170k est over 2 years UNIQUE SITUATION!! Please Help!!

I am ready to admit I have a gambling addiction.

I just lost 20k in a few hours and during this time I had no control whatsoever. It truly is a sickness. A little backdrop, I'm male in my early thirties and considered relatively successful. I work hard 100hr weeks on the regular so money has never been an issue since my late twenties.

I've been playing for like 5 years or so now and in one of the early years I got really lucky and won 100k in baccarat. Thought I was unstoppable. Now in the last two years lost it all plus another 70 to 90k of my own money.

I want to quit so bad. I have a little bit of ocd and have a very addictive personality. What more here's my unique situation. For my work I have to be around casinos all the time to show clients around. Being around casinos all the time and being stressed from my work I relapse a lot.

I have tried to quit like probably twenty times with all of them failing. Trust me when I say I cannot ban myself from casinos or tell anyone I got a problem, it would ruin me. In my line of work image is everything.

My situation is driving me crazy. I always got money coming in. I cant not be around casinos. I got a gambling problem. I can't change my job I make more here due to lack of experience and skills in other fields. I raked my brain and I got nothing. Somebody please help me before I ruin the rest of my life.

Welcome to the forum Sarsarka ,

You do have a unique situation . Have you looked into any kind of counseling ? I know GA may seem like it's not an option , but is there anyone close to you that you can confide in ?

If it were me , this is what I would do :

Take a 2 week vacation at the very least . A month would be better . Find a place where there are no casinos or access to gambling and use the time to de-stress and make a battle plan . 30 days of abstinence gives your brain a chance to normalize from of being constantly bombarded with the dopamine surges that occur while gambling .

Do a you tube search for "hypnosis to end gambling addiction" . In the first months of my recovery , I listened to a video for this every night . It didn't "hypnotize" me in any way , but it imparted a calming , positive message in my mind and I found my ability to resist the gambling urges increased significantly . You can PM me if you want more info .

Tie up the bulk of available cash in something that cannot be accessed for a while , like CDs . Leave enough to get through until the next payday . This means making a strict , workable budget that doesn't allow for excess money to gamble with .

Do your clients expect you to gamble with them ? If so , you should practice tactfully declining to participate . I used these phrases with friends who want me to join them at the casinos ( they have no idea that I have an addiction .):

" I gave up gambling . The casino made too much money off of me the last time ."

" I don't gamble - I simply have no luck at all ."

" I truly don't have any interest in it ."

I said all of this in the same tone I would use to say " I don't like broccoli ." No apologies , just a statement of fact .

It is hard , hard work , but if you persevere and refuse to give in to the compulsion , eventually you will be able to control your urges , instead of them controlling you . You can post here too , for support and encouragement . You're not alone in this .

You came here and you are admitting you have a problem.

I knew I had a problem and kept going for as long as I could. I hope that is NOT your destiny. You are reaching out and that is big.

Get to a GA meeting. It is anonymous and will help. Hiding it because of your line of work, image etc. could be very dire. You need to talk about this. Find a new way to stay away from betting yourself.

Don't think about "what will I do w/ job? what if others find out" etc. Slow down. You dont have to solve all your life problems right now. Just breathe and get help.

To recover all we have to really do is continue to know we are powerless once the first bet is placed. I do not bet. Not for anything. That is only way for me to get my life back and stay "in life".

I couldn't imagine HOW I could live without my love. My gamble. It can be done and OMG the freedom. Shedding the pain, shame, anger, insanity.

Stay close, post, get to a GA meeting. Read literature on line. Look at you tube videos about gambling addiciton. Look at the blog on Casino watch site.

Welcome. Not a club I ever wanted to be in, but it has given me huge blessings to change and open up a new life.

ALL the best to you --- and hoping your "rock bottom" has arrived.

Thanks for the reply and I unfortunately I don't believe GA meetings are possible if I see people I've gambled with that could easily lead to something bad. The amount of money I lost is bad but still little compared to what I make in general. I have thought of a psychiatrist but I also studied psychology and think it would be less effective given I know their strategies for insight. You guys think it would still help?

As for my clients they don't expect me to gamble with them. I've gotten good at making excuses but highly encouraged. So all my gambling has been on my own free will.

As for people I have plenty of people for support but nobody I want to get involved. I might actually try the hypnosis tape sounds interesting. As for vacation I just took a long one almost two months. This replase was one week into the job. And as for tying up the money I definitely cannot do that. I need large amounts of free flow cash at all times whether to invest or transfer for a business deal or even treating dinner for work out of respect.

All your suggestions are greatly appreciated though! And this forum has calmed me down from reading similar experiences. Any other ideas would be great!!

Sarsarka

When you are gambling with the amounts you are talking about you have a sense of invisibility and lowering your stakes would be menial because in order to feel a win it needs to be a decent amount , but ask yourself this question do you actually need the money or do you need to feel the action ?

Then the best piece of advice I learned is write off the money you have lost and try not to give it a second thought see it as a cost of an education to a successful life , you sound like you have done well and you must of had to work hard and train and educate yourself in your field and there must of been a cost for that look at this the same way

Download the iquitgambling app on your phone that calculates how much you are saving

Read this forum everyday and you will see that you are perfectly normal but we all have this disease which destroys our lives and sanity , I can't tell you how much this site has helped me post often read as much as you can. There is a decent book I'm reading ATM by Allen Carr - the easy way to stop gambling , great read and breaks away at our belief that gambling is something we need

Hope this helps I was lucky enough to have someone to what's app constantly in the first week when I wanted to gamble and fight the urges and it helped a lot

It is really hard when you gamble for a long time and let it entered to your system.The tendency for you to do crazy things because of gambling is really sickening! We all have a share of those insane decisions ,money decisions specifically.you sounded desperate and regretful about your gambling issues,no choice now for you except to accept it as it is amd start from day 1 again being gambling free.We cannot get ahead in life through gambling! Gambling is Super Bad!

-- Mon Oct 03, 2016 7:30 am --

It is really hard when you gamble for a long time and let it entered to your system.The tendency for you to do crazy things because of gambling is really sickening! We all have a share of those insane decisions ,money decisions specifically.you sounded desperate and regretful about your gambling issues,no choice now for you except to accept it as it is amd start from day 1 again being gambling free.We cannot get ahead in life through gambling! Gambling is Super Bad!

The fact that you are not expected to gamble with them is a huge plus . The fact that you must maintain easy access to large amounts of money is a challenge .

I don't necessarily mean a psychiatrist when I recommend counseling . There are addiction therapists that can help you on a one-on-one basis . You can also look into gambling addiction hotlines that you can call if the urges get to be overwhelming .

Simply posting here is a good option - I believe that writing things out can be healing . I have made my share of " Help me ! I really , really want to gamble right now ! " posts on this forum and the supportive responses I got have given me the strength I needed to make it through .

Even though you went on a recent vacation , did you go with the intent of addressing your addiction ? I am suggesting a retreat with a purpose . A conscious attempt to detox and commit to recovery . When I quit , I did not have the option of taking time off to escape from the casinos around me and reinforce my decision to fight this thing . In hindsight , it would have helped me tremendously to get away from the source of the poison in the early days .

Instead , I spent all my free time basically barricaded in my apartment . I knew if I left it , I would go and gamble . This period lasted about 60 days . I spent much of it fighting off the urges with every distraction possible . Slowly the dopamine levels in my brain returned to normal . It wasn't any fun , but it sure beat giving away my paycheck on a daily basis . Clarity returned during that time .

Overcoming this addiction takes a battle plan . It will not go away quickly , quietly or easily . If you only remember one thing , remember this : It doesn't want to die. It will fight tooth and nail to keep itself alive and in control . It will use every lie , mind game , persuasion and manipulation it can to induce you to keep gambling . It will demand to be fed .

In many ways , you are battling for control of your own mind . Think of the addiction as a parasite living in your brain . In order to kill it , you must take action . You should also accept that it may be beaten , but it will never truly be gone . It will be dormant and one bet at any point in your future can bring it roaring back to life with a strength and ferocity that is unimaginable .

You can do this - we will help you any way we can .

Sarsarka wrote:Any other ideas would be great!!

I think I understand what you mean.
You're looking for practical solutions and not just words in forums.
I stopped gambling, as my nickname still rightfully suggests - on the 24th of June 2016.

What helped me was a combination of couple of things:

[*] Energetic treatment - It takes 3 meetings in total, you can have more if you wish - but using energy it focuses on the part in your brain that wants to gamble and makes it numb - you won't feel any craving for gambling this way.
[*] Besides the treatment a devastating blow made me want to stop (and to take the treatment) - just like you had a $20k blow and you can "live" with it, it's not your "rock bottom", I also thankfully never hit "rock bottom" but had a devastating blow - take the treatment after having it, even if you had a month ago and haven't gambled since - it's great, take the treatment so you would keep your life free of gambling.
[*] Read books about it, buy those eBooks in Amazon if you don't have time to wait for a physical book to come in the mail/post ... read the forum too but be more educated how destructive gambling can be so you won't want to take part in it.

Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the advice. Yes you are correct as in i haven't hit rock bottom at all but i realize if I don't stop i might one day. I still haven't figured out a solution to my problem but i guess there's no easy way except that i have to be strong around addiction which doesn't really work but not really a choice i guess.

I relapsed today, i won back ten k which is just as bad. Now its easier than ever to gamble i can feel it in the back of my mind. I will try writing in this forum to give me some form of accountability. I realize wins in the casino are always just teasers to get you back in the game. I hope this will be my last time and i end it with a win! Tomorrow will be my day one. Here's to a life without gambling!

Well while you did lose 170k, you mention about 90k of that was your own money so while alot of money, it doesn't seem as bad as it is.

Gambling again was a mistake - even though you just won 10k I would exercise extreme caution. Every single time I have relapsed and managed to win, I have ALWAYS given it back plus more eventually. Most members here will be able to attest to that as well.

The way I view it as when you win, you lose. After all the win's are what got us all hooked in the first place. No sane first time gambler would go back for more if they kept losing to start with. The problem is when you win, you get that warm fuzzy feeling and quickly forget about the losses. You feel invincible again and keep betting more and more. Then you start to lose, you bet more to win that loss back and you end up losing all the winnings, plus more and thus starts the vicious cycle all over again.

At it's core, I think it's quite a simple problem. Our brains have been rewired to this behaviour over years of the same routine over and over. All the side affects and emotional meltdowns is the more rational parts of our brain crying out for help, but the behavioural addiction is so strong.

Work to change your behaviour and you can change your life.