[dzanko96]

Hello to everyone. I am new to this gambling forum and I have never tried any form of gambling therapy before so I hope this will help me get everything in order with my life. I have been gambling with a couple of bigger pauses for about the last 5-6 years. First trigger was a breakup with my girlfriend after 3 years of our relationship. I was in a lot of mental pain and did not know what to do with myself so I discovered gambling numbed my “bad feelings”. Couple months later I got back together with my girlfriend and I thought my gambling is in control because I had enough money for everything we needed. At the time I was still in college and living with my parents so I did not need to take care of any bigger financial matters except the things I wanted for myself. Very soon I cleaned out my bank account for the first time gambling. It was not a large amount of money but at the time it was all I had. My girlfriend and I had a big fight and I felt extremely ashamed. We decided we would not tell my parents and she helped me get through it that time. In about 6 months I did the same thing again but she helped me that time also so I again thought everything is going to be fine. The third time was about a year after the second and this was the first time I gambled a larger amount of money. I was trying to hide it as long as i could but of course my girlfriend caught me again because I had no money left. This time I told everything to my parents and I felt the worst as I ever felt in my life. Luckily they all wanted to help me get through it and my girlfriend told me I should probably seek some sort of therapy. Unfortunately, I did not do it that time. I preocupied myself with playing sports, video games and finishing college in the next 2 years so I thought I was finnaly clean. I even had some stressful and unfortunate events because I could not get a job and even then I did not gamble. At the start of this year my mother got very sick in a short period of time and passed away. I never felt this amount of stress and anxiety before in my life so I started to gamble for the first time in 2 years. It started very gradually but got worse and worse during these 6 months. I still had enough of money from my grandfathers and mothers inheritance so I decided to propose to my girlfriend. I gambled 3-4 thousand euros which is a large amount of money in my country. I saw that I will probably gamble everything away so I decided to confess everything for the first time before someone catches me again. When I confessed my fiancee wanted to breakup everything with me but things settled down during the last few weeks. I started working 3 weeks ago and I did not have any thoughts about gambling since then. I installed anti-gambling software on my mobile phone and computer to remind me that I have a problem and block me from gambling. I am seeking some practical advice how to keep myself from gambling next time a bad thing happens in my life because something bad always does happen. I appreciate your time in reading this post and I hope this will help me and others from gambling in the future.

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