Lets try this again.

Hi Guys,

Been watching the forum for a while now, reading other peoples stories without getting too involved myself. I did post once about a year ago but unfortunately didnt keep it up, and unsurprisingly I find myself in a considerably worse position now so figured it was worth another try.

Brief bit of background, I have been gambling since I was probably around 12/13 years old. Fruit machines first as a teenager before graduating to the bookies when I turned 18. There has always been racing greyhounds in my family so naturally I found myself at tracks fairly regularly, several times a week in fact back when I was that age. From there its the usual story. Bets progressively growing in frequency and size until now, aged 27. I now find myself throwing horrendous sums of money at bets on dogs/horses I know very little about, with very little reason to do so, and absolutely no feeling towards the amount of money I am losing until its too late.

The ridiculous thing is it all starts with losing a relatively small amount. I can lose £50 or £100 pretty comfortably without it affecting my life, so why I end up chasing it with increasingly bigger bets I do not know. There has been days where I have started off £50 or £100 down from the get go and ended up chasing it with bets increasing in size up to about £500 a crack, culminating in a day where I end up about £4000/£5000 down. More then once this has happened.

Anyway, I have tried giving up numerous times in the past but I now find myself in the worst financial state I have ever been in, which is around £30k in debt. I earn fairly good money from a family business, and if I am completely honest I can probably have the debt taken care of in 18 months-2 years if I stay on track, but as you all know that is easier said then done. Hopefully this time I can make it stick.

Sorry to have rambled on, just thought I may as well get everything out there from the get go.

I look forward to hopefully speaking to you all a bit more in future.

You obviously have to stop, do you agree?

If you agree then there are steps that can be taken but in your state they will seem drastic. In reality they aren't a big deal and anybody who isn't a compulsive gambler could do them without much difficulty but the addiction will convince you that they are impossible.

If you are serious about quitting you'll either self-exclude if possible or give up control of your money to a family member or trusted friend. Then you'll go to one or two GA meetings a week. This strategy worked for me and pretty much every other person who has had a successful recovery.

There are no excuses, either you do something different that will make a real change or you continue down the path you're on. I can promise you that things can (and will) get so much worse if you don't quit and you know it. But if you are honest and tell yourself that the money you lost is gone and you're never going to win it back you'll be off to a good start. You also need to keep reminding yourself that even if you had that "Big Win" it wouldn't matter. If you went out and won £50,000 tomorrow you'd just increase the size of your bets to chase a bigger win and lose it all anyway. So there's about a .0001% chance you'll win your money back and even if you did you'd just lose it, and the rest of your money back to the bookies.

I can tell you the reason I used to chase my initially small losses with bigger and bigger bets; it was because in the back of my mind, I would not accept that I was going to lose that session or that day........as the loss got bigger, I would double my bet to try and get even in one shot; that is the road to disaster....also another factor in the back of my mind is that it's easier to try to win the money back than to accept the loss and spend months or years earning it back through working. But that was what got me into trouble in the first place; thinking that gambling and winning money was easier than working for it, and that it was free and easy money. Never forget that greed is a big part of gambling.
You say you have the wherewithal to make up those losses in time through your family's business; if that is so, you had better do it, because if you continue to gamble, there could be a point where it becomes impossible.

buster1969 wrote:You obviously have to stop, do you agree?

If you agree then there are steps that can be taken but in your state they will seem drastic. In reality they aren't a big deal and anybody who isn't a compulsive gambler could do them without much difficulty but the addiction will convince you that they are impossible.

If you are serious about quitting you'll either self-exclude if possible or give up control of your money to a family member or trusted friend. Then you'll go to one or two GA meetings a week. This strategy worked for me and pretty much every other person who has had a successful recovery.

There are no excuses, either you do something different that will make a real change or you continue down the path you're on. I can promise you that things can (and will) get so much worse if you don't quit and you know it. But if you are honest and tell yourself that the money you lost is gone and you're never going to win it back you'll be off to a good start. You also need to keep reminding yourself that even if you had that "Big Win" it wouldn't matter. If you went out and won £50,000 tomorrow you'd just increase the size of your bets to chase a bigger win and lose it all anyway. So there's about a .0001% chance you'll win your money back and even if you did you'd just lose it, and the rest of your money back to the bookies.

First, my message to the OP is that I hope that you can, day by day, live a life of your choosing, not one dictated by a compulsion like gambling. I wish you peace and recovery.

Regarding Buster's post, I think it should be copied and saved, and re-posted to everyone who comes to this board with a gambling problem. I like that we are supportive here, and we all can empathize with what it is like to live with an addiction, and how difficult it can be to extricate yourself from it. But the reality is it comes down to the individual to have the courage to make changes. Self-exclude. Tell family members that you have a gambling problem. Attend GA. Give control of your money to a loved one.

The means to stop gambling are within every addict's grasp. Tell yourself you are worth it.

58gambling wrote:I can tell you the reason I used to chase my initially small losses with bigger and bigger bets; it was because in the back of my mind, I would not accept that I was going to lose that session or that day........as the loss got bigger, I would double my bet to try and get even in one shot; that is the road to disaster....also another factor in the back of my mind is that it's easier to try to win the money back than to accept the loss and spend months or years earning it back through working. But that was what got me into trouble in the first place; thinking that gambling and winning money was easier than working for it, and that it was free and easy money. Never forget that greed is a big part of gambling.
You say you have the wherewithal to make up those losses in time through your family's business; if that is so, you had better do it, because if you continue to gamble, there could be a point where it becomes impossible.

This is exactly how I would think ..if you give up on the gambling then you have to look at the losses as permanent and pay all the money back...Reality. If you keep gambling you don't have to face it as the next win is still possible. ..This was my thought process as well...

Thanks for the replies guys. Just a quick vague update, 2 weeks GF today. Feeling ok so far, albeit it a little stressy from time to time having lost my main 'blowing off steam' activity. Determined to keep it up though.