ex and would be ex-gamblers support thread

riquelme · 21 August 2010 at 6:52AM

JK- ive been there my friend, chasing that loss to win win an extra 5er/ 10er, its madness when you think about it. Im glad you stopped when you did, i didnt and stupidly thought i could get it back. Believe me, you wont, Accept its gone, it could've been a lot worse if you've got access to credit cards.

Draw a line under it, get the blocks put on your computer, if you can get to a GA meeting CC and myself would rec that you go, you will be able to get everything off your chest to people who are just like you and know exactlty what you're going through.

best wishes, keep posting, you can do it

as for me, im off to Berlin today, camping by myself, think im losing it sometimes when i realised what im doing and why i booked it. Anyway, should be good fun, taking some books, a phrase book, a bottle of cuban rum and a camera.

wish me luck

stay strong everyonexx

cantcope · 21 August 2010 at 9:02AM

Hi Riq,

have a great time in Berlin, thinking time. Think of where you are now compared to where you were when you were gambling. Mentally i mean. xx

JK, you aren't alone, we've all been there. I should have cut my losses when i'd spent all the profit i made on selling my flat that had tripled in value (idea was to use it as a deposit on a house when the prices came down).
However, i didnt stop and got credit cards, loans and a flexi loan trying to "win" it back. I won almost half back one night....then lost it all within weeks. i have had to accept i will never get that money back.

through hard work, tears, and some really tough times i am now in a lovely flat with no debt and a mortgage twice the size of my original one. But you know what? I am more proud of this place than i've ever been of anything. I worked SO HARD to get here.
I dont ever want to gamble again regardless of whether i think i could just have £10. i know now it wouldnt stop there and even if it did i'd think i could just have £10 everynow and again. it wouldnt be long before i lost this place and had nothing.

I have learnt to accept the things i cannot change. good job as i have saved to go to egypt next month but thanks to KISS airline going bust i'm now not going and will lose the accomodation money

oh well. nothing i can do about it. hurt, angry, upset but there are more important things in my life to worry about.
I'm concentrating on planning my wedding

things are great

cantcope · 21 August 2010 at 9:06AM

JK,

forgot to add, you aren't stupid, you are a compulsive gambler. Once you've accepted that you can start to move on x

cococoladebt · 21 August 2010 at 10:15AM

I have learnt my lesson in life and I am trying my best to stop.

It all started off at university when I was already 4k in debt, played horses, football and then I got addicted. This was when I was 19 I am now 24 coupled with unempolyment of 1 year, unpaid work for 1.5 years after graduating and now a low paid job (12k) I treated gambling as a way to earn some extra money. It hasn't worked out this way, as I am looking at debts of 22k. I am lucky that my parents started to pay £300 a month off my student loan to bring it down from £10.8k until I told them to stop.

I would say I have lost £6k through gambling and the rest due to unemployed, unpaid work and low salary. All this debt, unemployment, low wage has caused me so much harm that I lost some of my hair, went into severe depression, cut myself off from the rest of the world to the point that I have no friends and I am afraid with anxiety, self-harm, skin conditions, lost weight (9stone male), high cholesterol. So many problems.

Now I am picking myself up. I have learnt gambling is not a way to earn money but THE only way to lose money and I have restricted all my betting accounts.

My situation would have been much worse - I made some really stupid mistakes by buying £5k worth of shares on credit card at 12p, luckly I sold at a loss at about 11p as the shares were not moving , next thing I know the shares are 5p.

cococoladebt · 22 August 2010 at 9:17AM

Good so far. It's been two days since I last placed a bet, although the temptation is there. Trying to see if i can control myself.:D

cantcope · 22 August 2010 at 9:46AM

Hi Coca,

well done for posting and well done on 2 days without a bet. Take it one day at a time, an hour at a time if you need to. 2 days might not sound a lot to someone without a problem. But i know i thought I'd never be able to do it but day by day it got a little easier, my life got fuller, debts smallr. i started to sleep properly, put on a little weight, eat properly, my mind was clearer.
i've had wobbles ni the past but have used these boards and my friends at GA to help me through.

Fell proud and think baout how your life will be in a few years.

When i first started posting about my recovery on here i showed the thread to my parents. It made THEM feel better knowing i wasnt the only person to have done this and they weren't the only parents watching their daughter go through it. Maybe you should tell them. They can then help you. Put blocks on your pc, I use K9 and although i lived alone my dad chose the password.

Have a great bet free day x

cococoladebt · 22 August 2010 at 11:57AM

Thanks for the advice.

How did you manage to reduce your debts so quickly?

cantcope · 22 August 2010 at 3:34PM

I moved back with my parents for a year once the lease was up on my rented flat, downgraded my car, didnt go out much, sold old jewellery on ebay, did bootsales, signed up to quidco, pigsback, online research and treated myself with vouchers earned from them.
I made sure i had at least one night out with friends a month but other than that i had little "treats". i did a magazine subscription with my tesco clubcard vouchers just so i had something to look forward to other than being debt free.

It's a long, tough road but you can do it x

GeorgeUK · 22 August 2010 at 7:22PM

Hi guys

Sorry to hear about the problems some of you have had recently. I've been there too and until i sorted out the reason as to why i gambled, i didn't really make any inroads into sorting out the problem. There are some times when i feel i no longer have a problem and if i were to place bet, it wouldn't be a big deal because i know i will remain in control. Bit i also realise that gambling is something that can can turn around so quickly and become an addiction before you even know it.

No matter how good i feel or how much my circumstances change, i need to tell myself that i have a gambling problem and will have until the day i die. This way i will have the best chance of never going back down that path and lose control. What i would gain from gambling is nothing compared to what i may lose if i ever did it again.

It may sound defeatest by saying i will never be cured, but if i am not suffering the symptoms, then i don't really care. I've drawn a line under it so i know where i stand. If i cross that line then i need to have a very good reason for doing so and i don't think i'll ever come up with one that good.

JK, the first thing you should do is try to draw up some kind of financial plan so that you can see how tight things may get and so that you can see if there are any areas you can make savings in. Work out what the rates are on your cards now (cash advances are a much higher rate than normal purchases) - this will hopefully give you something to work towards and give you a goal to aim for.

Riq, hope you have a good time and that the family are all okay.

Hope everyone else is doing okay.

Jazzking · 22 August 2010 at 10:01PM

Evening everyone, thanks for the posts and advice and welcome to coco

Luckily (I suppose) I do have savings available to cover my loss so - and I know this is on the DFW board - I'm not actually in debt because of my mistake the other night. It's more the thought of what I *could* have done with that money, something, anything more worthwhile that sitting at a computer for an hour or so where I could potentially have made some, but, as usually happens, I lost it all.

I still daren't tell my wife as I know she'd be so disappointed however I have put K9 on my machines and haven't been on a gambling site since Friday.
One thing that annoys me is, even though I never click though them, I get so many emails from casinos offering bonuses, some from sites I have accounts with, others just spam, but there's always reminders there when I check my email. I probably should email all my old sites and close down the accounts; I thought originally that the fact my card had expired would be enough of a deterrent to stop me depositing but that didn't work and I even went and got my other bank account card which I knew had extra money in on Friday so I guess the only way is to properly close the accounts....

I just need to get past what happened on Friday and stop the memory coming back then I'll forget about it. Even now when I think ho wmuch I lost in such a short time (and I could have quite easily stopped when I was a fiver ahead) it makes me feel sick

2 days down, and I've not gambled.

JK

ex and would be ex-gamblers support thread

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