I will never win because I cannot stop

I agree. I've no means to gamble anymore. Don't have access to cash as I've handed over control to the missus.

Tomorrow is the start of a new week. Determined not to gamble any of Augusts wages! A lot to look forward to this month including a family holiday! Gambling will not derail me this time!

Day 4 not going to bet today. Worked out a realistic payment plan that deliberately leaves money short to prevent wastefulness. Onward and upward.

Glad to see you're still on track Husky, and it's great you've taken steps to work it all out x

Thanks Elise for taking the time to post. Watching Britain at the bookies....car crash TV!

Hi Huskydawg

Im new and as an ex gambler have been moved reading peoples stories and posts as i totally understand what you are going through. Please feel free to ask me any questions that you want. There are so many people who are here to help. You arent alone and it CAN be beaten it really can

Having watched Britain in the bookies and read some newspaper articles on the programmes I can't help but think it painted a ridiculously one sided and romanticised view of gambling. Very little air time was devoted to showing how cruelly destructive gambling can be to people's lives. In the last episode it devoted about 5 minutes to the scourge of FOBTs. I didn't realise that the shop staff are aware of how much you put in and can even tell what numbers you backed and how much you staked on each. They must sit in there and laugh at people like me who staked hundreds with little or no return. It annoyed me that the lady running the new shop in Slough was fully aware that one of her customers had an issue with FOBT roulette. She was aware that he had just pumped £2000 plus into a machine and was clearly agitated. Her response? Bring him a tin of coke and try to explain that her action was to break his cycle! What a load of rubbish. If she wanted to break his cycle she shouldn't identified the vast some he was pumping into the machine and refused to credit anymore. That show was nothing more than one providers attempt to glorify betting and to attract more punters. Would loved to have seen an episode entitled 'losers' in which we see the after effects of betting! The depression, self loathing, desperation, anger, helplessness but that doesn't make good TV!

Thanks dantheman. I've frustrated a lot of people on here including myself with my on off gambling history. Appreciate the post and the offer of advice.

Huskydawg

I watched the programme aswell. I think it shows one thing and one thing only. Bookies really never lose. EVER. The machines are the work of the devil, pure and simple. You have to look at gambling like smoking, drinking and drugs. Its an addiction. You can break it with will power, desire and help. Its hard work at the start. Bloody hard work. But it gets easier. The mood swings stop, the irrational thoughts get less.

It's all about breaking the cycle! I'm working at that by removing money time and location!

Yeah, I think the problem is that you can bet all day every day nowadays. Its about sheer WANT. How much do you want to do it?? Set very small goals and physically mark them off in a book or a diary if thats what helps. It did it for me. I could always find money or a location to bet. I found money became irrelevant, I had no concept of it at my worst. The reason i wanted to stop was the way it make me FEEL and the way i treated the people around me.

I agree dantheman when I got into a betting frenzy I had no value in money. I was capable of losing hundreds and thousands with little or no regard about how many hours I had to work to make that back. Gambling completely desensitised me to money and no loss was too great. Hopefully those days are behind me!

If you want it bad enough you will give it up. Thats the bottom line.

Never think about the past. Thats gone. Think about the future. Try to remember a time when you didnt gamble and what you spent your hard earned on. And take it hour by hour if you need to.

Always here mate

Got approved for a loan today which will consolidate all my debts into one manageable amount. That should remove the stress of worrying each month how I will clear my debts and remove a contributory factor to my gambling behaviour. It's going to take 4 years to clear everything but at least now I have a plan and will see my life fall back on track. Gambling for me was an extremely expensive addiction and it has taken £10,000 of a loan to plug what I ran up. It's been an expensive lesson but I've tried plenty of times to win at gambling and ended up a loser on most occasions. Hopefully my life will change for the better now and I can finally start enjoying time with my family. For years I've tried to repay my debts too quickly and as a consequence tried to gamble to make up the shortfalls. In reality all I did was created an atmosphere where gambling thrived and I ended up deeper in debt. Thankfully the interest rate is excellent and repayments very reasonable. It's time to get on with my life now and say goodbye to gambling for good.

That's good news sorting your debts out, it does take a lot of pressure off the shoulders, but stay very much on guard because that addiction is still very much on your back, and will try and sneak back in once you have available cash again.

This is the time to make sure there are no tiny gaps left whatsoever.

Well done husky

Suzanne xxx