seeking tranquillity

if you find u have trouble with stopping id recomend joining gamstop it stops u from being able to gamble. Good luck adam

Hi footballzombie, welcome to the forum.

I too am a massive football fan. Though sadly, I used to be a massive football fan without the need to gamble. Nowadays watching football and betting go hand in hand which upsets me because I remember the days when it wasn’t like that. I often wonder if I’ll ever go back to watching sport again, purely for the sport itself. During my 4 month gamble free period this year, I pretty much kept away from watching sport because I associated it with gambling.

I would honestly recommend you do the same as urges will probably come as you watch games and subconsciously weigh up the bets you would have had. Some would then win and you would start asking yourself the question about gambling again.

Best of luck mate. I’m starting my recovery tonight too so hopefully we can battle our way through these early stages together.

Well my weekend didn’t exactly go to plan

Friday was ok me and the mrs watched the incredibles 2 which is supposed to be a kids film but I thought it was far better than any of the adult films ive seen this year

Saturday morning the problems arose ….rain was pelting off the road outside so it looked like another day indoors ( boring )

oh what’s this man city v everton live 12.30 …….for some reason all I had in my mind was Wayne Rooney scoring a winner against city last season everton were a big 12/1 to win and around 3/1 on the double chance city had a lot of injuries so I thought id take them on for a bit of excitement

£30 quid later and im sat in my chair hoping everton put up a good fight , everton start well and richarlison fluffs a golden opportunity to put everton in the lead

Yerry mina then attempts a hospital ball out from defence and city show no mercy

The 30 quid “entertainment” lasted all of the first half

The remaining fixtures for the day looked poor so I settled for a £15 acca on some rubbish and went to the gym and to do some food shopping

Upon returning home the mrs is watching something in bed and I wind up on youtube watching some bloke doing £500 roulette spins via online casino

Never been a fan of online gambling because It seems rigged but these live casinos looked a little more legitimate

Once again im bored out of my skull with a beer in hand and decide to load one up …..chucked 50quid on roulette and got it up to about £200 and then back down to £100

The mrs has arisen so I decide to cash the 100 out not really knowing whether to be pleased or disappointed

Sunday actually turned out to be a no betting day , we have a couple of errands to run and although I managed to catch the Liverpool v utd game in the afternoon no cash was staked

looking through the results again unsure whether to feel pleased or disappointed I wasn’t involved in the action

yesterday ( Monday ) went to work and again weather horrendous so came straight home play some playstation and have something to eat then for some bizzare reason decided to chuck another £90 quid into live blackjack

all the low stakes tables are full so I wind up on a £25 a hand one

20 mins later I shrug my shoulders and shut the laptop down , tell my mrs ive blown the best part of a oner and we spend half an hour discussing what is to be gained from gambling

as a non gambler she only sees the risk , as a gambler I explain all I see is the reward

she says I need to exercise more self control …..i say its very difficult when Im constantly dreaming up profits and escape plans from the daily grind that is life in the UK

Christmas is fast approaching and I really don’t want our time off together to be swallowed up by me pondering over whether to do my bollux or not

Its payday Friday and a part of me is just tempted to lob a few hundred at roulette win or lose at least its out of my system for the Christmas holidays

I don’t know but either way il keep the journal posted with thoughts

What are you looking for on this forum?

If you want to stop gambling there's plenty of advice here on how to do but you just seem to want to stop losing whether it's time or money. If you want to talk about continuing gambling there are better places than a recovery forum.

Mate...

Come on now - your last post was full of fluff apart from one very pertinent comment which was:

as a non gambler she only sees the risk , as a gambler I explain all I see is the reward

Actually to be fair I did also resonate with this comment:

she says I need to exercise more self control …..i say its very difficult when Im constantly dreaming up profits and escape plans from the daily grind that is life in the UK

But anyway by you're own admission you're a gambling addict who knows they are on a slippery slope which is why you've come on GamCare - you could've just written that and saved all the fluff.

This is what i think - either take a lot of time to read other people's horrific experiences with gambling (with losses like yours + a few extra zeros) + join a GA group for support and advice and to be privy to some serious pain and heartbreaking tales (which may open your eyes) OR wait until you're in the 4/5 figure arena of losses and come back here to properly accept help once you've lost your missus, your car, your house and possibly even the clothes on your back.

Because I'll tell you this for a fact (based on the way you talk) - you are definitely on that slippery slope mate. I know - I've been on the same slope - there is only one way this usually ends buddy.

Quit now before it's too late yes - but more importantly accept you have a GAMBLING PROBLEM (you haven't admitted this once in any of your previous posts) and start dedicating your time to accessing the various help and support services available. If not, come back when you have experienced life-changing losses and real pain then seek the help.

I honestly think you should get along to your nearest GA meeting - just to hear some stories about devastating outcomes from gambling and the destruction it leaves in its wake. The pain your hear about and feel in those rooms could probably be the best wake up call you need right now and could be a real game changer for you - listening to those stories may even help you to stop gambling dead in its tracks - invariably the stakes get higher you know and the wins/losses become more significant (you'll get bored of £20 bets in the end - or you'll lose a load and chase that loss with bigger bets) Gambling addicts lose control over what they're doing - need reminding of this? Look at those bank statements again that you mentioned.

If you choose not to heed my warning just think - it may be you at that GA meeting one day as the storyteller rather than the listener. Don't think that this could never happen to you because every person who has entered the GA rooms probably thought that at some stage in their gambling career. But I genuinely and sincerely hope and prey that it doesn't get you like it has so many people. Do what you can now mate. All the best and good luck.

PS - I know this will sound weird as I am someone who has completely done my b******s gambling and almost lost everything (including my wife, house and 1 year old son) but when I read back your last post I think to myself - "Gosh... thank god I'm not that person anymore"...

Think about it...

Well Christmas has been and gone I went into the holidays pretty confused about where I was going with this problem a part of me just wanted to keep chasing and chasing and betting and betting looking back a few hundred was never going to satisfy the beast

Gambling is a dark thing to have in your head for 15 hours a day and even when I wasn’t placing bets I was thinking about placing bets the cycle had to be somehow broken and after a lot of willpower I managed it last week

There was some strong temptations on new year’s eve after a few drinks but luckily girlfriend talked me out of it which I was grateful for

Then looking at yesterday’s championship results I was even more grateful I hadn’t bet

Il be first to admit ive completely lost all value of money ……300 quid may aswell be 30 quid to me now this will be another aim of mine to regain the value of money in the next couple of months

Confident 2019 is going to be a great year 🙂 good luck to all with this problem

heading towards the end of the first week of 2019 and still managing a clear mind and its been over a over a week since i placed my last bet a small but significant milestone

watched the city v liverpool game last night and although i must of had 15 emails throughout the day regarding offers and "boosted prices" i didnt place anything

it was a great game and i had a suspicion aguero may score first but never been a huge fan of the first goal market and didnt check the odds so wasnt overly bothered when that came in

have spent most of the week setting up a new income stream which im hoping will take off during the new year

i wish everyone a good & gamble free weekend

ALN wrote: As someone who no longer watches sport but takes an avid interest in people's posts would you kindly stop discussing football games in such detail. A loss is a loss and a bet is a bet. You do not have to indicate which football teams are playing what your prediction was or the result. For me you're still in gambling mode and have many character defects that you need to concentrate on. Please show some respect for others who struggle on this board when posting.

Il post whatever I want to post in my journal if you don’t like it don’t read it and worry about your own “character defects” before commenting on others

ALN wrote: As I say and confirmed by your response, still in gambling mode and character defects. Is this the right place for you?

from reading a couple of your “recent posts” on peoples threads it seems you are brimming with righteousness are you sure this is right place for you ?

this will be my last response , I have no interest in arguing with or appeasing you

I must say, I’m in agreement with Football Zombie on this one.

I don’t see anything wrong with what he put in his post. People deal with recovery in different ways, not everybody has to stop watching sport completely. I would understand a bit more if he was to go on other people’s diaries and discuss these type of matches in detail (though I don’t actually see that he did discuss it in ‘detail’) but he’s entitled to put whatever he wants on his own thread.

You could easily just avoid his diary in the future.

I was actually reading your diary this morning, ALN, and I came across this in your early stages.

Woke up this morning following a dream. Dream goes as follows, "Running to the bookies to put on a greyhound bet, trap 1, to beat the opening odds, wrote out the betting slip (£100) to find the odds had opened at a higher value 4/1".

Now could you have not said that you just ‘had a dream’, rather than discussing it in detail - Trap 1, £100, 4/1 etc...?

Isn’t this the same sort of thing?

I’ve nothing against you, ALN, you offer some sound advice to people on here and being 100+ days gamble free shows that you mean business in your recovery.

But we’re all different on here. What works for some, won’t necessarily work for others.

Whether it was a dream or sporting fact, it’s still ‘detail’ about betting matters. Just my opinion.

I’m actually cutting down watching sport because I agree with you, it does help to curb the urges. But what I’m not doing is cutting it out altogether because there’s a part of me that still loves sport for what it is. The game. The drama etc. What I’m not doing is watching matches like Everton v Chelsea in the FA Cup (random example) because I have no interest in either side or the FA Cup. All that watching games like that could do is tempt me into making it more interesting for myself with a bet, rather than turn the channel over and watch something else instead. A comedy, documentary etc.

thankyou for your support determined dan i suspect we will have much to discuss by the end of the season

football is a very big part of my life its probably my favourite interest / hobby and i love discussing it

cutting it out completely is not really an option for me ....however as you say cutting down watching meaningless games is defenitley a goal

i dont think everyone can appreciate a love for football (my mrs being one of them)

sadly betting goes hand in hand with it and i always got a sense of satisfaction when i correctly analysed or "called" a game

learning to watch it again without constantly thinking of the betting element is the long term goal for me

have a good weekend

It might be worth thinking about why you might have been even slightly bothered when anyone scored if you've given up gambling.

Also worth saying betting doesn't go hand in hand with watching football or any other sport. It's a fallacy the bookies have pushed relentlessly in their drive to normalise gambling and would love us all to believe but their wishing it doesn't make it so.

Lethe, when someone breaks up with a boyfriend/girlfriend after being together with them for a long time, do you think they automatically switch off from them and completely forget about them? They may check out who they’re now dating on Facebook, Twitter etc. Just because they were once involved with them and they want to see how things are going on without them.

This may sound extreme, but the same can be said for gambling. When gambling has been such a big part of your life for so long, the thoughts, the ‘what ifs’, the general betting mindset/urges are still there in the background, especially in the early stages. It’s about how you deal with those urges in the early stages. You don’t just switch off right away.

So when you ask, ‘why are you bothered when you’ve given up gambling...?’. I’m sorry but a compulsive gamblers mindset doesn’t change that quickly, whether he’s decided to give up not. It takes time to readjust the brain into accepting that gambling is no longer part of your mindset.

Only a gambler of many years would perhaps understand this.

I do agree with the second part of your post. Football/sport shouldn’t go hand in hand with gambling. For me, I love my sport, football and cricket in particular and I could watch some matches in those sports quite easily without the need to have a bet on or even think about placing a bet on. So yes, I agree, sport doesn’t have to go hand in hand with gambling.