Quitting for Good

I thought that I would create a personal thread to post my thoughts or experiences in dealing with this lifetime sickness called "gambling addiction".

I'm in Day 3 of GF (gambling free).

I have been gambling since 18 years old. It has been more than 25 years of gambling. And what have I really achieve in life. Frankly, nothing to be proud of.

I can't go on doing the same things especially in terms of being hooked to any form of gambling.
I have played lottery tickets, videos arcade gambling machines, soccer betting, casino...these mainly.

I used to blame my friends for getting me into this, for being introduced or hooked up to it. Eventually I broke ties with them. But even now without them in my life, I seems to be still hooked on to gambling.

I realised that the battle is my personal battle. It is in my head. I need to overcome this on my own. I need to conquer my thoughts.

Gambling gives a false impression of making money easily. Over a period of time, this fades away, and then it is your drug to get away for all problems in life.. and it increases your problems when you lose control

-- Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:06 pm --

All my attempt to quit, has been quashed the initiall subtle entry of it won't harm if I can play small and control my amount and time in betting.

But eventually, I start to sleep less, sleep late. Lose focus at work. Get agitated at my family members.

It seems like I have been keeping this secret to myself only, and I feel it is an escape from everything. No matter what, I feel I'm in my own world.

But I came to realise, that I'm actually selfish.
In my first few GA, the main coordinator would always say that we are selfish. Only now I realised, that I'm selfish that I'm only thinking of myself, and not of my loved ones.
There are others who care for me, but what I'm doing is injustice to them.
Totally selfish. Totally reckless. Totally inconsiderate.

If I don't quit now. I will look back 5 years from now, and still regret it. The day my son was born, if I had quit, I would have been better off.

So, will I still want to bet small amounts for it to spiral out of control to big amount. Even if I were to win (which I did comfortably 9 months ago, with a quite good sum), when would it stop, or when would I quit. It will spur me even more, if I keep on winning. But eventually the dark period would appear, and I would start to lose. To lose everything, and even more (more than money...lose health, lose peace, lose relationship).

-- Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:15 pm --

I need to decide now. And think of today for the rest of my life. Make a decision, the firm decision to quit for good.
No turning back, no regrets. No more bet. Not a single dime. No compromise.

Kill the thoughts of betting, kill in whenever it appears.
Walk away from the invitation, turn down the offer.
Need give in. No matter what, never give in to anyone, even your loved ones who want you to chip in for their bets. It only takes a spark, to get the fire going.

RicardoG wrote:But eventually the dark period would appear, and I would start to lose. To lose everything, and even more (more than money...lose health, lose peace, lose relationship).

That is the key and we must never forget it. When I get the thought of gambling, I will often remember gambling if the first step down a path in which I already know the outcome. It will cost me my family, my kids and the rest of my life. I will start to lie, hide and have sleepless nights. Things I DEFINITELY don't want!

Keep up the good work Ricardo!

What I did in my first year of trying to become gf, is that I read the quote from the GA blue each day (One Day at a Time) and I wrote a half-page response to it in a notebook. After 365 days, it was nice to re-read what I thought that previous year and to see how my thoughts changed.

Thanks Aries.
Yes, it is something I should remember always and never forget.
I would just like to remember a single word..."Peace"

Gambling doesn't give me that. It never has, because even in winning, you will still want to go back to get more (greed). And while losing, of course you would never have peace.

Now everytime I feel of gambling, I would think of this word "peace"

Whether I would want to give up that peace of mind or not. OR whether I would want to open up again the whole can of worms, which keeps on getting me worried.

I remember going for my local "GA" meetings, back in end of the year 2014 and 2015. I had that journey of attending meetings for about a full year.

The meetings were tied to sharings and also some element of faith and prayer.

The facilitator would say that gambling is a form of sin.
The father of lies (Devil/Satan), just comes to steal and destroy. Not steal our money, but our life.

True, I wasted some years not really believing that.
Temptation is a lure from the evil one to destroy us.
We should win in the battle of temptation and do the right thing, make the right choice.

Yesterday, while driving back home alone, I was thinking of this martingale system.
Maybe I could use that to make some money from gambling, just a small amount...to cover my credit card debt. I will try to be careful this time.
I thought more into it...Why didn't I do this earlier.
And thinking deeper into it, I realise that I had started of this way also before. I did argue with the thought, but I went with the lure and started to gamble again.
How foolish have I been, for not thinking that the evil one was luring me back into gambling.

I snapped out of it. Do I want peace or the opposite?

It is the lies, that want to get me back into gambling.
I don't ever want to fall again for that lies. TEMPTATION..I need to win this battle, in order to be totally and permanently GF.

Your GA meetings sounded a bit different from mine, but I guess it really depends on the group that runs it.

I found it easier to stay away from gambling once I started identifying the 'thoughts' about gambling as 'lies' from gambling, thus giving it a negative implication. It made gambling more like an enemy that I know wants me back again.

Lets keep those GF days going Ricardo!

RicardoG wrote:I thought that I would create a personal thread to post my thoughts or experiences in dealing with this lifetime sickness called "gambling addiction".

I'm in Day 3 of GF (gambling free).

I have been gambling since 18 years old. It has been more than 25 years of gambling. And what have I really achieve in life. Frankly, nothing to be proud of.

I can't go on doing the same things especially in terms of being hooked to any form of gambling.
I have played lottery tickets, videos arcade gambling machines, soccer betting, casino...these mainly.

I used to blame my friends for getting me into this, for being introduced or hooked up to it. Eventually I broke ties with them. But even now without them in my life, I seems to be still hooked on to gambling.

I realised that the battle is my personal battle. It is in my head. I need to overcome this on my own. I need to conquer my thoughts.

Gambling gives a false impression of making money easily. Over a period of time, this fades away, and then it is your drug to get away for all problems in life.. and it increases your problems when you lose control

-- Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:06 pm --

All my attempt to quit, has been quashed the initiall subtle entry of it won't harm if I can play small and control my amount and time in betting.

But eventually, I start to sleep less, sleep late. Lose focus at work. Get agitated at my family members.

It seems like I have been keeping this secret to myself only, and I feel it is an escape from everything. No matter what, I feel I'm in my own world.

But I came to realise, that I'm actually selfish.
In my first few GA, the main coordinator would always say that we are selfish. Only now I realised, that I'm selfish that I'm only thinking of myself, and not of my loved ones.
There are others who care for me, but what I'm doing is injustice to them.
Totally selfish. Totally reckless. Totally inconsiderate.

Are you ready to admit that it's all about you and the errors you made because for some unknown reason the humans like to dare the unknown? I hope you are.
Have you forgotten yourself about the errors you have made with gambling because they are not errors, it's just that you are human? If you haven't - please do.


Wishing you all the best.

Thanks getting_better for your posts.
Congrats on 3 years of GF.

I got tempted last night while do my bill payment online.
I still went to see the soccer sites. And I did check the odds, and the game result this morning.

Then it hit my mind that I had changed the password to the betting site to some unknown password. I have done this a few times before. And also I was thinking of all my previous tragic times when I had to ask people for money, especially my family members.
If I had been a professional gambler all this while, I wouldn't be in the current situation. Gambling is all about luck. When your cards come out right, when your soccer team doesn't hit red card or injury or bad referee decision. Or players on the take to lose the game, lineman, referee etc etc...so many variable factors...all pure luck. Nothing is certain, the ball is round.

So, I'm still reinforcing myself, all the past screw ups are helping me, NOT to get into it again.

This is what I plan to do:

I'm going to take a snapshot of my current debt situation.
Am going to see how I fare in reducing it in 6 months and 1 year from now.
I will post my updates here.
And during this period, I must and will stay GF.

I must be responsible for my finances and my future.

I got back into soccer betting on the New Year weekend, when I was checking out the soccer matches (out of boredom). It was something that I shouldn't have done. I won in the 3 matches I played that day, and I thought I was in control and could just play strong winnable matches.

The plan back fired when I lost a few days later until this weekend. And then I realised that what I was saying previously about red card and referees biased decision ...all of those took place.

I felt a bit lousy yesterday, as it was my first GF day.

Today is Day 2 of GF.
I have decided that I will no longer check on soccer matches, and I will take extra precaution to prevent myself from falling into guessing winner for matches.
So the best way, is to not read, see or think of soccer matches at all.