It's slot to stop

Hey there!

Good to see you starting a diary and well done on day 3! Also awesome to see you self excluding from the sites, this will definitely help on your low days!..keep making the right choice, keep urself busy, write on your diary at any time and please believe in yourself..recovery IS possible if you let it happen..power is in your hands - choose life, it gifts peace, happiness and freedom

Sandra x

Thanks Sandra for your encouraging words, this evening would have been a big trigger point for me as the other half is out and as soon as he usually goes I am straight onto the lap top but not tonight in fact I have been reading some of the stories on here and you can feel the desperation in those stories if only we could bottle that feeling of anxiety and complete self loathing so that we can just remind ourselves at a time of weakness how we would end up feeling (hope that makes sense)! Was hoping to write a bit more about myself and my gambling over the weekend but have got to work so hopefully can write a bit more next week. Take care Sandra and everyone x

Hi Liaison, thanks for dropping by & a massive welcome to recovery 🙂

I would thoroughly recommend getting your words down on paper in these early days so that you can look back on your own feelings when you get further along in your journey so that you never start kidding yourself that you are cured! Congratulations on the self exclusions you have done so far & implore you to carry out the others for life! I came looking for a way to control my gambling & was shocked to discover that there is no such thing! I still have a long way to go but I have finally accepted that the only way to beat the addiction is to never give in to it!

I look forward to reading your story. Keep fighting - ODAAT

Hi ODAAT, thank you for your encouraging words and congratulations to you on having reached the one year mark, wow.

This is a little bit about myself, I am a 52 year old woman, I am a recovering alcoholic been sober for 3 and a half years now and am a recovering gambler been gamble free for 8 days now. Was a very heavy drinker for a long time (on reflection probably 20 years plus) until it just escalated about 5 years ago to the stage where I was drinking at 7am until invarioubly I passed out at the end of the day!! I had my own business at this time and somehow most of the time managed to function through the day although I kidded myself at the time that I was acting perfectly normally!!! About 4 and a half years ago I discovered online gambling it started when I was off sick from my business with depression and anxiety no doubt fuelled by drink (my partner and my eldest daughter kept the business running) and I started with online bingo then quickly progressed to online slots and it was like wow the graphics and the sounds gave me an instant high and an even bigger high should I be so lucky to have a win, to start with I didn't deposit a lot but that soon changed! I got a credit card to consolidate existing debts (not from gambling) and they gave me a high credit limit which left me about £4.5k needless to say I used and lost that on gambling, plus I used credit on other cards to fund this awful addiction, at this point my drinking was out of control and with being on anti depressants and the stress of getting futher into debt it all came to a head one day (3 and a half years ago) with my partner when I phoned him up saying that I was going to end it all, he had to drop what he was doing (running my business) and make an excuse to my daughter so as to not concern her and come home, he made an emergency doctors appointment and went with me where it all came out about how much I was drinking he had his suspicions but didn't know the extent, I revealed where I hid my bottles and he gave me the ultimaturm it was him or the drink that he couldn't watch me killing myself with alcohol, I spent a sleepless night that night and decided I would tell him about the gambling and how much debt I was in because of it but I couldn't deal with anymore face to face confrontation so wrote him a letter and spent the night drinking mouth wash (which contains alcohol!) I was in the house when he read the letter and although he was shocked we were able to talk about the extent of my gambling, I signed up for counselling for the gambling and attended AA for the drinking, I stopped the drinking from that point but unfortunately the gambling continued (even before and after my counselling sessions) and my partner thinks I am cured on both counts!! Whether it was because I was trying to kick two addictions at the same time I don't know!! When I had my business I was continuously robbing Peter to pay Paul so to speak to cover my gambling, I have borrowed from friends and family lying to them as to why I need the money and even pawned my jewellry to get enough money to cover my mortgage because I had gambled it away, my jewellry is still with the pawn brokers and I am having to pay £85 a month interest on it! All my credit cards have got a stop on them which I did when my partner originally found out and I am gradually paying them back slowly but surely. However my gambling continued, I closed my business a year ago last May it was an issue with the landlord sign a 10 year lease or get out so I got out! Was lucky enough to find a job 3 months later which I am lucky enough to love but still I gambled until 8 days ago, I have finally accepted that 'I cannot win because I cannot stop' and its so true, everytime I gambled I would tell myself that if I won I wouldn't gamble below a certain figure but of course that didn't happen I would gamble until it had all gone and then try and chase my losses, last week I knew I was over my overdraft limit and everytime I would deposit I would think to myself the bank surely won't let me deposit but it did until I was £300 over my overdraft limit of £3k!!! (dreading the interest charges on that!) Just writing that last bit down shows me just how irresponsible I seem especially as now I have got to try and somehow get the money together for my mortgage! Or I would win and withdraw the money only to cancel the withdrawal request so that I could gamble with it and then lose the whole lot, one of the sites I used would take nearly a week to pay out any winnings so invarioubly that would be cancelled!! Anyway that is some of my sad story and I will keep fighting. Love this site.

I would love to say I am surprised but that is nothing new! Fantastic news on being sober for all that time though 🙂 That's proof that with the right tools you can beat this too & 8 days is a fantastic start 🙂

Want my advice...Tell your husband! You need more counselling to discover what your addictions are masking & you need support to move forwards! You have to let him know what a mess you are in before he finds out anyway & is crushed that you have been lying to him! It may be that you have been doing this to try & protect him but it won't matter if you don't come clean!

You are still young enough to have a great life & coming here is a fantastic start but the addiction cannot be beaten on willpower alone! You need to break your Time-Money-Location triangle either with blocking software, handing over your finances, cutting up your card & scratching the security number off of the new one or simply just taking a hammer to whatever you use to gamble on! I only ever wanted to control my gambling but I learned that the only way to control it was by not partaking & I have not looked back! My life is soooo much better now...I still have s**t days, I'm still a moody cow but I'm getting to know myself & I could be worse!

Ring your mortgage company, speak to the bank, tell someone, hand over your finances but whatever you do, don't listen to a word Mr Gamble says! He lied to me for 30 years, all that time cheating with half of my cyber friends that I have since found out about on joining this site!

You are doing great! Keep fighting - ODAAT

Thank you for your encouraging words, I totally agree with everything you say. I know for a fact and having learnt the hard way that I will never be able to control gambling therefore my option is to not have any temptation available to me, for a long time when I became sober I didn't have any alcohol in the house and to this day its very rare that there is any. I hate the way gambling was making me feel (desperate and edgy to be on my own so that I could gamble and then even more anxious afterwards because of the losses!), am building up to telling my partner but I should just take the bull by the horns as there is never going to be a right time!! I will add more later this week, now going to do a couple of jobs around the house which I have been ignoring due to sitting in front of a computer losing my money on a stupid gambling site!!! Thank you once again for your support.

Hi liason

Well done for starting your road to recovery. You have shown great strength in beating your alcohol addiction and with the right tools and support you will to overcome this too. Sending my support for this long and windy journey.

Take care

Bex

Thank you anon1982 for your support, day 10, feeling a lot of urges but not going to give into them, been reading a lot of heartbreaking stories on here and one thing that rings true is that we have to draw a line under our losses, we are never going to win them back and will only make matters worse. I am feeling strong but not going to get complacent about it, I don't want the feeling of dread anymore and I am going to remind myself of that every time I feel the urge. Will post more over the weekend

Struggling quite a bit today, day 11, got a day off and intended to do so many of the things that have had to take a back seat but can't get motivated, feel jittery and on edge bit like I used to feel while waiting for an opportunity to gamble! One consolation though is that I have just closed one of my online gambling accounts, I had self excluded for 6 weeks but I know that once that time was up I would be back to square one and I really don't want that, I can't install k9 as its not my computer but the two sites I used are now closed, I know I need to put barriers in place to not be tempted to open more accounts and feel that giving the laptop back (it's on long term loan to me) is for the best. Think I will go for a walk in a min and hope that helps with the anxious feelings!

Maybe the anxious feeling is because I am hoping the post arrives while my partner is not here, I think my bank statement should be here any day now and it won't be a pretty sight! Will be so glad when I am further down the gamble free road and I don't have these worries which I have inflicted on myself!!!

I'd echo ODAAT's thoughts. Dealing with addiction or trying to control it on my own tends to be an uphill battle. A problem shared and all that.

The same as alcoholism, gambling can be progressive and before you know it, your in deeper than you thought.

Keep fighting - ODAAT

Well done on closing that account but yes, you need stronger barriers & returning the scene of the crimes to whomever it is on loan from is a great idea 🙂

Walking is a great idea when the urges strike, healthy body, healthy mind & all that 🙂 These early days are so difficult, work through them a minute or even a second @ a time if you have to! You are doing great!

Keep fighting - ODAAT

Thanks ODAAT and triangle, I am going to keep fighting! Post arrived but no bank statement, probably be tomorrow! Walked into local town was going to pay pawn broker some of the interest I owe him but he was shut, so paid the money I had for him into the bank which means I am only £8 short for mortgage payment (it's an interest only mortgage) which I will be able to sort by the time it's due so that's a relief, was going to have a word with pawn broker anyway to see if I could defer payment a week anyway as mortgage more important!! I know him fairly well which is a good job!! Feeling a bit less anxious now until tomorrow when I am waiting for the post again!! One day at a time, it will get easier, if I can resist alcohol I can resist gambling but will always keep my guard up on both accounts

Hi,

I too would dread the bank statements arriving, so much so I didn't bother to open them up for years. What was the point it only showed me a list of gambling transcations and how much I was overdrawn.

One of the first things, though a gambler with debt needs to do, is to take the painful step of working out at just how much debt they have and start to work out, how to start to paying it off.

As far as account exclusion goes, the best way of dealing with it, is as soon as the exclusion is finished, immediately go back in and exclude again. Don't even think about a little gamble won't hurt, it will, gamblers need to take positive actions, while the determination is there, a moments pause can be deadly.

Good Luck.