Mortgaging my future.

I am 52 years old and only a few short years ago, I was financially set with a nice house completely paid off and money in the bank. I am now sitting on pins and needles waiting for tomorrow when I have to talk to my banker because I can't make my payments. James, I don't want to sound harsh but I heard myself say many of the things you've said (or something similar) and now I can only look back at all the broken promises I made to myself. Tomorrow, I will be calling the banker in hopes that I can make arrangements so that I don't lose my house completely (credit is maxed on a half million dollar house I used to own free and clear) and I will also make an appointment with my doctor and look into the possibility of a residential treatment program. Things couldn't be worse for me right now. I hope this doesn't happen to you. Talk openly and freely with your finance, no matter what the outcome. Get to the root of what is making you gamble no matter how hard that might be. Get help NOW and don't rationalize the situation. Take this very, very seriously and know that there are many of us stuck in this dreadful cycle of addiction. That's my advice. Best wishes to you.

Carla - Thankyou very much for your post. I am very sorry to hear about your situation - it could so easily be me. I hope very much that you are able to organise something with the banker.

Thankyou so much for your warning - it is exactly what I need to hear again and again.

I realise that I need to stop gambling and to set measures in place to make sure I can never gamble again. I dont know what else to do at the moment apart from self exclude from online casinos (the source of ALL my woe!) and to come here every day to report on my progress.

Yo,

Get the soft ware , maybe think bout going to GA.

Use every tool available to fight this addiction .

You have taken the first step in creating a future for you and your loved one , maybe more loved ones in years to come . For that pal I take my hat off to you , this addict is sneaky and spiteful. Like you to leave the back door ajar really to creep in and get you when you are at your most vulnerable .

For now friend , keep posting , keeping reading , it truly does help

Shiny xxxx

Thanks shiny,

I am loving being able to talk about this, because I have been gambling for a decade now (it hit the big time in the last 5 years) - and although my two best friends also gamble - the extent to which it has got out of hand has been my secret alone.

I am trying to work out if my circumstances will be a help or a hindrance to this process, basically I have a job where I will travel for months at a time (up to 6 months usually) - during the time I am travelling I cannot gamble, nor do I have any real desire to do so.

When I get back, I suppose the memories of my past calamities are faded and I think 'well, my finances are topped up, ill just deposit £50 and have a little bet' - if I lose then I might deposit more to chase, if I win, I might withdraw my winnings, but then as you all know the temptation to get just a little more, until I pretty much gamble everything I have chasing losses' .

Going away therefore helps to get it out of my system and reinvigorate my finances, but it also almost resets my memory of why I must not gamble. I have never before got to this stage however, where I realise I must do ANYTHING to stop this COMPLETELY.

I hope I can use this informed determination to make sure the next time 'I come back' I am not tempted to start the slippery slope all over again.

Hi James

Thanks for posting on my diary and welcome to the forum!

Have to say I'm not one of the most active members here and my thoughts are mainly on non-gambling issues nowadays. But it's my pleasure to help if you find my diary or any of my posts helpful.

You seem like really smart guy and I can relate to your situation since online Blackjack was my worst nemesis in gambling world. One that really screwed me over time after time. I can't even find words to describe the disgust I feel toward that game nowadays.

I don't think I'm very good to give any advice but if I try, first I could say just take it one day at a time. If you think too far ahead it may sometimes feel just too much to handle. And secondly, come here and read and write everytime you feel like you are slipping away from your recovery. You really don't want to forget why you came here in the first place so don't let yourself forget it.

And best part about this place is that there are lot of support and great people here! So use that to your advantage.

Well that is day 1 completed. I feel that these early days will be quite different to the days ahead.

These early days are easier in some ways because now I have come to this watershed moment, what I am doing is new and fresh in my mind.

However my recent spiral of losses also makes it harder as the temptation to chase those losses is more likely to be there at the moment.

I have installed the k9 software which I think is a good statement of intent. I am yet to give someone else the password though, so in theory it would be easy for me to unblock the content.

I do not think this is likely at the moment but I realise I must do so, maybe not for now, but for 6 months time, when maybe the lessons I have learned are starting to fade in my memory.

I cancelled my membership to my favourite (by some margin) site about a year ago, it would have been fairly easy to rejoin as it was not a proper self exclusion owing to the fact at that time I hadnt fully realised how much of addiction this really was and what lengths I would have to go to to protect myself. I was never at any point tempted to rejoin that site, and it the process that would have been involved to rejoin was enough to remind me why I had taken that action originally.

The point I am trying to make with that lengthy paragraph above, is that I don't have any history of going to great lengths to gamble, it is always because 'its there', its almost boredom (although I should add I do not have a boring life and that is not a causal factor in this). Therefore if I take away easy access, it should (will) be enough.

I think that a gambler will always find a way to gamble if they have not admitted to themselves their problem and committed themselves to quitting as people are doing on this site. I think activating k9 should be enough, does anyone have any advice - is it imperative that I get someone else to change the password so i dont know it? Can I juts write down the password and put it in a box that says 'DONT DO THIS!' - I suppose there comes a point where if someone lost control to the point they were determined they could just buy a new ipad and gamble from that. I really think that cant and wont happen to me - so is what I have done thus far with k9 sufficient?

I recall saying to myself "I will never gamble my house away" yet....... So, have a heart to heart with your fiancé and give her the password. I recall thinking "I can do this on my own". Now I know I can't. I wish I had gotten serious about this sooner.

Thanks Carla, I hope things are ok with you. I am sure this is a terrible time for you. When things are bad we all have a tendency to think they will remain so, just remember time is a healer and there will be good times ahead for you I am sure.

I will give the password to my best friend and that way I would have to pretty much reboot my entire laptop to unblock the software, which I am 100% sure I would never do. Such an extreme act would definitely trump any weak notions that I should have a 'harmless' gamble.

On the subject of telling my fiance, it is something I definitely would be willing to do. She is an incredibly sweet girl, who has had a really hard time for the last few years, she lost her father a few years ago, an event which has really impacted her hard, and continues to do so. My job is probably the most disruptive job you could ever imagine - and she pays a hard price by not seeing me ( i suspect my relative independence has exasperated my problem gambling - i suspect my best friend has had similar 'experiences' to me - but family life and joint finances have almost certainly helped him to curb his excesses. It is fine that I dont have that - its good that it gives me a chance to go through this rehabilitation process. In time I will be in the same position of him with joint accounts - any money I spend I would have to justify to her which will be a perfect scenario.

Back to my original point - I just cannot countenance telling her about this, it would bring her so much sorrow and misery. She wouldnt leave me over this so I have no selfish reasons not to tell her. It is an extra reason for me to conquer this, because the next step if I relapse would be to tell her - so if I ever gambled again I would be doing so in the knowledge that I could bring her massive pain.

So my plan is that I will continually reassess myself and if I feel that I cannot do this without telling her then I will do so. It would be nicer to tell her about this one day and say that I was a gambler and it was a massive taint on my life, but that was 'x' number of years ago...

I do heed your dire warnings Carla and it is just the kind of thing I need to hear, which is why I will be coming back here for years, even if one day I think that I am 'safe'.

Hey there Stark.

It seems you have your head screwed on well to beat this so good luck to you.

I can understand not wanting to cause a rift in your relationship over this. It is a tough thing to reveal no matter what the outcome may be, but it all comes down to you really in what you think is best in regards to who you tell. All I'd say, is use her as a deterrent from gambling. Speaking from experience, it ate me up for a while that my continued gambling led to a downfall of a past relationship. At first my gambling was somewhat under control, but the continued gambling led me to having no choice but to reveal everything to my loved ones and that was a very difficult thing to do.

So yeah, just take one step at a time, and if you do get bored or have any urges, just do what I do and come on here and take in some diaries etc. Other peoples stories and support should help in recovery. It's helped me a lot so far!

Take it easy

Jace

Day 2

It seems like an eternity since I joined even though it has been such a short time. I think it is because I have a found this site so amazing so far and am just eager to keep coming back to educate myself and learn more about why I have been so amazingly stupid in the last 4 or 5 years.

I am finding it rewarding to come here and report on my progress. I have had no gambling urges, but that was expected, I am cleaned out financially and the fresh horror at losing yet more hard earned money makes gambling very unappealing.

It is for the time beyond this period, when I have rebuilt my fiances that I am investing so much time to this site and planning safeguards.

Until then , I will keep reporting my progress and reading other diaries, many of which are very inspiring.

Day 3

All is going well , I am hurting financially at the moment, which is why it is not a great test to see if this resolve I have will be enough.

Spent a lovely evening with my fiance last night, I felt some guilt because I have been thinking about my past stupidity alot and just think how I could have made her life better if I had spent the money on her/us.

My introspection over my past gambling continues and I have been thinking about how I did not realise the true extent of my problem before. I have been in debt for the past 12 years - i am now 31 and have not been in credit since the age of 19.

It is an amazing reality.

I originally got into debt during my GAP year. I used a credit card to fund the trip once the £3k or so I had saved had been used up. It was nothing to do with gambling, although saying that makes me smile at the irony, because it was on my GAP year in Nepal where i first experienced a casino and used to play BlackJack. In those days I would religiously only gamble with £10 (or 1000 rupees as it was back then). Around half of the time I turned a modest profit as you would expect as I was a particularly cautious gambler. Rich Indians on holiday would sometimes insist on giving me some chips - I think it gave them a kick to be funding a (relatively) poor white man!

The casino would serve free food a drink (the kingfisher lager was amazing, I dont think ive ever tasted so sweet a beer - it certainly doesnt taste the same in the UK).

And so I thought I was making a profit - I would at worst lose £10 , but would always eat and drink over £10 worth of food. Nepal was just one of those places where such things could happen. I guess there weren't many impoverished teenagers milking the system for them to impose chip limits!

Of course this short term instance of making a 'profit' from the casino was of course false. It all goes back to the house in the end.

Years went by and I gambled intermittently through university. It never caused calamity, but once or twice I lost big and to my shame I openly gambled in front of my then girlfriend, no doubt boring her to tears and making her question me in the process.

Before my career took off while still finding me feet I did a few mundane jobs ; admin logistics, IT sales- these never paid big and looking back at this point gambling was a behind the scenes actor in my life , chipping away at finances in a subtle but not explosive way.

My memory of how much I lost from the age of 13 when myself and two of my best friends discovered fruit machines (ironically we are all now relative high flyers) isnt always that great. But i can recall my finances at each stage of my life. By 2006 I had over 10k of debt, alot of that was from uni - which without parental support or any kind of grant I really struggled with.

At this point I interupt the flow of what I am writing to ask - has my debt level - alot of which was originally non gambling related - caused me to gamble more to try and reduce it? I wonder sometimes when faced with a seemingly endless amount of debt which takes just too long to pay off - does it encourage me to seek a quicker way to pay it off - through gambling.

By 2010 I momentarily paid off all my debt - a ridiculously long time when I consider my fairly good salary and how few fixed outgoings I had at the time. I think that lasted a few months not helped by an enforced loan to my brother - 6k - (he has paid back £900 - still owes 5.1K). I had bought his car from him for £8k and stupidly we agreed I would get it serviced and he would pay - to cut a long story short it had a major engine defect and would cost £2k to fix, he didnt want to do that so said he would buy the car back- I gave him the car and he never quite managed to pay me! As you can imagine I was quite annoyed at this - my brother is not a con artist but completely bizarrely he wouldnt even apologise, talk about, or even sometimes answer my texts.

I realised he was in deep financial trouble and let the matter go - it was only money and I would get it back eventually even if I had to wait a decade. Understanding my own problem I now strongly suspect perhaps he has his own problem gambling habit. It was not something that had seriously occurred to me before these last 2 days. But now that I have come to understand this 'disease' a bit better I think it is the most logical explanation. I have never quite understood how my generous brother, who would do anything for his family and friends, could become such an a** - well 'OCCUMS RAZOR' - take away what is impossible and you are left with fact. If i take away the impossibility of him behaving like an a**, I am left with a deeply shameful gambling habit making him unable to return my money to me. A long long time ago he told me about how he had a 'system' for roulette and would make money and then ban that card. I didnt think much of it at the time as I was a fairly regular gambler unaware that I had a problem.

So there I have it - this epiphany I have had has led me to the conclusion that my brother has probably been afflicted with the same thing - and he has a family to boot. Its just another reason for me to beat this because then i have the knowledge and the moral authority to help him beat his ( unless I am mistaken - the alternative is that he led himself to near bankruptcy by some other means).

I apologise for going off on tangents but writing all this is good therapy - now back to my story, having got in the green in 2010, my financial situation went quickly into negative 5 figures. I was probably about 10-15k in the red ( I am shamed to admit this was a manageable and unconcerning level of debt). It is another irony that my brother not paying me back has saved me that money- I would have lost it all anway - how ridiculous is that! All I can hope is that from 3 days ago onwards, he could pay me back that money and not a penny of it would ever go on gambling.

In 2011 I bought a mini cooper on finance but within a year I was so in debt from Blackjack losses that I was forced to sell it. That massive windfall was absorbed into my debts and after a few months (i can barely remember) of limited gambling I was back to losing money regularly again. Since 2011 I have gone through cycles of recouping finances only to lose them all in one chunk. As I have previously mentioned alot of the recouping periods were when I was away with work for months on end and was not able to gamble, therefore looking back it is hard to say if I had periods of limited gambling or was it just an illusion because I was going away.

The periods of going away have probably deluded me from the extent of my problem and have probably thus far prevented me from hitting absolute rock bottom.

I see rock bottom and I feel it and I havent yet hit it. That is one blessing I have, I can recover from this in the knowledge of the endless depths I will sink into if I dont commit to this forever.

I bought a sports car last year when really I couldnt justify it (bearing in mind I still had about 15k of debt!) . I did it because I probably did deserve something nice (if you take away the philosophical fact that a gambler denies himself the right to be deserving of anything) and probably because I felt I needed to look like I wasnt poor! My girlfriend (now fiance) was probably wondering why I never had any nice things , she still does, this is my last chance to shake this before the truth will be blindingly obvious.

I am selling my car again (history repeating) although not quite in the desperate circumstances I did last time. This is a choice, I am going away for 6 months and keeping such a car is stupid, particularly when I am in debt. I have 6 months of saving up to open to me, and gambling will, although not be impossible, its availability will be significantly reduced.

I have therefore, caught this at a opportune time. I have a great opportunity to draw a line under all this. In 6 months time I can have paid off a whole chunk of debt, saved up a shitload for our wedding and for once be winning finacially.

How can I make this happen - through this site. My danger is to forget and I promise to never let myself forget. I can see the path my life will take if I were to gamble again, and it looks to me a fate worse than death. The hurt I will do to my family...it doesnt bear thinking about.

James

Just rang my best friend (also a gambler but not a problem gambler) and told him about my decision. He knows about alot of my big losses but it still felt like a big thing to admit to someone that I label myself a 'problem gambler'. I feel good about it, maybe he thinks less of me now but this is who I am so it was the right thing to do.

Wish I could tell my fiance too, but I have weighed that one up and hurting her is too high a price to pay.

Ive just spent a couple of hours reading on here and I was reading one about FOBT. My major problem was blackjack and online casinos. I made small losses on FOBT, but only played them seldomly- usually if passing one or if bored. About a month ago I walked into a betting shop (despite my 13 years of intermittent gambling I had only ever bet in one about 10 times in my life) - I put £10 in the FOBT and won something like £100 in the one of the first few spins. I kept betting to the nearest multiple of ten ( a stupid ritual alot of you may identify - why not just CASH OUT right away!) - alot of times I would spin to the nearest multiple of ten but then tell myself ok just the next one.. and on until it was all gone. But on this occasion I kept discipline and I went to the cashier and handed him the slip and he said 'thats the first one today, nice to do that for a change' (referring to me being the first person to actually cash out that day).

This has two implications:

1) Most people aren't cashing out anything at all!

2) He may of thought I was 'one of the sensible ones' - actually no, I guess in that unfamiliar real world environment I could gain some perspective and walk away. In actual fact I was merely borrowing that money to ultimately lose on online blackjack. Even the seeminly 'one sane punter' was in actual fact just as big a mug as those that re-wagered their winnings then and there.