Hi Harvestmoon,
can you please write more so the members can help you and advise you?
as you can read in this forum it is not impossible to stop gambling, a lot has done it. maybe not from the 1st time but even if it will take a 100 trial to do it is worth it.
your first priority in life from now on should be to stop gambling because if you fail on this everything will spiral down again and again.
now how to stop there is a lot of help available online from GA meeting to SMART meeting to the Forums like this one. all offer great help, but recovery is a road you can’t do everything from day one.
but as a start, you need to
1: limit your access to the money ( give the control of your finance to someone else. partner or family member) the money is a great trigger and at the first stage you don’t need any triggers.
2: build as many barriers between you and gambling as you can, if your willpower failed then the barriers will keep you away from gambling. and knowing that the barriers are there is itself will reduce your cravings to gamble.
for instance, you can install a web blocker to block the gambling sites, you can scratch the 3 digits in the back of your cards to prevent you from depositing the money to an online gambling site …etc. a lot of barriers can be built to help you.
3: learn more about addiction and how to fight it I recommend SMART their approach.
Create a new thread here in this forum write a description about your addiction so the members can help you, and record your progress.
we don’t have flu that will go away in few days. what we have is a lifetime illness like diabetes that we have to learn how to deal with it and live our lives like normal people and we can do that. many have done it.