Just speaking for myself, but one of the reasons that I was able to relapse as easily as I did is because I wanted to try to fight this on my own, without the support of others. I tried to temper the damage after the first time she found out, which meant that I didn’t tell her about the checking account that I had which was still open and I would use in order to gamble without her knowing. At the time she found out (still talking about the first time), I truly believed that I could just stop using this account and my problem would be solved. For the longest time, I didn’t use the checking account. Then, I experienced some high stress stuff in my personal life and I was back in the “game” within an hour. From there, I spiraled out of control. During my relapse, I thought I was able to hide my behavior, but it was so obvious to my wife–just goes to show how sick our addiction truly is–our perception of reality is off from the truth.
So all of this is to say that it is critical that you have support one way or another and that you take serious action to prevent the cycle from repeating.