Was ВЈ50k, now £14k in debt May 1st 2015 day one

2 years today!!!!!!!!!!

Hi All, I thought I would check in so hopefully you willl celebrate with me, that 2 years ago today I stopped wasting my life with gambling. I have not been in a bookies for 2 years!! Last night i checked my credit score and its now 987 = excellent, 2 years ago it was 125 = very poor!! I still owe some money but gradually Im paying it back, and this is great as I do not fear the post man anymore. At the height of my gambling i was over £50k in debt, spending upto 10 hours a day in bookies or casino. Its amazing what you can acheive when you stop have a look at your self and make a change.

Like i said I still owe money, but now it is controlled. No missed payments in 2 years, not one red letter from any company now, infact the only letters I get now is them offering me more loans/higher limits on credit cards, this I find funny as when I had no money and needed a loan, they hated me, now I have money they want to be my best friend!!! If there is one thing I have learned is that banks are not nice places, I always thought they were there to help, really they are as bad as the bookies, they are criminals in my mind.

So its my 2 year birthday today and I intend to have a cheeky few beers later to celebrate. Keep going all YOU are the only person who can make that change, and after a while it gets very easy to stop.

Hi All

Just popping in to say hi to everyone and just to read afew diary, just to remind myself of the struggle of quitting gambling. I am happy to report I have just gone past the 2 1/2 or 30 month mark without gambling once, like I said before I was 10 hours a day in a casino gambler, blowing £1000 pounds a day, all i want to say to you is if I can quit anyone can, but you need to make that decision yourself and stay focused and strong.

Keep going people, together we can stop

Hi All

Just popping in to say hi to everyone and just to read afew diary, just to remind myself of the struggle of quitting gambling. I am happy to report I have just gone past the 2 1/2 or 30 month mark without gambling once, like I said before I was 10 hours a day in a casino gambler, blowing £1000 pounds a day, all i want to say to you is if I can quit anyone can, but you need to make that decision yourself and stay focused and strong.

Keep going people, together we can stop

Hi All

I last popped in 2013 to say I had been 2 1/2 years gamble free, and that I had nearly paid off 50k of debt. Unfortunately I fell off the wagon, just before I was debt free about 12 months ago and now find myself in the best part of £35 in debt again. I started going in bookies and now joined the casinos again, but had to use my brothers driving liecence as I was self banned!! So I am not only lying to my wife again, I am also lying to the casino!!!

So 8 days ago I hit rock bottom again, losing about £2,000 in a bookies on FOBT playing fruit machines. I promised myself I would stop again, and I know I can't do it alone so I need your help guys. Going back to my old ways is not good for me or my family. So I will use the same methods as before, I will write a diary here everyday, I will make sure when I leave the house I do not take my cards with me, I will aim to get to 21 days without gambling (it takes 21 days to break a habit) I will self exclude myself from casinos and bookies. If this fails then I need to tell my wife again, which will either mean she supports me or leaves me.

please help me guys, without I will fail, good luck to you all in your quest to beat this demon

dave

Sorry it should say £35,000 in debt, I wish it was £35!!!! Also I want to say day 1 of recovery was 1st May 2015 today is day 8 of not gambling. I also need to say I have to pay my company credit card bill (£1000) and child care bill (£526) today but I only have £1000 in the bank and I don't get paid until the 21st may. I will take money out of the bank on credit card to pay the child care and then use it to live for the rest of the month, further debt!!!!

god help me please

Day 11 - Half way through day 11, I am off to work in Manchester today which is 3 hours from my house. I was back in the habit of when working away finding a Casino i could sit in all night and gamble my life away. So I am sat here, with my head telling me to stop in Birmingham on the way up to go in one of the Casinos there for a flutter, its also telling me to google casinos in Manchester. But I have come on here instead to try and get away from these thoughts. If i did go it would mean a loan from somewhere to do it, as I have no money. But we all know we can find money when we need to gamble, its harder to justify spending money on food and clothes then to gamble. Such a horrible way to see money, we would rather waste it on gambling then buying something nice for ourselfs, Why is this ????

WIsh me luck guys, today is going to be hard

You don't need luck Dave, you just need to find the strength that you had just over a year ago..."you need to make that decision yourself & stay focused & strong" remember, you wrote it! I believe it just like I believe you can ride out this nonsense the addiction is spouting! Go get a coffee, buy a book but whatever you do don't step foot inside somewhere that takes away your pride & to boot, you get to pay for the privilege!

You know how this works & we are right behind you! Don't be the mug you have been for the last year! Look @ the whole picture...Then to now you have managed to pay about 15k back, that's a huge achievement for a CG! Yeah you were closer to being debt free than 35k @ some point but that's the nature of this beast, we cannot win because we cannot stop! You're no longer 50k in the hole...Kudos to you, you got there on your merits! Don't give this addiction another moment's satisfaction!

Welcome back to recovery 🙂

You can do this - ODAAT

Thanks ODAAT, i am happy to report i got to Manchester without gambling, i also am now lead in bed having an early night. Thanks for the message it means alot mate

Well done davebs26! You remind me a lot of myself.. i am on Day 10 - No Gambling today. I went about 400 days gambling free and i'd come on leaps and bounds in life. Was so proud of myself, my life was good. Even managed to build up about £40,000 in savings. Then i got complacent. I'm single and felt sorry for myself as i was still single at my age.. so i thought i'd maybe open a betting account but only do sports betting.. you know the rest.. for the first couple of weeks i was up about £7,000 just sports betting then i think i lost £1,000 on a tennis bet.. i was furious.. even though i was still £6,000 up i was fuming. i had to win back that £1,000 at all costs. i suddenly lost ALL SELF CONTROL turned into a crazy man possessed. You know what happens next, found another website (one which i wasn't self excluded from, i've been self excluded from just about every betting website out there).. so i found one and went straight to online casino.. blackjack was my downfall.. 8 hours later at 6am (had to call in sick to work as i'd been up all night gambling) anyway, i'd deposited £20,000 from various cards (scandalous that some bookies allow you to deposit such silly amounts of money).. 6am.. deposited £20,000 in the mad hope of winning back that £1,000 tennis bet. Balance at 6am, 0.50p. Yep fifty pence. In about 2 months i'd spent £50,000 gambling. Mostly savings but now in debt by about 10k. All that hard work, saving hard, building for the future, i cried and cried and was lying in the bathroom floor curled up into a ball crying and crying.. a 38 year old man.. jesus no wonder my mental health is shot to pieces these days.. i don't know how i will recover from this last binge.. i've done £350,000 in total.. funny how us gamblers record pretty much to the penny all our loses..i should be a wealthy successful young man happy and in his prime. Instead i feel like the shell of the man i used to be, heavily depressed, anxious, reclusive, single, signed off work with depression.. all thanks to Gambling. i even started gambling a bit later on in life compared to some people.. was 23 when i first started gambling.. what a destructive 15 years.. nearly every penny i've earnt in those 15 years gone, spent gambling.. how can i in my current mental state pick myself up, get back to work, meet or attract a partner.. i've a long lonely road ahead of me for the next couple of years. I think if this were to happen again, as in another crazy binge i won't pull through again. I'll be dead 100%. Sorry for going on and on. I only came onto say a few words to you. If there are any guys or girls out there in there 20s please read this post and really feel my pain and don't go into your 30s with gambling in your life. It will rob you off everything. EVERYTHING. Your money, your time, your friends, your partner/s, your family, your home, your mental health, your physical health, your self respect, your self esteem and in some cases YOUR LIFE!!! This is a deadly illness/ disease/ addiction. God forbid if i can come out there other end and come back from this, i would one day like to help others not make the mistakes i made. Anyway.. hopefully this will be a powerful post to read for some people and will give you that jolt you need to stay well away from gambling. It really is deadly, evil, a cancer.... i mean anyone that smokes is reminded everywhere about the dangers and risks of smoking, its on all the cigarette packets in big bold black print.. Why isn't gambling treated in the same way because in my opinion it is AS DANGEROUS and as RISKY as smoking. It is another form or cancer. I've been so close in the last few days to suicide. I'm still here for now but i just feel gambling needs to come with these big bold scary warnings so people know the risks from the off.. when i first started gambling it was portrayed as lots of great fun, you name it.. all smiles and fun and money.. anyway.. will stop there for now.. be interested to hear others views on the dangers of gambling, etc, also..

cheers

brightfuture

Every thing you have said is true for me also, and we are the same age! My only difference is i still have my wife, how i don't know. I ask one thing of you though please do not end your life, you can beat this and sort it. Not sure where you live, but if we are local i would be willing to meet up to discuss addiction with you. Let me know

Hi Dave

Yeah i am going to fight for my life. I live in Scotland. Are you in Scotland or England? We can follow each other online and support each other. I plan to use the forum regularly for the support. I can't do this alone any longer.

Cheers

brightfuture

Day 12 done and no gamble, it was easy today as I was in a meeting all day. Bed now a new battle awaits for me tomorrow

rant over, have a good day, stay gamble free

day 13 - I know it takes 21 days to break a habit, that's why day 13 and I am having urges to spend my day in the bookies. Instead I am going to only take enough money to work for food and parking, this is how I did 3 years before. I am also going to self exclude today from a bookies and hopefully the casino, which I am down as my brother in as I was already self excluded!!

i have to keep reminding myself the following

It's only borrowed money if we win

The only way to win is to stop

Life without gambling is so much better

FOBT will always win

In my casino there is a man who always sits near me on Roulette he spends the whole day telling everyone around him that the wheels are fixed, and how he has wasted £500,000 playing roulette. I hated listening to him, thinking to myself why are you here everyday, 12 hours a day if you hate it that much?? Truth is looking back at the thoughts in my head, I was no different to him, we are all the same bitter twisted addicts, looking to blame others for our losses. Well not anymore I am the problem, he is the problem, we all need to stop feeding these greedy bookies , casinos etc if we don't they will continue to find ways to suck us in

Hi Dave well done on 13 days, how right you are because when we did win it sure was only borrowed money, utter madness.

You went 30 months, what an achievement, you can do this again,

There is only one way we do win and that is by abstaining and maintaining taking one day at a time.

Have a good strong gambling free day.

Suzanne xx

Day 14 - yesterday passed without gambling and today is two weeks if I can last until bedtime. Luckily I have a very busy day ahead with work, so not much chance of gambling. Thank you to everyone who has commented, I need your comments to help me through this.