ex and would be ex-gamblers support thread

riquelme

bump back to the top. hows everyone? any newbies feel free to post. havent had a bet for nearly 9 months. occassionally think about it but nowhere near as much as i used to. for those struggling, it gets easier.

baxgttdi

Wow....I haven't posted on this board especially for month s and months but I had to speak to some1. I grew lapse and stopped visiting the site and i know i've wasted at least another £1000 . It call came to ahead tonight, when i lost the last of what I had in the gamblnig account which was over £100, which might not sound like a lot but it is to me. I got the most annoyed with myself I've ever been, probably rightly so..but the outcome after 18-22 months of sheer gambling hell is..I am last have gamblock! Just got it set up now and been testing it out and suprisingly (not really) it works. I don't know the password either which is a good thing...I feel stragely liberated if that's not stupid and although I have another *sigh* amount of debt I guess if if I psyically can;t gamble because of it..that might be it. I say might not because I have any way round it (I don't) but cos it can't be this easy to stop it...can it? I dunno what to think right now, as stupid as it sounds I feel a little empty at the thought that the activity that's taken up so many hours of my ife recently is apparently...gone. All for the best but...strange all the same......hop this is the start of something good time will tell.

riquelme

alright bax, sorry to hear about your slip up. lets hope this is the turning point for you. well done for installing gamblock, is there anything else you can do such as excluding yourself from bookies or getting your accounts closed? as far as holes in your life, well strange enough i was talking about this on monday at my GA meeting and i found it difficult at 1st to get ot the habit of spending hours on line. eventually though i found myself busy doing other things (doing more things with the kids, going to football) some of these may mean spending a bit of money but just think of the money you wouldve spent if you were gambling.

so my advice is get active, get out and fill that void.
trust me, it gets easier.

its been a bit quiet on here recently so im sorry no ones about. whenever you feel like gambling or are struggling post something up and tell us, we've been through it. no ones going to judge you

best wishes my friend

GeorgeUK

Sounds like the bug has bitten you hard Bax. I thought i had some control too but was proven very wrong, even after i had told my folks as you had.

Now that you have installed gamblock though, you will hopefully be able to stop completely.

Work out a new SOA for yourself and see how you can deal with this latest loss. If you were using a credit card for the transactions, you will be paying a higher APR than normal so you should look to deal with this asap if you can.

Good luck with this. You can do it.

cantcope

Hi Bax,

Like the others i'm so sorry to hear you gambled but hopefully now you have realised you have no control over gambling and are in fact compulsive. Gamblock will certainly help you.

I've changed my GA meeting recently as the one i was at wasn't really helping me the last month or so. I'm glad i've switched as the new meeting is so alive. The support network they have is amazing and its a really strong group. I'd been there a few times before which helped.
I do not want to gamble again so knew i needed to shake myself up a bit before i got complacent and switching my meeting after 3 years have definitely done that.

Keep going strong everyone. Just for today I will not gamble x

TismE_3

This is the thread for me!!

CANTCOPE........Where did you get your child block software please?
we have a pc and the kids have 2 laptops between them, this might work well for me.


Cant really go into much detail at the moment with the kids off school, they keep loitering!!

ALL of my debt and money worries are from bingo sites and slots!!

i self excluded from most sites and this has been a mistake, as when i then tried to close accounts was told that they cant until the exclusion period is up.

Over a year i have got myself into over 13 grands worth of debt with 2 overdrafts and a loan with was to consolidate these overdrafts, but i didnt get them removed and went back to gambling again as soon as i realised i had cash in my account i could access! i have also spent all winnings which is also into the thousands.......

My family do know, it was the hardest thing to tell them, but i was having sucidal thoughts just before christmas, the guilt of spending 100's on bingo site and yet struggling to spend money on presents in the real world was eating me up, chasing losses, i was spiralling out of control.
i really did think my girls would be better off without a mother like me.

Like many of you have said, i wouldn't dream of spending money on myself in the real world, but once spent £750 in half a hour on bingo and slots while drowning my sorrows!!

YET i still get the urges to play when im feeling low, last week i spent 40 i didnt have in 10 spins of a new slot machine.

my OH had to bail me out just 3 weeks ago has i'd spent some direct debit money out of my business account and was in serious danger of going over draw on my overdraft!!

My gambling has slowed down alot but i only really think this is the case because the money aint there, i have nothing to play with.

kinda glad im not alone, i often feel really guilty when reading others threads and know that my debt problems are all just through such stupidity, and i have NOTHING to show for it or to sell on ebay!!

Best wishes guys....Tis x

cantcope

Hi Tis

I use K9 off the net. My dad put it on my pc for me and chose the password. If i type in anything gambling related in the browser it comes up with a block and wont let the site load.
It's free to install and your OH can choose a password. Just make sure its one you wont guess.

Good luck, you can do this xx

riquelme

TIS. welcome, lets hope this is the start of a new life for you. ive had the same feelings 9 months ago, thought my family would be better off without me, they could cash in insurance and pay off the house. ive been there, its scary i know. Its possible to change but you need to make some changes if you are serious. Face facts if you carry on gambling you will carry on losing. Perhaps its time to make some positive decisions for you and your family. If you are struggling financially pop over the debt free wannabee thread theres plenty of advice and lovely people of there. As for us, well we can support you with kind words and through our experiences but a lot of it comes down to you. Take a look through this thread and hopefully it may help in some way.

best wishes, we're all with you xx

riquelme

cantcope - thats great to hear, well done

baxgttdi

Hey all, well it's been 5 days since I that last post and I'm still gamblefree infact more of an anchievenment (in my eyes) is the fact I haven't made any effort to get around the blocking or even look at how it works.

riquelme: as for excluding myself...I do this as part of the course anyways. What generally happens is I get the urge due to circumstances, low confidence, money problems (haha) or whatever and start gamblnig away. At a certain point (usually between £150-£250) I get an overwhelming sense of guilt and imediately go through the entire process of self exclusion for the maximum period the site will allow me. I must be banned from 50 sites that I can think of or to put it another way the first 5 pages of google lol. Once I'm excluded I never think to return to the site or keep a note mental or otherwise of t he period I'm excluded for it's jsut done. My ope (stupid) was I'd run out of suites eventually and have no option but to stop...which suprisingly I was getting to that stage.

GeorgeUK: - plans are staying pretty much the same. With the extra cash I should have from not gamblnig online life should be a little easier for a while. If I can make it to May next year things take a turn for the better as my car is paid for after 5 long years. This (due to unavoidable circumstances) is £313 a month! The loans, and cards I have, if I maintain them at current level wouldn't take very long to clear, less than 18 months taking into acconut I'm still paying them off untill this period anyways so that's the idea. If I can pay 1 off before than dat I'm hoping to date my DFD down to mid 2011

cantcope: thanks , I hope this has been a turning point but I'm reluctant to say that as I had that feeling last time althoguh granted this is more out of my hands which should help