Life With Sports Bets Only

Thanks Joan and Carla.

Well Carla if you are 52 then maybe there's hope for me at 47! Thinking that even if I can get my values back there are just too many life opportunities that are much too late to ***** at my age though.

But continue on the recovery road and see where it leads. I think I will continue to feel better about myself as a person but just don't know if life will continue as just surviving and paying debts at least for a while.

Hi Captain,

I am 41 and three quarters! Makes me wonder what's the difference between my age and your age and Carla's age in terms of life opportunities and it being "too late". I don't especially have any answers to that but I do relate to your thinking and perhaps a slight panic i.e. at times it can feel like time is running out... but running out for what?? (rhetorical question) All the best Captain... S.A

Hey... that's freakin' ME out 'cause I'm 52 and 3/4 LOL LOL! Sounds to me like you're depressed (as so many of us on this forum are), Captain. For me, that was the case even before I gambled my fortune away. Maybe you need to start addressing that alongside the gambling consequences? Yeah, maybe some opportunities are related to age but really, not that many. Our thinking can really keep us stuck (at least that's what I'm telling myself, because believe me, I can go into major panic mode).

Thanks SA and Carla. Dunno if I am depressed or just realistic. I think most gamblers are at least disgruntled or disillusioned with life or depressed in circumstances like mine where they use gambling as an escape. Never for the life of me understand those who say they have this great life waiting for them if they stop gambling, some say this after they stop too. I think they are deluding themselves. If life was so great they wouldn't put all their time money and effort into gambling. Same possibly applies with other addictions.

I took wrong choices re career path and relationships and limited my outlook and opportunities and then covered up and escaped from life with gambling for years. I can't change my career now until I have paid off my debts and by then I'll hopefully be retiring anyway. I just don't see that at 41 or 47 or 52 you have the same life choices you had at 21. Being young free single and with no history or baggage or complications is a big difference from a screwed up, full of debt 47 year old trying to become the real person he should be. That's reality and acceptance first and foremost, but with regret, shame and a bit of hope thrown into the mixture.

I agree with a lot, even most of what you say BUT you have to realize that a great life doesn't happen by accident. You have to be willing to take the time to create it. Yes, limited choices at this age in terms of paying off debt and career but that's not all there is to life or rather, not how we're supposed to live. Now, if I could only learn to live what I'm preaching....sigh

You're so right about the potential to get addicted to this place. I tend to throw myself into a number of things with what I'd call an unhealthy intensity. It's part of why I dread going back to work because I know how I can let that take over. I so have to work on balance in life.

Yeah, sometimes idle chitchat can be annoying (esp if you don't care for the person/people) but it can sometimes lead to interesting or fun things. Yesterday in the supermarket, I ended up chatting with this 200 year old man and we laughed our heads off and had all the people around us laughing. I really enjoyed it. You have to be open to it or nothing will happen. If you're open to it, you might learn something, have fun or whatever and if it seems to go nowhere, then you can always leave or just shut down mentally.

I think there's a whole lot we gamblers need to learn about ourselves... chitchat or no chitchat.

So many people on here lapsing and gambling recently. Seems to be a mood of 'its ok to lapse' whereas the mood a couple of months ago was more like 'gambling is a sin, it is evil, you must abstain and never gamble again'.

Proves to me that every individual needs to look after themsleves and take what they need from this Forum and no more, not feel the need to follow others literally.

I have recovered in my own way, I am proud of that although it has taken a while. Want it to be end of December so I can say 6 months random gamble free. I know I will get there.

Cap,

Well done with your continued abstinence from random gambling. I am sure you will get to the six month mark.

Your system is unique to you but probably is a one in a million case. For most gamblers we cannot accept losses but you seem to accept some losses from sports bets but not from random gambling. In all honesty, I have never been able to understand this. Maybe you can explain the difference on your diary. A loss is a loss for me and if I placed a small sports bet and lost I would want to win that money back again. If you can accept losses on sports betting why not on random gambling? Is it down to the amount of money you have lost on random? Have you managed to lower your debt during the past six months or have you continued to lose but just not as much. Surely the purpose of being on this site is to change your life and reduce the burden of debt due to past gambling.

Tomso.

Can't comment on Tomso's comment as I have no idea what your system is. I only know that everyone has to do this their own way. As for your post to me, Cap... I've been self analysing since I ever became conscious of what that means (teens, I suppose) and I still have little idea of who or what I am and I certainly don't accept who I am or I wouldn't be constantly fighting with myself. Really, isn't that what life is all about? Discovery and growth? Personally, I think that even if one was a totally together type person, life would become pretty boring if you stopped discovering more about yourself and you'd stop growing. Maybe that's why I've been so miserable these many years? You don't learn all that much by being a couch potatoe. That's what I've become. I do as little as possible... just get by, then head to the couch to zone out. Sad. Boring. Me.

Firstly, congratulations on your continued progress - approaching 6 months without random gambling is obviously something you're proud of, as you certainly should be.

Just a general remark (which I should flag straight away, is not a criticism, and should hopefully not cause offence), just hopefully some food for thought. As you know, I have always followed your diary closely and the thing that really frustrates me is a defeatist, pessimistic undertone that translates in some of your posts.

The remark Carla and others have made about relative age is a particularly pertinent one. You often say you are too old / have done too much damage / are in too much debt to really make wholesale changes to your life. Many (myself included) have encouraged you to try new activities and experiences - which is typically greeted with 'I have tried them all / I am not that sort of person / I had an injury so am out of touch with sport etc.' All those responses are utterly valid - and its your prerogative to call upon them.

I LOVE Carla's point about success/happiness not only being measured in financial terms. I read a particularly cheesy quote the other day which said: "you're only ever a moment away from changing the rest of your life". You can pass this off as psycho-babble or whatever, but I still think there is a message there.

The reason I say all this is that I know I have exactly the same character traits as you. I am not yet 30, but am already pre-occupied with what a mess I've made - how I should have become a professional footballer - how I should have focused and applied myself to a specific career etc. I look enviously at 21 year-olds and here and think 'if only I was them'. So these things are all relative... you are ONLY 47... and whilst the extent of your debt dictates you will not pay that off for a long, long time, you have so much life left to live. In fact, you are probably only half way through your life.

So I apologize unreservedly for calling you out on this. No doubt you are shaking your head, dismissing what I'm saying as nonsense. I don't know you - I only have the information written on these pages.

A wise man once said "we choose how we think" and I, for one, am trying desperately to make sure that is always in the most positive fashion.

All the best

D123

Tomso

Replying to your post on my thread as you asked. It's quite simple. I decide in advance how much to place on a sports bet. It's always an amount I can afford to lose. Always has been. The football I now bet on twice a week, sometimes only once. Have a very occasional bet on golf or snooker. But over the years for many reasons of escape and stress and just because I loved the excitement and thrill of it I gambled on firstly horses and then anything else that moved in the bookmakers.

With sports, because I haven't gambled an amount which is obscene, I don't have any urge to chase losses. It's purely a hobby like going to the cinema. If I go to the cinema and don't enjoy the film, I don't have an urge to go watch another one that day but I could go back a week later.

It was d**n hard to get away from random, took me 5 and a half years as you know. I went through so many years of days going in to place one bet and if the one bet won I'd walk out happy. But on the days where it didn't I'd continue to gamble until I was in profit or I had lost it all. I felt compelled to win on every visit to a bookmakers to gamble on random. Had to keep gambling and just thought there are so many opportunities every few minutes especially when virtual racing came along that you have to win eventually. And most days I did. But it only takes one or 2 bad days to lose everything when you can't find enough winners to get a profit.

So in a nutshell sports has always been a hobby and random has always been my addiction. The two crossed when I went in to place a sports bet and also bet random and when I used sports betting to try and get back random losses.

My debt has reduced since I stopped random 4 months ago. As for changing my life I am realistic about that. Changing my life was never my aim. I simply had to quit random eventually to start reducing and stop increasing my debt. If my life in general also gets better that's a bonus.

Captain

Just a quick line to say thankyou for putting the capital A back into abstinence.

Great for the focus.

Regards Duncan.

Hey Cap... been thinking about our last posts. I guess I'm not really boring. Funny, as I sit here typing I have this piece of paper that's hanging above where I'm sitting. It was a little exercise we did at work a couple years back. Our names were on a single piece of paper (each person's sheet distributed somewhere in the room) and we had to walk around and write our descriptions of each other. People wrote wonderful things about me...definitely not boring... made me feel so good I kept the silly thing. I guess I'm just bored with myself. And depressed. I isolate myself so much these days and I can't for the life of me figure out why because I really enjoy being around people and have loads of friends. Maybe it's the shame I feel about what I've become and what I've done. I'm nothing like I used to be. And I doubt you're boring either (lol.... but I confess I'm not a fan of sports so if sitting near you in a pub, I just might have to bring up the weather...) I'm truly laughing out loud now.