having 9K in shares and slowly selling them off so I could continue to gamble. Madness. Then I began chasing the money I had spent becoming addicted along the way...

One thing though I am no financial advisor concentrate on one debt at time and pay it off. Sounds like yours is the credit card...

I must admit that slowly having to pay off the credit card was a lesson in life. I am in my third job since leaving uni and unfortuately it is the worse paid one as not enough hours. I even began fooling myself I could win enough each month to make my life comfortable...

So the credit card took about 2 years to pay of £40 here and there a real strain as the interest was high. Now I wont touch a credit card with a barge pole. Needless to say that now beacuse of my ruined credit rating, I can only get small amounts of credit on cards etc at extortionate rates so I dont bother.

They always seem to rip the poorest people off the most who could do with a better interest rate, (because of the risk) which just makes them more likely to default and not be able to pay...

Anyway try and enjoy your day without worrying about the money. It is gone and you have organised your finances well my friend to be secure for the future

Awayout

Thanks awayout, I had a good day today, and the first thing I did when I got home and turned on my laptop, rather than check if my "available balance" had gone from the negative figure back into the positive (you can only withdraw so much per day on the card), was go on to my diary, because it really has been a help so far.

This morning, I met my friend's dad on the way to work as we both got off the same train to try and catch a quicker one. I said to him something like "well, I thought it would be worth the..."

I paused because the next part of the sentence I was forming was "gamble to try and catch up with another train"

In the end, I did use the word 'gamble', just because nothing else came to mind in the second or two that I paused. But the very idea of gambling makes me sick, so I hesitate to even use the word.

This doesn't mean I'm not capable of more gambling, it just means I'm way past the stage of enjoying anything to do with it.

When I was heading home, the guy who gives out the free newspapers at the station near where I'm working said "Thanks, have a good weekend" when I took a paper and I said "You too". I always say "thanks" to him when I take a newspaper, which I have noticed most people don't do. It's good to see that someone who stands up the whole afternoon giving out free papers for what probably isn't a huge wage is appreciative and kind to people who are nice to him.

It's good to realise that anyone can be happy if they are happy with what they have and enjoy the company of friends or even, in this case, strangers (well, he obviously recognises me when I take a paper, but we're not exactly best buddies).

I had my first mini-urge today: "I could win just some of the money back to make my account look a little bit healthier and more comfortable, as I will not be working for much longer" (I'm back at uni in October). But thankfully I realised that these kinds of thoughts were what led me to double my losses in the first place, and I literally cannot afford to do that again.

Thanks again to everyone on this site who has supported me so far,

SGL