Today is the first day of the rest of my life

Hello everyone..
I have been gambling (mostly soccer and football) since I started working, around 15 years or so and the whole thing has been a part (probably the biggest part) of my life.
It's very usual for me checking scores during important work meetings, spending my whole day in my office watching games and wagering and doing whatever possible to get away from my family during the weekends just so I can gamble freely. I even remember looking at a score of a soccer game while my wife was in the operation room giving birth to our son...
First I started wagering $20-$25 bets which gradually grew into $200-$350 single bets. My biggest winning were around $10K however if I ever need to do the math, I probably will find out that I have lost more than $100K during the past 15 years.
At this moment I owe $21K to one credit card, already pulled and spent $30K from my 401K plan and put my family's financial situation in a very difficult situation considering that we have two kids with close to nothing saved for their future education.
I can not bear with the shame, constant lying and living in a secret alternate work anymore.. Literally at this point of my life all I am doing is gambling, losing and eventually drinking to ease my feelings from losses and yet having difficult time to sleep at night just hating myself..
I have lost so much money that will take me years to pay back and sadly so much time that I will never get back.
Regardless, instead of wishing for a better past I am going to work for a better future to be a better husband, father and strive more to do better in my job.
TODAY IS THE FIRST DAY OF THE REST OF MY LIFE!

Hi thatsit1905,

The first step in the realisation part.
When we have been in this vicious cycle and then we look back at things or "take stock", we find that gambling had actually done much damage in our life.

Taking the first step, is your path to recovery. You need to take control back of your life.
The money lost....forget about it. Earn an honest living.
Start a new life. Take a day at a time. Every day without gambling, is a victory.

A lot of real life stories, and examples are here. Learn from them. If they can do it, you can too.

I wish you all the best, and I believe that you can have a life without gambling.

Thank you RicardoG.
I completed yesterday without gambling and it was the first time that didn't wake up in the middle of the night all stressed in a while..
Even though my mind is constantly tempting me to place some wagers, I am not going to do it..

Welcome to the forum Thatsit,

Understanding we have problem and wanting to change is a huge step (I was in denial for many years). It sounds like you have a lot of determination and I hope you all the best on this journey! We will be here to support you. If you are an online gambler, I suggest closing your account and installing some anti-gambling software. The more barriers you put between yourself and gambling, the higher your chance of success. I also find that posting often also helps. The more we talk about our problem and address that we are trying to overcome it, the more support we find!

I look forward to hearing more from you and try reading the Strategies thread where there is a wealth of information.

Thank you Aries411.

I really need help with letting the losses go and get over with the fact that "I lost that money and it's not coming back...".

Every time I think about how much I lost, I become so angry and embarrassed with myself..

Hello Thatsit,

That's a hurdle that many of us have troubles overcoming. We get fixated on how much we lost and we think of things like "if only I didn't lose that money, I would have this and that" and we think of how much better our life would be. That type of thinking will sometimes cause us to me impatient and try to get it back ASAP. But how? By gambling of course! (Silly how our mind works!) Those are the 'lies' we tell ourselves to allow us to gamble and cause us to sink deeper. Here are a few tips that I find useful.

1. Think of it as a bad investment. Sometimes we invest and the stocks drop, but many of us do not chase those loses. It is best to learn for those bad investments.
2. Mindfulness (what I do). Be present and understand that ruminating about the past and being worried of the future only causes problems for the present. We can't change the past and can't predict the future, so don't waste your energy on it. Focus on the moment.
3. Understand that ruminating about the past won't help you now. Treat NOW as point zero and make the best decision from here on out. The money lost is gone and only hard work will get you back to your former life. Be patient. It may take a long time, but you will reach it!

thatsit1905 wrote:Every time I think about how much I lost, I become so angry and embarrassed with myself..

It is quite norm Thatsit. But don't linger long in that thought. The longer you are in that thought
, it will give rise to the wrong ideas of recovering the money. Quickly switch to a positive thought.
Easier said that done, but you need to do that.

Always REMEMBER, money lost before this, it is lost forever. Earn your money to pay off the debt using legal means only i.e. hard work.

And here we go again....
I had two days to stay at home with my 6 year old daughter last week and of course the first thing came to my mind is " well if I am going to be home then I might wager some on the weekday games and finish my week with superbowl game on Sunday night!!".
Now I am sitting here another $5K deep and thinking why and how I could become that stupid and reckless with my money...
I wish I was smarter..

Pick up yourself. Forgive, forget the loss and move on.

Read more on the strategies and examples listed in this forum.

Wise words from RicardoG .

It's hard to forgive ourselves but please try . You're not stupid . You have an illness that manifests as a compulsion . I knew I was destroying my life even while I was doing it . But I couldn't stop myself . The voice in my head was relentless in its demands that I give into the urge to gamble .

Fighting back against the urge was the hardest thing I've ever done . Some days I had to do it every hour and there were times when it was every minute of the day . It was exhausting . But the more I stopped myself from gambling , the easier it became to deny the addiction what it wanted .

You can do this , Thatsit1905 .