This is my story....What is yours?

I am 35 years old. The first time I went to a casino was in Canada when I was 19 years old. I think I maybe spent $20? It was something to do while on winter break during my freshman year in college. I was not a frequenter of casino's until I was 22. I had started dating my boyfriend my senior year in college and we had a local casino and it was just something to do. Little did I know it would turn into this terrible disease that I can't seem to get rid of. It started out as something to do together, like going to the movies or dinner. Seemed harmless back then... He played black jack and I would wander around and throw in $20 in a slot machine. If I spent $60 that was a lot. Then I would watch him play black jack and eventually learned and started playing myself. Then the spending started to increase. $100, $200 or more. We went from black jack to Caribbean stud. We played that for years and then got into 3 card poker, our game of choice now. Now spending hundreds if not getting into the low $1000's each time happens quite frequently. As my boyfriend said a few weeks ago, when we go to the casino our motto is "everything you got, every single time", meaning we will spend ANY available money we have when we are in the casino. ATM cards, cash advances, whatever we have available. Definitely NOT a good motto to have. We both are gambleholics, whether he will admit it or not. It basically has taken every dime we have made the past 10 years and then some. It is really sad. We have good jobs, yet we still live in an apartment. Everyone else our age has a house and has kids and we can barely afford our rent some months because we waste so much money.

I am probably $47,000 in debt with all my loans and credit cards. I have had revelations of paying credit cards off by taking high interest loans thinking I will just have 1 payment then and I will stop gambling and save my money.... Nope, doesn't happen. Not only do I have those stupid loans, but then I charge up my credit cards again by taking cash advances and then still have to pay those off too. It's a never ending cycle it seems. The worst time for me is the weekends... Friday and Saturday nights. I can get through the week just fine, but then comes the weekends.

Me and my boyfriend can easily trigger each other. One little mention of "buffet" or "Brussel sprouts" (this one casino near us has these great Brussel sprouts at their steakhouse) or any other little mention of a word related to the casino and the other person is like OK. Or we have a weird thing with time.... like, look it's 3:33, or it's 2:34 or 4:35 or 5:55... like those are triples or a straight in 3 card. Our brains our ###$ up. And once it is in our heads, we can't seem to let it go. We HAVE to go then. It always ends badly too. He is usually lucky and can win, but then we stay too long and lose it all. And then win it back. And then lose it all again... I always say with 3 card poker (and probably many other games) it is like a roller coaster. You go down and then you can go up and you have to know when to get off, and apparently I can't get off until I lose everything. I don't know why. It's not even fun anymore. The minute I start playing and then I start losing this panic comes over me like, why did I come here? I know I am going to lose. Now I have to win this money back too. How am I going to pay my bills now? I am so stupid. It's like the same thing every time. I hate it. It has only been 1 day. I went last night to eat with my friend at the casino and then I knew I would gamble. I shouldn't have suggested going there to her, but she said yes. I put myself in these stupid situations I know are bad, but I can't seem to stop myself sometimes.

I realize I just need to stop. I can never gamble again if I ever want to pay off my bills or have any sort of money or life in the future. Gambling is the only thing my boyfriend and I argue over. We will never have anything in life if we do not stop. I really hope we can. I really really want to.... I tell my boyfriend that we can reward ourselves by stopping until our bills our paid off by going to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. How stupid is that? Reward ourselves from not gambling by going gambling? Ugh... My brain really is screwed up.

I am hoping that sharing all this and seeing everyone else's stories will help. I read the other topics and see that there are others who have stopped and how much better they say it is, and I really hope to be one of those people someday. I want to help others and make others realize that you can get out of this. Debt or not, little by little, you can work your way out of this feeling of hopelessness and have a better life. I know it will be a struggle for the rest of my life, but I have to try. There are so many other problems, bigger problems, that people fight their way through, like cancer, and they fight. So we can fight to. We can beat this. Here's hoping that April 28, 2017 was my last day of gambling....

I feel for you..I started gambling about 4 yrs ago and have got our family in debt about 90 000 in total because if it. I can see where it will be harder for you to stop if you and your partner aren't both on board. ,,My hubby hates gambling so I have someone who won't tolerate me going anymore. (now that he knows the truth of my deception about the debt) If you both can are on the same page about quitting you can support one another but it's going to be tough if your both not on the same page. We are all similar in that we will spend everything available. I know the feeling when you start to chase loses ...it's terrible. I haven't gambled since the 25th of March. I know I will lose everything if I were to start up again it's just not an option. When your gambling you think each time will be the chance to hit big but even when I hit 7000 the last time I just went back and lost it another time because your so far gone it's never enough. The hole just gets deeper. The anxiety and guilt just are not worth it. In your mind when you quit it's like you finally have given up and must now face the reality of your loses. It's a horrible feeling. I wish you luck I hope you both can quit together.

Thanks for the reply Traced. Here I am again, Friday night. It is the weekend, which again is the hardest for me. Trying to get through the night. I just re-read my post from last week. I am hoping to remind myself of how I felt then and why I shouldn't go, because I do not want to feel like that again. My boyfriend is meeting a friend out for a drink tonight. Just getting ready now. Part of me, the bad part, thinks, oh I could just sneak out for a bit and try to win some money. aka lose money. Ugh, why is quitting such a struggle?

My boyfriend showed me a reservation he had looked up in his total rewards account. We could get a free room in a couple weeks in Atlantic City. That's the weekend we are supposed to be camping. He said, do you want to go? Yes. Of course I want to go. Should I go? NO! He didn't end up booking it. We tempt ourselves with these bad ideas though, which is not good because if we keep doing it, we will eventually give in.

I am going to Orlando for work in June. My cousin and aunt live in Fl. I feel bad I can't really afford to do much. I can't even buy a ticket to Disneyworld for the day because I have no extra money. Granted Disney is $140/day, way over priced if you ask me, but still way cheaper than any gambling night I have had lately. Hopefully I can do something fun and cheap. That is what happens when you waste all your money. You can't just go have fun, every single dollar has to be accounted for. At least for me. If me and my boyfriend counted all the money we have lost gambling... I think we could have paid for a house or went on awesome vacations. But no. We have nothing to show for our money.

I will make it through tonight. It's 9pm. I just have to go to bed. That's all. And then get through tomorrow night. Here's to not gambling tonight everyone.

Thats great that you are re-reading your previous post to help remind yourself of your goal to abstain piggywiggy. In some group sessions I attended, some people have suggest creating a bracelt made of beads and for each week you are gamble free, you add a new bead. It can be a constant reminder of your goal that is with you all the time. Over time, that number of beads will grow
Instead of Disneyworld, you can always just go to Disney Springs which is free. I know its not the same, but it is a nice medium.

piggywiggy wrote: As my boyfriend said a few weeks ago, when we go to the casino our motto is "everything you got, every single time", meaning we will spend ANY available money we have when we are in the casino. ATM cards, cash advances, whatever we have available. Definitely NOT a good motto to have. We both are gambleholics, whether he will admit it or not. It basically has taken every dime we have made the past 10 years and then some. It is really sad. We have good jobs, yet we still live in an apartment. Everyone else our age has a house and has kids and we can barely afford our rent some months because we waste so much money.

I am probably $47,000 in debt with all my loans and credit cards. I have had revelations of paying credit cards off by taking high interest loans thinking I will just have 1 payment then and I will stop gambling and save my money.... Nope, doesn't happen. Not only do I have those stupid loans, but then I charge up my credit cards again by taking cash advances and then still have to pay those off too. It's a never ending cycle it seems. The worst time for me is the weekends... Friday and Saturday nights. I can get through the week just fine, but then comes the weekends.

. . . I went last night to eat with my friend at the casino and then I knew I would gamble. I shouldn't have suggested going there to her, but she said yes. I put myself in these stupid situations I know are bad, but I can't seem to stop myself sometimes.

I realize I just need to stop. I can never gamble again if I ever want to pay off my bills or have any sort of money or life in the future. Gambling is the only thing my boyfriend and I argue over. We will never have anything in life if we do not stop. I really hope we can.

Welcome, PigglyWiggly.

I am so sorry that you have been swept up into the quicksand world of casino gambling. A casino truly is a dangerous place. Gambling means spending more money to "win" than the actual money compensation that the "wins" bring.

You are still young. You can recover financially. But, why not make a change now? Above you expressed your sorrow and anguish at how gambling losses are affecting your life. If your main form of gambling is casino gambling, there is a simple solution, which really helps a person to quit. Self-exclude. There is no shame in deciding to eliminate the existence of the local casino from your life and consciousness.

It is shame that casinos are now everywhere. I wish they weren't. But what you can do, is to take your own body out of that local one, by virtue of self-exclusion.

I hope that you can gain your life back, a life of your own choosing, not a life with the inner turmoil of gambling. I wish you a gambling-free weekend.

So I did not stop in April. I did relapse... a few times actually. Won some, lost more, that's always the story right? I went last night while my boyfriend was out with friends. I don't know why I can't just stay home. I guess I get bored and the thought of trying to win some money takes over me. It's stupid. I always regret it. At least I did self-exclude myself... I have done it before. 6 times actually at this same casino since 2007 apparently... I asked. So maybe this is lucky number 7? I knew I had excluded myself quite a few times before, but I didn't think it was 6. It unfortunately never seems to work for me though. We have too many casino's around me. I am still able to go to the other nearby casino, since there is one across the border. I need to give someone my passport though so that it keeps me away... My problem with self-exclusion is that we just end up driving to the casino that is 3 hours away. And yes, maybe I should exclude myself from there too, but it's 3 hours away, so in my head I think, it's not like I can just pick up and go, it involves getting a hotel and staying the night, etc. But we should just exclude. If we do ever go there again, I am excluding myself after we leave. I just would never drive that far just to exclude myself.

I feel like the temptation is always going to be there. Even with reading other people's posts sometimes you can tell it is always a struggle, it will always be. Every single day.