Hi everyone,
I have been using Gamcare sporadically over the past few years but have always fallen back into gambling.
I placed my first bet at 16 Y/O and quickly developed a serious addiction. The usual story of getting paid at the end of the month and having no money left after a few days has applied to me for most months since I started full time work at 18 Y/O.
I am married to a beautiful wife and have 2 amazing kids; in 2021 my wife found out about my financial issues - however I didn’t confess the real reason for these issues which was gambling. She has since stuck by me, slowly regaining and rebuilding trust.
In recent months my mind has been swarmed with gambling urges. I have placed high stakes bets on horses - winning, then losing, then chasing those losses which has resulted in me being in debt for the first time in years. My wife could sense there was something wrong and eventually found out about the debt. The amount is not the serious issue (£2000 paid back over 1 year), it is the fact I have lied and been secretive over finances again.
After 6 years of marriage I have now told my wife the full extent of my addiction; it has prevented me from being a good husband as gambling makes you very good at lying. Our marriage should have been built on trust and I have now shattered what little trust we had left.
She is trying her best to come to terms with this and understand the addiction, however I feel this has resulted in the end of our marriage.
I am now looking to address this addiction for the final time and beat it.
Good luck to everyone in your journey
Welldone mate for reaching out, gambling is an illness and affect people in different ways it took me 6 years to recognise i was the problem, get all usual gambling blocks in places and hand over finances, honesty is the key for recovery, urgues usually settle down after first couple month and thing do improve, this illness is life long and after 18 years i have only accepted this, you need some kind of therphy Ga and Gamecare chatroom are great place to express how your feeling on the day, what u can do on your part is seek has much support as possible as this will show your actually trying you can only get your wife on here and she can understand the illness better, things can improve and their things we can do to improve situation, only u can make this change happen its always one day at time, you also have an option on here to start a diary it made a massive improvement to my recovery am currently 334 days clean
@jacob6 I love your honesty. Problem gambling does make us into liars.
I genuinely regard myself as an honest person. To the point that I am detrimental to myself but I want to be honest. Then it came to gambling and I utterly lied.
I cannot speak for you or your wife's feelings but I would definitely commend you for being open. Don't limit the comprehension of people around you. You are probably being harder on yourself then your wife is.
But every situation is unique. One thing I can see from your post is that your being honest will pay off in the long term, though it may cause short term damage. Well done 👍
Hi Graeme,
Well done for posting on here, it takes a lot of guts to say you have a problem.
My husband stood by me but he did say it was the lies that hurt him the most. Not the debt (this is tens of thousands of pounds) and I even took out debt in his name without him knowing.
You’ve got to be completely transparent from now on. The evil gambling demons want you to lie.
Get all the blocks in place and perhaps your wife could have financial control? Let her see that you want to do all you can to stop. Grab hold of all the help and support you can get your hands on to. You are not alone!
Wishing you all the luck 🍀
Claire x
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