Forgive yourself. Guilt keeps you gambling.

I felt so guilty when, in the first few months of my entering gambling at casinos, I had lost $7,000 of my savings. I couldn't fathom it. I was raised to be responsible with money. But ... I felt like I had to get it back, and that meant gambling more, trying to master blackjack and do it better. So . . . three years and three months later, when I finally stopped, and I had lost many times more that $7,000. I just wish that I had forgiven myself at the beginning, and moved away from this pastime.

Let it go, folks. Chasing losses is degrading your unique self-worth. You are worth far more than that money! You are not likely to win it back anyway, and even if you do, you are highly unlikely to quit after winning.

So true - you have to let it go before you can move forward. I've relapsed many times because of this - that one stupid false hope where you think you can win just another few thousand to help reverse the losses....problem is I always lost the winnings plus MORE!

The one good thing I think we can all agree on is that the whole gambling experience forces us to be more introspective. We look back on all those situations, see what drove us and any weaknesses we can learn from and help develop a stronger mindset so that it doesn't happen again. A positive side effect of that is that it helps improve other areas of life - you learn to become satisfied with the simple things, like a nice day in the sun or a nice dinner and a movie. At least that's what I have found.

At the same time, gambling is such an insidious addiction that when we win, we want to gamble more and when we lose, we also want to gamble more. It never ends...

movingon2014 wrote: We look back on all those situations, see what drove us and any weaknesses we can learn from and help develop a stronger mindset so that it doesn't happen again

When I was gambling, every time that I lost, I always thought I 'learned' how to be a better gambler. What props to bet on. Which bets give the best value. Which teams were the most dominant at home. Which hands gave me the best chance to maximize my wins. And because of those loses, I was thinking I was becoming a better and smarter gambler (Stupid eh?)

Only once I started on my path of recovery did I really learn from those loses and how truly sick I was.

Aries411 wrote:At the same time, gambling is such an insidious addiction that when we win, we want to gamble more and when we lose, we also want to gamble more. It never ends...

movingon2014 wrote: We look back on all those situations, see what drove us and any weaknesses we can learn from and help develop a stronger mindset so that it doesn't happen again

When I was gambling, every time that I lost, I always thought I 'learned' how to be a better gambler. What props to bet on. Which bets give the best value. Which teams were the most dominant at home. Which hands gave me the best chance to maximize my wins. And because of those loses, I was thinking I was becoming a better and smarter gambler (Stupid eh?)

Only once I started on my path of recovery did I really learn from those loses and how truly sick I was.

I should have been more specific - I guess what I meant to say is that the real learning only comes once your on the other side of it - i.e. once you have begun to seek help and are looking how to be free from gambling. I found that when I looked back on all the moments and nights when I was really at the bottom of the barrel, I could put together situations and mental/emotional triggers which led me there.

But when I was in the thick of the addiction the only thing I seemed to learn was how to lose more.

The harsh reality is that when you win, you will lose more. No one wins.

SO true.
I was so out of control. The "balance sheet" or the account balances seemed to have LITTLE impact on my stopping. I wanted what I wanted and that was the escape into the world of the casino. To forget about life, to forget about the illusions that I thought I deserved in my life that had never come true- or that I had burned up. I was 100% hooked to the drug of oblivion.

I was so cut off and so miserable that only a "win" would give me a little lift, a little power, a lot of false joy. And then I'd give it back and more, because I never wanted to quit.

Forgiving myself -- I love this saying on forgiveness and serenity.

Serenity - is when I stop wishing for a better past.


I am still coming to terms with the destruction of this addiction. I will say recovery is giving me a structure of a way to live the rest of my life -- and a hope that I can get out of the "death spiral" of gambling.

Yes, uskat you hit the nail on the head. Action is addictive. Adrenaline is addictive. The false sense of winning is addictive. You and I understand, we have been there.

uskat wrote:I was so cut off and so miserable that only a "win" would give me a little lift, a little power, a lot of false joy. And then I'd give it back and more, because I never wanted to quit.

Forgiving myself -- I love this saying on forgiveness and serenity.

Serenity - is when I stop wishing for a better past.

I love that quote about stopping wishing for a better past. I tend to frequently wish for a better past. But I know that it's not healthy.

Regarding wins, yes, we were using monetary wins to affirm our worth, our strength, our power. The irony is that we had to pay for them. We were handing the casino a thousand to get a "win" of $400. They have a fine racket going on. Taking advantage of folks' downtrodden-ness.

Now, though, a day at a time, keeping faith that our needs will be met, we don't have to engage in gambling to survive our inner states.

I am so glad that I got out of these vicious cycles of winning and losing, after sometime it just wore me down because all it did was ate up all my time and financial resources. I just can't stop.

I am very thankful to have my life back and be normal again. Never again to gambling, we all have a lot of life to live and if anyone of you are above 50, we know it is going too fast, let us treasure it. NO to gambling, YES to life.

@rainbowcolor, like that last quote!!

NO to gambling, YES to life.