Starting Again

Hi, I'm Keith and I am a compulsive gambler.

I started going down the pub at 17 and while everyone else would take 15 and have a great night getting drunk on five pints I would have two pints and then need to borrow off them for more beer because I had **** my money in the fruit machine. I look back now and think how that must have looked considering I was working for 150 a week and they were at college on nothing yet lending me money!

It was clearly the start of the journey which I hope ended yesterday.

I won't go over the whole last 15 years but since then I've bet all the spare cash I had. A months wages would easily go in a weekend. I used to work for cash in hand daily and by the time I'd get to the tube station, I would have done it all in a betting shop FOBT. What was the point of doing 8 hours for work for that?

The FOBT's are what changed it all for me. From 25p a spin fruit machines I was now at a machine that let you bet 100 a spin to win 500. The first time I ever played it I put 4 in and won 430. That was it, I was hooked on them. I couldn't even begin to put a number on how much I've lost over the next 8 years or so, it would be impossible to count.

I gradually stopped playing them but only because I became hooked on stats and sports betting. I thought now I have an angle I can win. I've cracked it I thought, now I can push on and live a life earning money at betting.

Of course that doesn't work at all, especially when you're an addict. Instead I deserted any plan I had and was betting on every football match that was inplay on the websites. Ukranian division 2, or Macedonian leagues you name it I've bet on it. I was a successful golf bettor for a year but have not bet on it properly since because it was too slow for me. It lasts from Thursday to Sunday and by the time Thursday came I had no money left from the football I'd bet on.

Then a few years ago they opened a casino near me and a new job meant my train home stopped very close by. I can't remember the last time I got off the train and just went home. I go in no matter how much cash I have on me and if I have none I will get a friend to transfer me 20. It lasts 10mins and yet I'm in there for hours asking friends to transfer me cash or just watching. Just standing there watching people play roulette. It's a pathetic existence.

I am losing a lot of my friends bar my very close ones because I have let them all down at one point or another. I used to get angry and say to myself none of these lot bother with me anymore. I realise now it was because I only text them when I needed money and when they did invite me out I could never go because I had no money. Why would you bother with a friend like that?

I hate what I've become, my life is spent telling lies to people I genuinely care about when I'm not betting. When I'm gambling nothing else matters and I will say what I can to get cash from people to keep it going. I have become a terrible dishonest person that lies and cheats their way through life. I lost my baby niece last year and to think her beautiful face was taken from us so early yet I am here alive and behaving like this makes me angry and sad. I am here to do this for myself but I would love to end up being a person she might have been at least a little proud to call her uncle.

My mum is the greatest person in the world, for the patience she has shown with me over the years she deserves a knighthood. Yet all I do is make her life a misery, what I have put her through is the worst consequence of my gambling. I'm 31 and due to gambling all my money I still live at home with my parents. I feel like life has passed me by and if I don't change now I will end up achieving nothing with my life.

Yesterday I walked out of work at lunchtime and went to the casino. I lost 150 and came home empty both in wallet and spirit. I had nothing left to give.

I googled this place and read a few recovery stories. I was blown away firstly by how many people are on here going through this and secondly how similar the stories are. I felt a bit better and compelled to write something.

Nothing good has ever came from my gambling and nothing ever will.

I am now self excluded from all online betting sites, have started my diary on here and going to my first GA meeting this week.

No more lies to anyone and I need to take better care of myself as I have drank a lot over the years to numb the depression of losing at gambling.

It will be hard but it all stops now and I hope that May 27th is a date that will live long in my memory as the day my life changed.

I welcome any thoughts or recommendations on what I should do to help myself overcome this demon.