ex and would be ex-gamblers support thread

cantcope

I agree with the above post. You will eventually get found out, be it now or in a few years time.
If you get everything out in the open it will make it easier for you to stop. This might sound harsh but if you are serious about stopping you'll tell her.
Compulsive gambling sometimes goes hand in hand with compulsive lying and most partners find this the hardest bit to deal with as the trust is gone.

It also takes away the option of winnning a large amount as the OH would want to know where it came from. While ever its a secret it makes it difficult to stop.

riquelme

hows everyone?

im struggling to be honest having thoughts of gambling because of 2 things

1,. theres lots of football
2. haVING MONEY problems, my creditors arent accepting my full and final settlement offers of around 45% of what i owe so im signing the house of to my wife and may need to go bankrupt as my outgoings are more than my income and my creditors cant see this and they may not get their money back at all.

stress stress stress

cantcope

hi Riquel, you know in your heart that gambling will not help your money problems... keep that in your mind.

Have you spoken with CCCS? what have they said? If you havent' head over to the debt free wannabe board xx

As much as it may pain you, stay away from the football at the moment x and remember you are not alone in your struggle

riquelme

hi CC, yeah spoke to CCCS and have suspended my DMP as currently i have more outgoings than incomings. I have offered all of my creditors around 45% of what i owe and it looks as though only 1 of them are willing to negotiate (1 of the lowest!!)

so i am unsure of what to do next, thats where the urges to gamble come from, so far so good but i fear 1 peace of bad news, 1 threatening letter could be disastrous for my state of mind and my gamble free days are over.

going to post something on DFW page.

stay strong everyone

KPR11

Riq,

Gambling is NOT going to enable you to make money to be able to offer the creditors 100% if anything you will be in a position where you might not even be able to afford 0%.

Just ignore the threatening letters as them doing their job. I would say treat them the same way you treat cold callers / telesales.

Think of the kids, you wager a bet and I doubt you will be able to spend quality time with them, cause you will be too busy thinking "what if I hadn't"; or be able to get even a little £5 pressie if you want to cause you will be totally broke!

I appreciate things are tight atm, but they will improve and besides sooner or later the creditors will realise that a bird in hand (45%) is worth 2 in the bush (potential 0%) so might be a bit more realistic and gradually accept your offer.

Stay strong buddy!

Good luck!

KPR

GeorgeUK

Hi Riq

Sounds like you're wanting to escape what's going on right now. You know that gambling is only a temporary escape and not a healthy one. I hope you can stick it out.

Hopefully we'll be able to see a way through the finace maze when you post the details on the DFW board.

No gambling and at least for now, no talk of bankruptcy - okay?
You've made it this far. We just need to work out the next step.

cantcope

2 weeks is a massive achievement. Try not to think too much about what you COULD win on the world cup. Invariably you would then bet bigger and lose it all anyway. You know that, but remind yourself.

When you first posted on here you never dreamt you could go so long without a bet so feel proud of yourself! and take it one day at a time.

To still have you r wages 2 weeks on is great. I'm sure you remember how sick you felt when you were gambling. I do, my months wages would be gone within 2 hours of me being paid. Not nice.

Post again when you feel like gambling and i'm sure there are plenty of us that will relive some horror stories with you to put you off x

Just for today i will not gamble

Johntea

Newbie to this thread but here are some of my recent addiction casualties:

'Won' £9000 online ('Won' being because over the months prior I lost more than this in arcades etc), the very next day bang it went back in and lost the lot

Over the weekend got sucked back in, 'won' £450 'profit' on Saturday and Sunday I lost it again. Plus lost my entire weekend

I have a much longer back story etc but hopefully the two examples above make anyone tempted realize how bad it actually is. I'm 22 and it took under a year for me to become a major addictive gambler (November > Today). But I've got 2 friends on board to help me now.

Luckily I didn't land myself in debt over all this but lost 90% of my savings. Plus all my wages so far this year pretty much. Hopeful by Christmas I can get back to where I was savings wise, who in their right mind would work hard (37 hours a week plus) and then have nothing to show for it at the end because they've chucked it all in a machine! An addict would

cantcope

Great post johntea. Glad you've found our thread. Maybe some of our stories will help you too.

I only gambled compulsively for 14 months before i cracked!
it took 3 months for my £10 a week online to turn into me losing almost 70k savings and racking up approx 20k of debt.
If you have no control over gambling it's evil and takes no prisoners.

I had plenty of "wins" 40k being my biggest one.. but i know now that it was only a month "loan" as it had all gone back by the next payday for me.

Off to my meeting tonight. today is a good day. work might have been dull, but i have not gambled which makes it a GREAT day

Johntea

Thank you cantcope

The online companies reward you with large wins as they know 95% of the players are compulsive gamblers and will eventually give the lot back! It is shocking what you do after getting 'the big win', for example I started to do £500 spins (£500 gone in 1 click! That's like having £500 in your hand and letting it blow away in the wind) chasing 'the bigger win' which of course never came. And then another spin to recover the big loss which of course never came! Luckily after losing that amount of money in under 30 minutes I self excluded (or rather £10 weekly deposit limit but I haven't even deposited that) from the 2 sites I used (This is part of the problem, I got the big win on one site then decided my other site would be due a payout ha ha ha!!!) so now I'm just fighting land based gambling.

I do feel I'm getting better despite my slip at the weekend, during the week I seem to make sure I go to work and either keep myself busy afterwards (i.e. activities other than gambling) or get myself home as soon as possible. And I'm getting paid on Friday so hopefully I can make it a pay that doesn't have a penny of it donated to a gambling company!