Don't know what to do

tesuhoha

By saying he is doing well, I didnt mean that he doesnt need your help. I think its an excellent idea for you to help each other.

broke_student111

shashu wrote: »

Hi mate,

I have been reading the debt free forum for quite a while now, but reading the first post in your thread has actually given me the inspiration to sign up as a member tonight just so I can send you this private message. I am 22 years old, and have just finished uni last year. I did a three year politics and philosophy course. A couple of months after starting uni, towards the end of the first year, I began to gamble. Like you, this got more and more severe, by the middle of the second year, I was spending more than 15 hours a day playing online poker and literally spending every last penny in my bank account, staying up till 5.30-6am every single night, waking up at 2pm the next day, and immediately starting to gamble online. Like you, I lost/never made any friends and had absolutely no life in the process of my gambling. For a good while at the start, I was pretty certain I was making a lot of money playing poker, as I could successfully turn £50-£100 into almost £500 some nights. Some months, I netted more than £1000 in profit, my personal aim was to try and make £50 per day. Unfortunately, things began to turn sour after a short while. I went through the process of building funds up in my gambling accounts - which I held with Ladbrokes, Stan James, 32 Red, William Hill, PartyPoker, Paradise Poker, Pokerroom.com, Betfair, Betfred, 888.com, (this list goes on...) upto around £1000 in total, and then going on an absolute 'tilt' session in one night and losing over £1000. In a single night. I absolutely chased my losses, sometimes beginning the night with a £20 deposit, losing that, doing so 3 or 4 more times, then depositing £100, £200, £500. The last huge losing session I had, it was 6am in the morning and I was down over £750, so i decided to buy £400 worth of poker chips and played $25/$50 poker to try and get a quick win. Needless to say, I lost the whole lot within 20 minutes. My addiction was so bad, that I would keep on depositing until my card was declined. On another ocassion, I had lost over £500 in a night, and the next day I scraped £5 in change together and went to the Natwest branch at university campus and paid it in, so I could drive straight back home and deposit it on online poker. By the time I left uni, I walked away with a 2:2 instead of a 2:1, a £1600 maxed out overdraft, and £3500 worth of credit card debt - on 3 maxed out cards. I also took out a £5000 loan in the second year which I used to pay off my credit cards, and maxed them all out again within 6 months. Even after I left uni, I was determined that I could win all my money back, and kept gambling and losing for a short while. About 6 months ago, I reopened my Barclaycard account which had a £1000 limit, and used this to gamble. Within a month, I had over £1500 credit on the card, and then, inevitably, went on an absolute bender and lost £2500.

I realised that this was well and truly ruining my life and decided to try and quit late last year. Initially I managed to cut down my gambling but still did it, losing £20 here, £50 there. However, moving back home from uni helped me regain some structure, and getting a full time job working for my dad definitely helped. In January this year I took a temporary job working as an accounts clerk, which I am currently still doing. Last week, I got a pay rise, and am now accounts manager of a small company, with an income of £1400 per month for full time Mon-Fri. I have managed to pay back my £1600 overdraft, and hopefully when my pay is credited to my bank this week I will be in credit for the first time in over 3 years. I still have over £3200 to pay off my credit cards, and 15 loan repayments to make at £155 per month, but I am managing to save over £700 per month to throw at these debts and I haven't gambled since January, when I had a flutter which cost me £80. At the rate I am currently saving, I can clear these debts off by the third quarter of this year and actually become debt free. I am very lucky because I don't have a student loan to pay back, I have a personal loan instead, but this is going to be paid off by June next year (and I will certainly not be taking out another one!).

I am trying to think of how to best offer you advice. I can definitely say from my own experience that it is very hard, almost impossible to stop gambling when you are in that mode- you can't break the cycle, you have to put some money down because you're in so deep, you're owed that money, you feel like its yours for the taking, and you have to go and get it. Regardless of what anyone said to me when I was at uni, I found it impossible to stop my own gambling. I would join in with my friends and go out, get a lot of drinks down me, and have a good time, but the next night, when no-one was doing anything, and I had time on my hands, it was straight to the tables to take my chances. Having no full time job and not really earning my own money didn't help, I had no way of placing value on it. Another huge thing you need to ask yourself is what you are actually going after that money for. When I won big on poker, I hardly ever spent the money on things that I wanted. I would justify some completely unreasonable spending because of my winnings, but I would then be reluctant to spend them and always end up taking them back to the tables, and losing. Right now, I am more than happy to get paid what I do from my full time job and not have to rely on gambling to earn that money. And in the process, I have structured sleep, eating, social contact, and a hell of a lot less depression.

You must stop gambling, like I have tried to. Don't get me wrong, I am definitely not a fully converted anti-gambling preacher. I often think about playing some poker, especially when I'm bored. There is nothing like it to get the heart racing, and get a buzz. But once you break the cycle, and begin to save some of your own money, you will be reluctant to go and throw it away on gambling.

Would love to keep writing, and I'm sure I could go on forever, but Im starting to lack a bit of structure in this post now! Please get in touch though if you do want to talk - I am definitely a person that has been in your shoes and knows what you are going through - I haven't completely recovered yet, and probably won't do so for a long time, even if/after I manage to pay back my debts - so perhaps we can both help each other into a more positive way of thinking somehow. To all other DFWs, hi! And I hope you can all help me (wouldn't mind getting my own SOA up here, as my plans are to save save save, achieve debt-free hapiness, and then go travelling for some time).

Hi!

Welcome, and well done for the honest post Shashu, must of taken some courage (and time!).

I think you have just described me as well as yourself above, certainly with the feeling that the casinos 'owe you' money, especially if it was a significant amount of money or the last little bit of cash left in your account that you had just lost. It wasn't until rock bottom when I stopped gambling, being over £15,000 in debt. Well done to you for stopping when you did, and not taking on extra credit!

I, too, never spent any of my initial winnings (around £9,000 in total) on anything material or worthwhile before the losing streak kicked in, just wanting to keep the balance for more and more gambling. Unfortunately, this was when I started to lose, and lose, and lose some more.At this point the only thing that mattered to me was trying to win back 'my' money, and I would spend every day on the computer, depositing more and more money until the message "The bank as declined this transaction - contact customer services" appeared on the screen. By this point I had spent all my savings and maxed out all my cards as well.

I am very happy to hear that you have stopped gambling and that you have been paying back your debts - it must be a great feeling to have a credit balance on your current account (can't remember when mine was last in credit!!) It is good that you have something worthwhile to save towards (travelling). I was saving up to get myself back on the road, but that has fallen through with all the gambling, etc. If you keep thinking to yourself that you will not be able to travel for another year if you start gambling again, it should hopefully steer you away from the deposit screen.

Before and just after quitting, all I would think about was gambling, counting down the days until payday. I would constantly think about different playing strategies, combinations of cards, past winning streaks, etc. I have to say now, although I do have these thoughts, they are nowhere near as frequent as they were, and so I am now much less inclined to gamble than I was. I am also beginning to sleep better as well now.

Iwish you the best of luck, and please continue to keep posting, it will be good to hear how you are getting on.

All the best,

Tom

boredofbeingathome

Hi Tom, hope Easter goes ok for you and things are beginning to settle debt wise. Have you made any further progress?

catz1ct

Just been reading your thread, how have you been doing?