[ashamedofmyself]

Thank you for the support Kin!

Day 8 of no Gambling about to begin.

I still have not gambled any of my money. Its Friday night… this is the time when I usually stay up late and gamble my life away but I didn’t do that today.. Its late in the night so I’m going to sleep knowing that this is my first Friday in about 1 year that I have not stayed up until the morning gambling and losing a lot of money.

It is very very very difficult but I’m committed..

I did noticed that I ended up firing up a PC game (not casino related but it does have “fun/no real money” poker in it) and used the in-game currency there to play poker. Not my real money, but poker nevertheless.. I think this is cheating and could lead me back to gambling soon so I’ve decided to not play/watch anything that could bring my addiction back.

I’m going to stick to 8 days GF story because that fun poker didn’t involve any real money but I will definitely stay away from it as well in the future.

Im going to visit some of my relatives tomorrow for the first time in many months and on Sunday I’ll be going to pick Strawberries with my wife and kid. It should be a fun and refreshing weekend. Looking forward to it!

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

[ashamedofmyself]

Day 5:

Still gambling free but I’ve had some urges especially when I’m in toilet or relaxing on sofa. My brain keeps telling me that you need to do something fun to entertain yourself and for whatever reason that entertainment/fun activity triggers gambling in my brain.

Instead of going to toilet to lock myself up for 30-60minutes to gamble while hiding from my wife, I’ve now spent that time with my little kid. I’m trying to be there for her and occupy my mind that way instead of doing anything stupid.

I’m honestly not 100% sure if gambling urges ever disappear but I really hope they do… I can’t imagine living rest of my life convincing myself that gambling is not an option. It gets exhausting already on day 5 when I have to keep arguing with myself and justifying why gambling is bad.

Another news from me is that I took another small loan of $300. This is so I can survive this months bills and afford some food. Hopefully this is my last gambling related loan and starting from next month, I’ll start paying my debt instead of taking new loans. That was unfortunately the only option I had this month as I didn’t have any money left from gambling earlier this month.

I can’t wait coming back to this thread in 1-2 years time and quoting my messages & being proud of my situation on how I managed to sort my life out. Hopefully we all get there as soon as possible. Stay safe my friends!

[ashamedofmyself]

I feel you Losingitslowly. My future looks grim as I have to pay back my debt for 3-7 years depending on my payment capabilities. It is very discouraging knowing that it will take many years but I keep myself motivated remembering of days when I had no debt and how much I enjoyed living.. How many nice dinners I was having with my wife.. Additionally when my debt has been paid and I’ve managed to survive with debt payments, it means that I’ve become smarter with the usage of money and that means I’ll hopefully have even more money to spend on my family. That is my motivator. Best of luck to you! We will beat our addiction!

[ashamedofmyself]

Day 3 of being Gambling Free:

I was reading one of the forum posts here when I stumbled upon a post that talked about having a spreadsheet with monthly debt payments visible and I thought it was a great idea. So I sat down and created my own spreadsheet that shows how much debt I have, how many years I need to pay it back and how does the monthly debt amount change as I close different loans.

I initially thought my debt was $40,000 (excluding my savings loss) but apparently it’s $2,000 less than I thought. So in total I owe banks $38,000.
I was scared to check my total debt before as I thought I’d have a heart attack if I knew the totals but I’m glad I checked it…. Big step for me as I’ve been avoiding it for many months now.

I also thought I’d be paying my debt back for next 10+ years but it seems that if I pay my debts the way I’m paying now, I’d be done in 6.5 years. However, if I close one of my loans and move the extra payment from that closed loan to a new one, I’d be done in about 4.5 years.
If I get about $200 salary increase during the next year, I’d cut down my time to nearly 3 years.

On average I have 10% increase in salary each year meaning that I should be done with my debt most likely 2-3 years. This was an incredible news to me.

Previously I’d celebrate it by going to gamble more because I’d think “oh actually I can afford a bit more of gambling” but today, I didn’t do that. I’m determined to pay my debt back in less than 3 years so by the time my kid is 4 years old, I could start treating my kid and my wife to nice vacations and gifts.

Stay safe and clean everyone. There is hope for all of us!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by ashamedofmyself.

[ashamedofmyself]

EDIT: Looks like my posts needed moderator approval which is why it looks like I posted 3 updates back to back.

Seems like we do have very similar issues in life but honestly if I knew it would take 3-4 months to pay it off, I wouldn’t be as depressed as I am now knowing that I’ll be paying my debt for next 10 years. Knowing that my kid will be 11 years old when I’ll finally be able to buy her nice things. I feel like I’m a terrible terrible dad….

Day 2 of being Gambling free:
My anxiety is killing me… I went to a grocery store today to buy food for my family and at home I checked my bank account to see that I have $50 left for the remaining of 13 days of this month before my salary comes.

I looked into what I could sell to make up $150-200 to survive rest of the month but I couldn’t find anything. Nothing that wouldn’t go unnoticeable by my wife.

I know I just need to survive 13 days and next month will be easier.. The reason I’m this broke right now is because I gambled and lost $700. I know if I continue my gambling free life, I will be able to pay my debts on time and survive the months to come even if I’ll struggle to have some joy in life.

I’ll keep you all posted on the solutions I found to survive this month.

Stay gambling free my friends!

• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by charles.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 1 month ago by ashamedofmyself.

[ashamedofmyself]

Thank you Risingphoenix. I actually read your story before posting this and it did motivate me to try to become gambling free as well. Congratulations on fully paying your debt!

Problem with telling my parents is that they are very religious and gambling is considered as a sin. My dad especially is very conservative and I wouldn’t be surprised if he just blocked me from his life or disowned me for doing such thing.

Reflecting back, I do feel like if I’d be able to openly talk to my dad about this issue at the beginning with my dad, I would’ve probably cut my losses at a few thousand and be done with it. The fear of my parents being disappointed in me and blocking me from their lives is the main reason I kept going back to gambling chasing my losses.

Selling the house would actually allow me to fully pay my debt and be a debt free man tomorrow but my wife would find out about my debt if we’d sell the house and portion of the money would disappear. We also have family/friends living here which makes being a new dad so much easier as we can get help from them when needed.

I’ve done my research and it looks like if I sold my house and wanted to get a new one with the rest of the money, I’d need to move 50km/40mile-ish away from the current location.

I jokingly mentioned about this to my dad that I’d like to move a bit further away to a bigger house (as downtown is expensive) and his response was:

“Are you an idiot? Dont say stupid things. Are you going to travel each day 1 hour to a store? What are you going to do when you need to take your kid somewhere? Stop dreaming about stupid things”

I know I shouldn’t care so much about things he says as this is my and my family’s life but stupid feeling inside of me that is trying to please everyone cares about these kind of things. I want everyone to be happy around me at the expense of my own happiness.

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