I'm quitting for good

I've had enough. I've joined the GamCare community, signed up to GamStop, installed Gamban and am ready to do this.

Here is my story.

I was introduced to the world of gambling at 18, I'm now 32.

Being next door to my local pub (which regularly showed football), the B*****d a few doors down pulled a few of my friends in with its charm, allowing them to place bets on football games that were being shown and be back there to cash out their winnings and visit the chippy next door within 2 minutes of the final whistle blowing if it all went well.

In no time their trips to the bookies had led them to discovering the fixed odds betting terminals. I wasn't really into football so had never bothered to go in with them when they went to place their bets, but after discovering these magical money machines, the suggestion to come along and have a go on one was put my way in no time.
Unfortunately I did and here it all began.

In I went with them one day, a few pints deep, and I stood and watched as they huddled round one of my friends who sat at one of the machines. He inserted a £20 note and began playing a Bruce Lee themed slot.
Within 10 minutes, he was at the desk cashing in a ticket for around £280.

After watching this and seeing their excitement playing this game, up onto the stool I sat and put £20 into a machine.
I wasn't too familiar with slots but had played 21 with friends as an innocent, no wager card game growing up, so I knew how to play blackjack.
10 minutes later I had tripled my money and I moved on to playing red or black on roulette which got me up to £100.
I would have kept going had we not left abruptly to catch a football game starting in the pub.

From that day I couldn't pass by the bookies without thinking of my first win and the excitement my friends showed when playing the slot game and chasing the triggering of the bonus feature.

I was an apprentice at the time, being paid a measly wage, so the potential of being able to multiply my cash had me hooked from the get go. I have an addictive personality and seeing how exciting the slots seemed to be had me itching to try it for myself, which I did I no time.

Before long we would go to the bookies more and more often (even if no football games were on) as it became as much a part of our outings to the pub as going for a drink was. A few of us would all sit on a machine each and compare our wins and losses.

I had some losing days and some winning days, but more often than not these machines seemed to be making my wallet fatter rather than thinner. Beginners luck I guess.
Hitting the bonus games was such a thrill, just knowing that once that trio of symbols lined up you were going to come into some money.

Fast forward a month or two and that's when my winning streaks and knowing when to quit started to go out of the window.
We had also started visiting land based casinos every now and again as a group.

My addiction to gambling was clearly growing and I would gamble on the fixed oddies or go to the casino quite regularly for a good couple of years from here on. I had also started occasionally visiting the bookies for a fix on my way home from work (they are plastered about on every high street in Britain after all!).

It was around then that I was beginning to have months where I would run out of money a week or two before payday due to gambling.

My social life was always very important to me, so between funding that and my growing gambling problem I was failing to save any money and living paycheck to paycheck, sometimes having to borrow money to attend outings with my friends if I had gambled too much.

At this point I wisened up to the fact that FOBT and casinos weren't always the easy money dispensers that they first seemed to be.

I reduced the amount of times I would gamble, but would still do it occasionally as the potential to win was always a possibility that was on my mind and the betting shops where the slot machines lived still had that magnetic pull when I would walk past them.

The odd casino visit would still spontaneously come to fruition too if me and one particular friend were hanging out and having a drink together.

After a while I found myself being made redundant having to claim jobseekers allowance for 4 months until I found myself a new job. Around this time having had a gap in receiving enough income to gamble and then (after finding a new job) entering a new relationship and being preoccupied by all that that entails, my gambling addiction seemed to subside. This lasted for a couple of years.

Then in 2016, when I was 23, my girlfriend at the time passed away from cancer. I was a total mess off the back of this and it was a miserable and difficult time for me where I felt so numb and apathetic about life. I had suffered from anxiety and depression for years already at this point and so after this happened if I wasn't already suffering with my depression and declining mental health I was grieving.

I had to go off work on long term sick leave due to my mental health around this point, so money was only trickling in. I was also pretty skint due to having to give my mother most of the money I did get for housing and feeding me after moving back in at home.

To give me something to concentrate on for the future, I decided I wanted to learn how to drive, buy a car and save to move back out.
I needed a lot of money to accomplish this, so also decided I needed to find a better paying job to be able to fund this.

I agreed with my employer at the time I would come back to work boost my income and began applying for jobs. Within just over a month of returning to work I had been interviewed and accepted a new job offer. I then handed in my notice and a month after I was in at my new job. 

As I was now earning a decent wage, one night whilst drinking I decided to sign up and log in to an online casino and loaded up with about £50. I played some blackjack and roulette that evening and won a few hundred quid. Here two things happened, one I caught the bug again and two I found the perfect distraction.

My mind would completely be free of all the stuff I was going through as I immersed myself in the casino.
From here on I spiralled back into addiction.

My original plan had been to save money each month but the idea of trying to quickly win the money took over.

For 2 years I would sit and gamble on online casinos. I would win, then lose, then my chase losses. Sometimes I would have nice wins but they just became more tokens to bet with and then I would end up losing again. This or I would lose and end up spending more than I had originally intended to deposit chasing my losses.
I would do this both at home when drinking or even on my night shifts.

Eventually I decided enough was enough and I had a huge problem.
I started signing up to sites purely to self exclude myself and I was finally able to beat the addiction again in 2018.

Now it seems to have started again.
I have had the odd flutter over the last couple of years and managed
to come away without an addiction but then in October I was out for a meal with my fiancee and one of her friends mentioned that he had paid for him and his wife's meal with gambling winnings.

This sparked the urge for me to have a go and I decided to sign up to a new casino where I won around £900 across a few evenings of playing. 

I excluded myself to ensure this remained a profit but then days later signed up to another casino and ended up depositing £300 after a losing streak. I was able to get my balance back to £300 luckily and withdraw.

My fiancée turned my alarm off the next morning and saw the notification from my bank saying this had been received so challenged me about my gambling. She knows about my troubled past with it.
I told her I had been gambling and came away even but lied about why it was £300 by saying I deposited extra by mistake.

She knew this was b******t and called me out on this and I admitted I had deposited £300 purposely and said how sorry I was for lying. We have seperate bank accounts so it was all my own money but she explained she didn't want me gambling because of my past and I said I wouldn't anymore. I profusely told her I was sorry for lying and we left the conversation at that other than the fact she said her trust had been affected by me trying to hide it.

Later on that week I had a conversation with her about gambling and I said I should be able to gamble every now and again if I wanted to as she knew I had already planned to visit a casino with a friend. She said it was a bad idea and not to do it online.

I argued with her that I should be able to do it online but promised I wouldn't let it get like it did before. Her response was that she didn't support this and would not help me if I lost money which I fully understood and would never expect.

A week later I told her I was going to have a bet online so I wouldn't be hiding it.
I came out even but then a week later made another deposit and ended up losing and chasing my losses. I was then able to win my money back on another weekend and after an expensive Christmas I had the idea of trying to win more in order to clear my overdraft.
This led to a string of numerous sessions that in the end resulted in me losing £1000.

I signed up to gamstop and the gamcare forum as I was disgusted in myself and hated feeling like I had lied by breaking what was agreed and was letting her down. Addiction is addiction though which meant that this didn't stop me and one night I discovered that casinos that weren't on gamstop existed.

In a drunken state I signed up to one and deposited £100 which I miraculously turned to £1800. This meant I had won all my losses back plus £800 on top!

This all went back though due to it sitting in the account not able to be withdrawn as I needed to complete KYC checks and was waiting on an up to date bank statement to arrive for over a week.

The day before it arrived I lost everything...

I had 2 other sessions since where I was able to win close to £1000 but greed and wanting to get these up to £1800 resulted in me losing it all on both occasions.

Fast forward to now and my total losses since I started again are £2190.
I feel so guilty and fully intended to keep my promise of keeping my gambling under control and as only an occasional thing but I guess I was a fool to believe I could resist it becoming a problem again.

I have installed Gamban to completely stop me from using my phone to gamble. Last night though I used her laptop to sign up to a site and I lost £250.

I feel so sick and hate the guilt of hiding all of this along with the financial strain that it has all resulted in and so am creating this diary which I will update regularly to keep myself motivated and held accountable.

I'm so done. My lifetime losses to gambling equate to between £10,000.00 to £15,000.00. Far too much for any 'hobby". 

I don't want to feel like I am hiding anything anymore or letting my wonderful fiancée down. I refuse to let this horrible and insidious addiction destroy my finances, my relationship and my life so have no choice but to quit.

I don't dare tell her but enough is enough. It ends today.