Ive decided after numerous unsuccessful attempts to quit that a 'recovery diary' may be my best option to beat this illness that I have. I'm 40 years old and for as long as I can remember gambling has had a hold over my life. This hold has taken a more sinister turn through playing FOBT roulette and online roulette. Single handedly both of these have crippled my finances and left me with debt of £9000. Today I feel deflated, weak, angry, embarrassed, confused and bewildered. I wish I could bottle this and use it in times of emergency. I've tried to quit before but always managed to fall off the wagon and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I have a decent job and worked a lot of overtime in May to try and get myself back on a more even keel. That was my plan until I unwisely decided to open a new online account last night. In the space of an hour I lost £1100 playing roulette chasing loss after loss. What makes it more ridiculous is that I've lost thousands of pounds in big hits recently playing roulette but still I give in to weakness and chase a pipedream. I've put myself under immense pressure, mentally, physically and financially through an inability to stop. I've tried reading books and I've researched the issues I have. I know I have a gambling problem and I want to stop but something inside me succumbs to temptation. I want to stop now because I feel I'm standing at the precipice. I've gambled more than I should've but my situation is redeemable if I can stop now. I must stop now. I can't take anymore sleepless nights and I'm going to alienate myself from friends and family if I don't quit. This is my day 1, my Armageddon, my war to end all wars. It's a battle that I can't afford to lose!
I'm nearing the end of DAY 1 of my road to recovery and like previous attempts I've had no inclination to bet today. Everything is very raw at the moment, the feeling of bewilderment at losing £1000 yesterday in under an hour playing online is very fresh in my mind. Why do I do it? Why do I put myself through days of stress and sleepless nights only to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Losing thousands of pounds that would be better spent on productive life experiences. I don't want to feel those knots in my stomach anymore, that feeling of panic that overwhelms me, not being able to settle, feeling on edge, constantly reworking finances and moving money around to cover holes in my bank accounts. What is that all about? How can something so fundamentally irrational and pointless appeal to me. The answer is that I am addicted to gambling. Rationality goes clean out the window as I deposit hundreds of pounds into a black hole that just brings more misery and depression into my life. I have to treat this time as 'all or nothing' in an attempt to break this cycle once and for all. If I'm embarrassed to tell people how much I've lost and how stupid I've been then surely that tells me all I need to know about gambling. It's a mugs game and I have helped make the gambling companies even wealthier by regularly plunging up to 50% of my monthly wage into a computerised machine which is programmed to make a profit for the betting shops. I'm writing this and I recognise the absurdity of my situation. I've read many stories of FOBT's and online roulette on here and it's easy to see the catastrophic effect it has on people's lives. No one wins long term and like most addicted gamblers I will never win because I can't stop. I pray that I get the strength to continue this journey to a positive conclusion. It's only DAY 1 and I have a long way to go, but I want this more than anything. I want my life back. I want to clear my £9000 in debts. I want to be s better person for my experiences positive and negative. I am encouraged by the support that's shown on this site and I hope in time that I will be capable of giving help and advice to those in need. I want a good nights sleep tonight and to wake up feeling energised. I'm going to try a daily post to keep me focused on what is important. My losses are gone but my future will be saved.
DAY 2
Slept a bit better last night but still awoke with the same dull ache I've had when I've gambled to excess. It's fair to say I feel awful at the moment. I'm really annoyed with myself as I had potentially given myself a good head start on the recovery path, only to completely derail it with an hour of 'frenzied gambling!' I feel sick thinking about what I've lost recently and over the years. I should be living comfortably with a healthy bank balance but because of my addiction I've ended up scrimping to get by every month. Why do I put myself through it? Experience has told me that I will never be a winner at gambling yet I still religiously pumped my money into FOBT's or transferred money online to play roulette. I've been on a slippery slope for a long time and I've had some huge losses but luckily I have only £9000 in debts. I say luckily because it could be so much more! I don't think I will feel complete as a person until I have successfully paid that debt off and maybe I need that debt hanging over me to finally break this habit. I shouldn't be in the position I'm in, but I'm the only one who can truly get myself out of this hole that I've dug for myself. I really hate what I've become as a result of gambling. I need to remember where I've been and ensure that my life from now on moves in a more positive and constructive direction. Here is hoping!
DAY 3
I realise now that gambling was a form of escapism for me. I used it as a crutch when things in my day to day life weren't going to plan. It made me selfish and think only of myself. It's only day 3 but something has changed this time around. I want to prove to myself and everyone else that I am a better person than the shadow that gambling had made me. This is no longer a case of just wanting to change.....I need to change.
Well done on 3 days, this will soon turn into 30 then 300, its amazing how quick the days pass. I am on day 34, and it still feels like yesterday I had that same sick feeling after locing £2000 on a FOBT, they are the cancer of the gambling industray. Stay focused and keep posting, together we can beat this demon. Dave
Hi Huskydawg! You've given yourself 3 gambling free days, well done. No-one can take that away from you, they are yours to keep, and a d**n sight better prize than that sickening feeling you've been used to. You're so right about bottling that feeling to dread. I think we all wish we could do that, because it's that pain we really need to feel everytime we think about gambling. Complacency can so easily become as big an enemy. I hope you find it useful and theraputic to get your thoughts and feeling down on here? Best of luck on your journey. I will check in on your progress regularly.
Day 4
Gambling sobriety has made me see how stupid I've been. Working long hours and blowing all my hard toil in minutes of frenzied roulette playing. Doing £100 plus spins and just randomly pressing numbers on the roulette wheel. No skill involved just pure luck. No wonder I am £9000 in debt. I have been such an idiot.
Ps thanks Whatami
Day 5
No urges or temptation. Plenty of bitterness/guilt/anger. Time is a great healer. At the moment the rawness of everything is keeping me in check.
Day 8
The majority of my days are a lot brighter now, although I still have the odd downer. I realise now how big a grip roulette had on me and how much my day to day life and moods were controlled by it. Happiness for me was spinning a win, in fact it gave me a rush of euphoria, however the rush was only a short one. I needed it again so I had to spin again. That's why I continually lost, because I couldn't stop playing. It's a mugs game.
I'm back on the wagon again after a relapse and this is Day 2. I didn't see the point in starting a completely new recovery diary as this is MY road to recovery and it's important to recognise and remember the highs and lows on that journey. I've fallen off the wagon a few times and each of those falls has been a big one with big losses on roulette. This has just made me even more determined to succeed where I have previously failed. I dreamt last night that I was dying and it felt like an out of body experience where I knew my time was up. I often dream about dying but this one was different. I think it was signalling the death of the old me, a body that was destroyed through gambling and left to rot. I'm going to look positively at this dream and interpret it as my chance at a fresh start and a new me free from the shackles of gambling. Today is a new day and we all look for chinks of light when we feel in darkness. I guess that dream was my wake up call. I go again and to quote chumbawomba I get knocked down but I get up there never gonna keep me down. Happy Monday everyone.
Hi Husky, great attitude, as you say, this is your diary of your recovery, be strong and keep reading what you have written. "the majority of days are brighter now" - you made that happen!
Day 2 for me aswell! Keep looking for those chinks of light. We can do this.
Did a 5 mile run this morning as exercise is something that has always given me a natural high and helped improve my moods. As long as I can remember roulette has negatively influenced my life. It has drained my resources financially, caused domestic problems, affected my mental and physical health, destroyed my sleep patterns and caused to neglect more important aspects of my life. My losses far outweigh any wins but it was like a drug for me fuelling a sense of euphoria for short periods but generally leaving me an emotional wreck. It was a form of escape from my day to day life and probably became more prevalent at times when other aspects of my life were ending. Having turned 40 this year I have definitely felt the onset of depressive behaviour almost exclusively fuelled by gambling behaviour. I go to work each day, I pay my bills, I really want for nothing, I have my health, my 3 boys are healthy, my relationship is like any other with its ups and its downs, so really I have a lot to be thankful for. Deep down though there lies a compulsive addictive potentially depressive personality which can lie dormant for long periods and strike without warning. From the outside I always seem like the life and soul of the party, the entertainer, someone who doesn't have a care in the world and why should I? Problem is gambling is a silent illness which lurks in the shadows. You can only drink or take drugs to excess for so long before people start recognising the symptoms. With gambling you can seem like the most solid person around, but it's only a facade. Deep inside is someone in torment mentally and physically, someone who has the ability to self destruct, someone who can risk everything and in losing can risk everything again. Someone who thinks that this time will be different when in reality it won't. For me there was no point in addressing my gambling issues without addressing the aspects of my life which have created the void which gambling has filled. My life at 40 can go one of two ways. I can address my gambling and start living a better life or I can continue working to fuel my gambling habit. A habit that has me staring over a very large precipice. One thing is for certain if I don't address my issues, my life will be irreversibly destroyed for ever. It's a sobering thought but for me it is a stark and frightening reality!
We are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You can also contact us for free on 0808 80 20 133. If you would like to find out more about the service before you start, including information on confidentiality, please click below. Call recordings and chat transcripts are saved for 28 days for quality assurance.
