Spending post gambling and debt

If I can offer you any advice at all, it would be to maybe have a think about what you view as the benefits of not gambling. There are many ways in which to hate gambling and losing money is only one of them. But no amount of losing money will stop you from gambling again. That's the thing. 

The way out is to look at the ways that gambling changes you, how it makes you sick, stressed, irritable and on edge. How it changes your personality and robs you of the person that you are inside. It is useful to think about the fact that you are nervy and edgy whether you win or lose because gambling again will unsettle you and mess with your head, so it is better not to factor in the outcome of your gambling because this is irrelevant. If you win, so what, you will lose tomorrow. There is no contentment in gambling because you can neither keep what you win nor stop after a loss. 

A couple of years ago, I found myself saying the same things as you are now.....I would go about 5 weeks without gambling and still feel like my debt was so huge and my bills were so high that I would wind up gambling again. Partly because of the stress I was still under and partly because I still saw gambling as a way out of debt.

Gambling will not relieve stress as you know and it certainly will not help you pay the bills. Whatever problems you have, gambling will only make them worse. I still have a lot of debt, about £13,000 after losing £40,000 over 20 years. I still have all the same problems, but it is easier to deal with everything now that gambling is out of my life.

The longer you have between you and your last bet, the stronger you are and the more able you are to see the sense in staying GF. The thing is, (and not to take anything away from your 52 day achievement) but it is not long enough to see any real benefits in terms of your financial situation so analysing it this way will only make you turn to gambling again and in doing so, will set the cycle in motion again.

Until you go about 3 months, you will still feel vulnerable and be prone to relapse. Technically, once an addict, you are always prone to relapse, no matter how long you go, but it takes the brain a good 6 to 8 weeks to recover from relapse. Addiction, as you know rewires the natural circuits in the brain and then all roads lead to gambling....if you are happy, you may want to gamble...if you are angry, you may want to gamble, if you are depressed....and so on....Whatever you are going through, your brain will reroute all circuits and send you a signal to gamble because it thinks it is trying to help you purely because the brain gets a hit when you gamble even while you are losing. That's the most dangerous thing. You can be haemorrhaging money and your brain will still get a fix. So it is up to you to change those thought patterns because you literally have to rewire your brain in order to get well.

Take it all one day at a time and don't look at your recovery in terms of money. You are giving up gambling for so many reasons, so focus on the more important things, like the stability of at least knowing where you are. I used to bet every time a bill came through the door, every time I spent something, I would try and win it back. It is a total waste of time. Contentment will come from not gambling and this will help you pay down your debt instead of making your problems worse and your health worse on top. Try to focus on yourself and how you feel and if you keep away from gambling then the debt will come down on its own. You can't fight this, it is not going to change overnight so take it easy and slow things down. It's a long road to recovery so don't expect things to change quicker than is possible. That will only make you gamble again. I should know. I did this all the time, frustrated that my debt was hanging around and that my payments were going more to interest on my credit cards than actually paying off my debt. It made me relapse time after time until I switched my way of looking at things. I still have the debt and it is coming down, but I don't obsess over it like I used to and have stopped trying to run before I can walk. My addiction took 20 years of my life and unfortunately, not all of that is in the past. Many problems you make will also affect the future, but you can cut this right down by staying gamble free and accepting your situation instead of fighting it. If not, the past will repeat itself over and over again. So long as gambling is in the past, then your present is good and the future will take care of itself.

All the very best to you. 

Well done Lost and Found. You know what you are talking about. I hope you all stay gambling free. 

Thanks  so much. You too. It took a long time to get here but I finally feel like I am breaking free. I haven't gambled since early 2017 so I am hopeful for the future. I wish the penny would have dropped earlier. Would've saved a lot of heartache but once you realise your pain is about so much more than losing money, then you can finally let it go. Best wishes for you moving forward. 

A brilliant post from Lost and Found! How can I follow that.

Recovery is not an easy though process because I had  to analyse myself to the core of my soul. Some days I felt a genuine serenity that nothing else mattered but my new sense of openness and honesty.

I felt a surge of pride and a focus on doing the right thing. Taking the right steps just seemed natural and the right thing to do after so long with the addiction.

I took the shocked reactions from family on board as I realised I needed serious help....mental help to heal my ill mind. Those reactions were understandable and nothing compared with an addiction that was killing me.

I was no longer scared of the term mental illness for thats what it is..for many that term only means thumbing your lips in a staright jacket but it takes many forms and one of them is the craving or urge to gamble with no control over your own mind.

Then I began to realise I was emotionally numb to life and overwhelmed with my failure to deal with it on so many levels. Im a complicated character....Vain and lonely....hurt, dejected,rejected, scared of change, unable to choose one partner, wanting it all, self conscious, an all or nothing personality and my own worst enemy.

Often overwhelmed with anxiety and depression, gambling was my fix, my shot in the arm of escape and my cruel cruel mistress. It was simply my drug of choice. It was a cry for help and my desire to be punished

Its such a confusing addiction that I would not always realise I was escaping or numbing my pain. I would sometimes feel normal, flush or even briefly happy but still end up gambling to extinction. Multi trigger points included stress, miserliness or loss...losing one glove could cost me a gambling sesssion. I wouldnt particularly say I was a miser but being scared of money in an overly careful way would trigger a desire to get back the cost of "boring" items to buy.

The result was a pair of socks that cost me hundreds of pounds

 I started finding the answers during recovery. I still have bills to pay and some days are better than others but Im content being gamble free

Best wishes to everyone on the forum

Hi Joydivider,

A fantastic in depth insight into addiction. Thanks for sharing.

Best Wishes

AL

......'a desire to be punished'...how I relate to that. Many people who gamble don't always understand their reasons for gambling. Many assume it is to numb the pain. For me, and for yourself, it was both. I wanted to diminish the pain but I also wanted to suffer. I would gamble because I was hurting inside and couldn't understand why. Instead of going to see the GP, I self medicated with gambling. I also hated myself for the person I had become and used gambling to hate on myself and to self loathe. 

For years, I had suffered chronic depression and didn't understand what I was going through. Nothing felt right. I felt like an outsider looking in on life and didn't connect to anything in the real world. Gambling drew me in and took me over. It helped me numb the pain but it also helped me hate myself. It gave me a reason to feel pain, a pain I could understand and that made more sense than the pain I was feeling inside that I couldn't understand.

I would gamble for fun, for distraction and also for punishment. If I started an argument with my partner, I would gamble to hate on myself because I knew I had caused the upset. I wanted to feel something, anything was better than feeling numb inside so I chose pain and I chose to suffer.

There are so many reasons people gamble and that is what makes it so toxic. Each time I thought I had bet more than I ever thought possible, I would outdo that next time. I would goad the machine to take all my money, to make it stop once and for all. With each spin, I would hate on myself and say profanities to the machine to take the rest, let me out, let me go. I welcomed the pain because I understood it but I desperately wanted to lose enough to make it impossible to gamble again. I wanted extinction and it almost got that far. Until I found mindfulness.....and with the help and support of my family, it is slowly saving my life.

I relate so much to the menial things that end up costing a fortune. I spent £10 on an item when I went shopping and immediately came home and tried to win the money back. I had mounting debt and knew that every spend was one I could not afford. I have no idea why this mentality did not transcend to gambling because I wouldn't spend more than 80p on a loaf and would walk to another shop to save 20p but would haemorrhage thousands in bets. Needless to say, the £10 spend cost me over £3000. It was my last cry for help and took my total losses to £40,000. I just could not tolerate losing. I managed to get over half the money back near the end of my session, but I wanted it all back, so played on and lost the lot.

It hurts to type this out but it is good to remember the pain. Once an addict, management is for life and you have to work hard to keep gamble free. I do this one day at at time by choosing not to gamble for just that day. I don't think too far ahead and slow things down. I look after the present day and then the future looks after itself.

Thank you for your wonderful insight and I sincerely hope you continue to do well.