So definitely writing and reading here has been helpful for my sanity!! It’s been 8-9 months of my bf dealing with this battle but I’m praying for his sake this past weekend was him hitting his rock bottom. I know he loves to go to Vegas. In November he had a “win” that he said has helped put his mind at a little ease and the following weekend he won’t gamble much. I had suggested that he leaves his debit card at home. He told me NO because he has got to feel like he can stop. He had been trying little things here and there, but honestly I never had faith in what he was saying to me which is true because two weeks ago he had the worst “lost” of his life. He told me today hey I’m going to be so bored this weekend I’m going to go to Vegas to hang out with a few friends and I’m not going to gamble at all. This time he even said I’m going to leave my debit card at home! Finally he is listening and isn’t giving himself any way to take out money.
The money isn’t the issue, like I have said before its the mind set that he gets in when he looses. It could be something small/dumb to big/important things. Its all the same. So since I have moved out here he had asked me to help him with his work stuff because that is important to him to be able to recover the money that was lost and has has sooooooo many opportunities to succeed. He could have everything that he has ever wanted in his life is he digs deep down and works hard. He is bad at that and relied on me to motivate him. Today he had been studying for this test he needs to take and came up with a game plan for himself. I was so relieve to finally hear that. I had been suggesting to do it 5 weeks ago and he would always blow me off. Just like him quitting to gamble is his responsibility to quit, I have realized I can not enable him by helping him with all of his work. He needs to do that himself. In doing so I am hoping he feels a sense of accomplishment and that will boost his ego.
Going through all of this makes me sad, I am assuming that all of the CG’s are smart people but the all just get caught up in it. I look back I easily could have gone down this path and become a CG as well. When I turned 21 I love to gamble…. Losing made me so grumpy but it wouldn’t last long. I had won a ton majority of my trips then had some really bad loses. Here is the difference, one trip I had changed the way I looked at gambling. At 22 I said hey most girls my age would love to spend this money on fancy purses or jewelry. I instead looked at it as its money already sent and I’m spending my money on fun entertainment to me. Plus I would never go to an atm or anything like that to get more money and try to “win it back”. Chasing is never the way to win, that is just a slippery slope to disaster.