[4site1218]

I am a father of 3. A husband for almost 15 years to my highschool sweetheart. I love my life but can’t seem to shake addiction. For the last 18months my new one is gambling. I need help to prevent losing my life that I love so much. What is the first steps that people have found to initially not act on these impulses.

[Anonymous]

You’ve already taken the first step by posting here. As you know it’s near enough impossible to give up addiction without any support.

For me the thing that always seemed to prevent immediate relapse was confiding in my mother.

I would suggest coming clean about this to your wife, as difficult as it might be for you, she is your wife. She loves you she will try to understand, if she can’t understand, she will try and help.

There is no quick fix I’m afraid, but if you seriously want to quit you could take some remedial action and hand over all your bank cards to her, and only carry the bare minimum of cash with you every day.

If you gamble online you could purchase some blocking software, bet filter for example. All online sites now have self exclusion facilities, they will offer self exclusion up to a maximum of 5 years using the web form, however if you send an email stating you are a compulsive gambler and your life is in tatters because of it you can ask for a lifetime exclusion.

You don’t say where in the world you are located, but if in the U.K. I can tell you the big nationwide casino chains and high street bookies will all give you a lifetime exclusion.

Basically put as many barriers in place before your next get paid to make gambling as hard as possible. This will not fix things but certainly help.

Of course there is a lot more to recovery than simply having barriers in place to make it harder. Some people are quite content having barriers in place and keeping themselves busy to combat gambling urges, and build up significant periods of gamble free time, the urges become less frequent and less severe.

Personally I’ve gone through years of self improvement and changed my life to such a degree I don’t get urges now. I’m useless at fighting them and am much happier not getting them at all. I still have certain barriers in place just incase, the biggest barrier to me is not having my wages paid into my own bank account.

Wish I had time to elaborate more, but am at work and my phones not charging, so will have to cut this short. Hope it’s of some help to you.

Keep posting on here though it is a big help.

I wish you all the best with it.

Geordie

[4site1218]

Thank you Geordie. I’m in the US. I have told my wife. Today actually and given her my cards. I will immediately start sending my check to her as well. Thank you for this and other tips. I appreciate having this thread as a line of support. I really appreciate your comment about not having urges vs. fighting them.

[charles]

Hi 4site, well done on looking for help. Well done as well on the steps that you have already taken, posting here, being honest with your wife etc. Do you have any debts? if so then it is important that she knows about them as well – otherwise if she is helping you with accountability then how can you service the debt?

Keep posting and reading here. Maybe use other support as well, check out your local GA meeting for instance.

If I had to give just one piece of advice it is to use the help that is available – if we could do it on our own then we wouldn’t be in trouble in the first place.

[Author]

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