Well the time has come to put my thoughts down in a diary. A little history to start with.
First time I gambled I remeber it well. Was in an arcade, mid 80s. Had spent my last on the Space Invaders and had a few 2p left. Played a slot and wow, I won the 50p jackpot. Life was good, I spent the winnings on Space Inavders and went home happy. The next few years were spent trying to recreate that feeling of euphoria, until my visits to the arcades were 100% slots. Used to get my pocket money, then my wages, spend it on slots and walk the 5 miles home, penniless until next week.
Fast forward 20 years and I discovered online slots. Tens of thousands went in, very little came out. I was in a well paid job yet lived from month to month, spending as much of my wage as I could on online slots. Married, kids, still gambling. I controlled my gambling to a reasonable extent, got promoted, now earning a very large wage. Which only made my gambling worse. Now living abroad, earning what most people would consider a phenomenal wage, still gambling and living hand to mouth.
This has to stop. Made the decision on the 10th March 2017. The 9th of March was my last day of gambling ever. This diary is now my recovery journal. I am fortunate that I have no gambling debt, I have a wife and family. They do not know about my gambling and I plan to keep it that way. I am on day 9, no desire to gamble, I want (need) to maximise the money I earn to secure our futures. I am self excluded from pretty much every online casino although there is always an outlet. I am determined though to stay gamble free for the rest of my life and this diary should help.
9 days gambling free
Hi m10 and welcome
Although you earn a good wage gambling generally isn't about the money , it's the doing we get addicted to the euphoria of putting everything on the line in a game of chance. What is it you wanted from gambling? Most will say a better life with no debt. But the thing that's got them in debt or given them a c**P life isn't going to all of a sudden turn it around. It always makes it worse. Gambling for us is like Russian roulette except every chamber has a bullet every pull of the trigger will repeat the same consequence.
You don't have to live in the poverty line you force yourself to
Ramble over
All the best
Thanks for the reply. I was planning on using this diary to explore why I gamble. I agree that it is not about the money for me, however I have a very strange relationship with money. When I have money it is almost a relief when that money is no longer there. I am not sure if this is tied to my gambling urges. It is something I need to spend time thinking about though.
Am 13 days GF now. I had a longer period in 2015/16 where I abstained, but that was purely driven by the fact that I had no way to fund my online accounts. I also had a catastrophic financial meltdown at that point and found that was such a shock that it scared me off gambling for around 6 months. Then of course, your finanical position improves and you think £50 here and there will not matter. Then before you know it you are £800 down and wake up the next day hungover and have that dawning horrific realisation of what you have done. Then the horror, self loathing and guilt fade after a few days and you rationalise and dip in again, and repeat ad nauseum (literally).
Anyway, steps I have taken. I have self excluded from all online sites. I always self excluded after a bad session but then of course you seek out a new site and sign up and repeat. However, recently when I have been trying to gamble it has been extremely difficult to find a site that I can play at. I always seem to find one though, even using advanced google searches to find a site belonging to a group licensee that I have not used before. However, as I said it has become very difficult finding usable sites now. Installing blocking software is not possible for me as I have nobody I could use to set the admin password up, as that would require admitting to them it is a problem and this is not something I believe I will ever do, being a private and reserved person. I also believe that whilst excluding and blocking are useful tools they can always be worked around and so do not deal with the crux of the matter, which is the desire to gamble. Anyway, I now have a long stretch due to circumstances where I am unable to gamble, first opportunity will be the 25th May 2017. I will not build this date up to be anything significant, I am hoping my frame of mind will be in the right place by then so that the temptation will not be there.
Things I need to work on are the desire to gamble. This is still niggling in the back of my mind, although I am hoping with time this will fade. I have also got into the habit of watching online slot sessions with casino streamers (sad I know!). Enjoying their successes or failures by proxy. I have also played one of my favourite slots in free mode but I have not done this since I stopped being GF. So I need to stop watching YouTube slot videos and need to continue not playing free to play slots, as I believe both stoke the desire to gamble. Reading recovery diaries on here have really helped so I will continue to do that.
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