My story
To be honest I have been actively gambling ever since 12 yo. Tried quite possibly tried every way of gambling there is. Even when I was younger like 8, I was intrigued by gambling probably because of my competetive personality... and what is a bigger task than triumphing over luck itself.
Starting through sratch tickets/lottery than trading cards/opening card decks over to gambling in video games than all the possible card games, live shows, sports betting and last but not least slots. My biggest advice would be to never ever touch or even look at slots if you never tried, its crack of gambling, even worse... please don´t, it will eat your soul from inside.
At 16 I got arguably scammed of over 1000 euros of my investments which resulted in me ragequitting gambling for over 2.5 years. Enjoying life, focusing on fitness, entrepreneurship and people around me I was never happier. Until an unlucky accident while skiing that hindered my chances of ever competing in any sport. Being a promising athlete ever since childhood my mental worsened and spiraled into feeling of emptiness or regret I can´t even put it to words to be honest, when your whole being is striped away from you. Well what else could i do with tons of free time and no real direction...
Started gambling again with bets 10 times higher. To my surprise I was unordinarily lucky walking away with profit around 40% of the time which ultimatelly led into me withdrawing and investing a lot of money. But since I still wasn´t aware of the problems/consequences of gambling i couldn´t stop myself from gambling again and losing majority of my investments over next few years.
After many, many frustrating/sleepless nights and a few too many relapses I am trying and begging God to take this burden from me. I find this forum very rewarding, reading all the stories gives me hope and sense of comradery of people struggling with the same urge, trying to get a strong grip on their life again.
I also feel a need of explaining the depth of the gambling problem to children. I was not a dumb kid I never had a cigarette, never was drunk, never had any type of drugs, Why wasn´t I aware of the chokehold of gambling? I am not trying to get rid of my responsibility, this is my life, my choices, it just would have been nice to understand. 🙁
Have a great day, you are not alone.
Thankyou for sharing your stories this reminds me of my younger self even at school I remember getting so in to 10 P up and was gutted if I lost and the bell had gone so couldnt carry on playing it's mental how you could tell so early on but not stop it thanks again
100 % the feeling after loosing a deposit is wrenching. Although winning triple your deposit, than setting a bottom line and losing it all anyway, you just feel like the biggest piece of garbage that made a breakthrough in the garbage science but it proceeded to throw itself into the bin.
But on the bright sight hopefully I won´t experience it again... please
Hope you get yourself freed Tommy, rooting for you
I am on 9 days right now, to be honest feels way longer than that. Had some annoying thoughts/urges yesterday. Hoping to see day 14 and than maybee 30.
Day 19. Keeping myself busy, urges are a little weaker. Reading all of your stories helps me keep things in perspective, thank you. To be honest reading the stories of loved ones and their families affected by their partners gambling addiction breaks my heart, all the unnecessary pain for all the parties involved... it also scares me because i know it can easily happen to me too, never intended to hurt anyone.
Stay strong, you can do it.
30 days let´s goo. Feels good to not have constant thoughts and worries about gambling.
Hope you have an awesome rest of the day.
60 days, feels great... all of the anxiety from gambling, after gambling and from failing to stop is gone, i just feel lighter. Reading your stories almost daily and not watching gambling content or anything related to gambling has helped a lot. As well as going crazy in the gym and focusing on work. Also I might even be ready for a relationship again, I didn´t want to bring someone into my mess before fulling grasping it, maybe I need a little more time, I will see how I feel at day 90.
Day 91, feels no different from day 60. A little harder to manage weird urges to just gamble a little to pass some boredom or uneasiness, but to be honest i feel appalled even nauseaus at the thought of gambling again, like even my body tells me not to do it. I feel like my brain is forgetting all the negative memories and is trying to keep only the positives about gambling which is an amazing thing for everything else in life other than addiction, I wish to only remember the terrible things that came with gambling...
Day 130, I am overwhelmed with work and thoughts but atleast they are not gambling related. I am feeling free although feeling anxious every time I read your stories and realize that i can be in a way worse position, which can still happen, I can ruin my family, relationships, my mental and waste my life potential. Maybe the respect is what I needed to help me stop. I was always super egoed up, not respecting the power of this addiction, feeling like I have it under control, until I didn't and caught myself not only lying to people close to me but also to myself. I couldn't trust my own brain, is what ultimately led to my realisation. And no the lies didn't happen once or twice, I lied to myself multiple years and look back at it with disgust. I am weak, my obsessive side i can not control. I have to be extremely careful what I decide to invest my time into. One bad decision and I am so out of control, it's crazy.
Take care everybody.
Day 171, feeling hopeful. Even tho I had many opportunities and was right next to gambling i was able to obstain and even felt disgust from looking at it. But it still feels as skating on thin ice. Thoughts like "Just a little bit to relax" or "It wont hurt you" kept entering my head, luckily i caught myself and was able to push them away. Lots of pressure on me lately and it comes so natural to escape into the gambling world and because there are almost no other ways for me to have a quick escape.. no drinking no smoking no drugs, I guess I just have to push through and it gets easier. And it does, I feel my brain is slowly healing its torn paths of dopamine release, I f**d my brain up a lot tho, might take much longer.
Take care!
Day 227,
honestly for 40 days it was easy to obstain but in the last two weeks I was under ton of pressure and was close to relapsing several times. Kinda scary to realise I still have these pathways in my brain to escape from the stress through gambling. It P****s me off i thought I atleast kind of got rid of it but literally on the verge of relapsing I had to yell at myself out loud and remind myself why i don´t want to start gambling again but man it was hard. People around me don´t know about my problem and sometimes they bring up gambling related questions because its kind of related to my work but maan it triggers me, but what can you do, I can´t tell em...
There should only be a handful of hard days coming, I pray to get over it without resorting to gambling, pleease.
Day 273, on the first day i couldn't tell you if i can get over 14th day mark, it feels amazing to be GF for this long. I got through some tough times without resorting to gambling as a coping mechanism, that's what really makes me happy.
At the lowest moments the thing that kept me away from gambling is the hatred I have for all the companies and people that promote gambling, I don't want to give them even a f*** cent, hope all their casinos and online servers burn to the ground. All the lives they destroy without giving a f.
My heart hurts from all the pain we addicts bring to our families through our actions. I wish all the pain of our loved ones could simply disappear but it's a long process. Keep fighting brothers and sisters.
Posting 1 year later gambling has no impact on my life and although my journey is not over yet, i am truly happy and grateful to this community for the help and kind words everybody provided. <3
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