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You may need support not just for your financial situation but for your depression as well. There may be helplines in your country for that … check here: https://www.befrienders.org/directory?country= Also you may wish to contact a medic as sometimes there is a physical cause of depression that can be dealt with.
Above all – keep in contact with people … most depression passes – but keeping contact with friends and families helps to speed things up.
First of all well done in keeping well. I trust your leukemia treatment has been successful and you are keeping well.
Secondly – it seems that you managed to stop gambling for several years – so that is encouraging. If you can do that once you can do that again.
Thirdly – you recognise that you have a gambling problem and the solution is not to gamble – ever! Not so hard to do. Life doesn’t stop because you are not gambling, just like you looked after yourself with you illness and didn’t do some things – so not gambling will keep you well, mentally as well as financially.
As your girlfriend has “found out” about your gambling, I wonder if you can get her involved in your recovery. One of the things you need to do is lose access to finance. If your girlfriend can take over your finances for a while until you feel stronger – this will make things easier for you. You also need to lose access to the places where you gambler (info on internet site blockers etc are elsewhere on this site) and you can ask to be barred from physical gambling locations.
If you can attend one of the facilitated groups on Mondays and Thursdays here, you will get more information and support … I wish you well.Good that you have taken that first step – but have you read around the forum posts to see what else you need to do. I was a bit alarmed to read, “I have $4K to spend on slots waiting for that one spin that will make everything right; but actually doesn’t exist.”
You need to block or ban yourself from all places where you can gamble and to lose your access to finance if you can; minimise it if you can’t. Perhaps your brother could handle your finances for you until you feel strong enough to take them back? Get as much support as you can and take as much part in things here and other sites as possible. I wish you well.Thanks for your insightful post. I think you worked things out for yourself there – that it isn’t a question of one addiction being worse than the other – it is about how deep you get hooked and when you come out of it. Being as young as you are will hopefully mean that some of the financial and physical problems that have affected me in later life will not apply to you.
When I first qualified as a counsellor – I wanted to work with addiction (as I thought I knew more about it) but felt I couldn’t work with gamblers because of being triggered by other’s stories. So I worked with families and friends of heroin users and through the training and insights from parents and partners, I saw the hell that hard drugs can cause. The change in the personality of the user and the lies and deceits were common to both addictions – but I think (I never checked this out) that the families would have taken gambling addiction over heroin.
One tragedy was a local drugs helpline member, an ex-user, WAS (I guess) triggered by some of the stories he was hearing and used just once and died. He had forgotten that the dose he was taking in the past – was now lethal to an ex user (he had been clean for several years.) Relapses are seldom fatal to gamblers – at least not immediately!
I think learning about our addictions will hopefully prevent us from falling into the trap again with other substances or behaviours – but if my weight is anything to go by, I need to do something about my eating habits!
Glad that you are still posting your thoughts and wishing you well in your recovery.First of all – it is great that you have stopped gambling and I hope you have all the things in place to make it impossible for you to start again! (I know nothing is impossible – but you know what I mean!)
As for the debt, what worked for me – might not work for you because we are probably different ages, in different countries, I don’t know if you are still working or not, etc. etc.
All I can advise is that you get the best financial advice you can in your home country. I didn’t want to admit to my gambling to anyone like that (I felt ashamed of what I had done) and because of that I am sure I added a lot of money to my interest payments.
Find great financial advice where you live and be honest with them. That’s all I can say. I wish you well.
I found that it took a long time for the urge to gamble to leave me … and just being in the presence of slots would switch the urges back on again. So I would consider telling your friends that you have a bit of a problem with gambling, so that they will not try and get you to join them in their gambling.
Be very proud of your gambling free time – but please don’t let your guard down … keep going with your recovery as passionately as you were going with your gambling. I wish you well.
It was good that you found your way to the group tonight and I hope you found it useful. As I mentioned there – you can post more about your story here and people will respond – there is a lot of expertise on these boards!
Also if you can get to groups tomorrow, they will be facilitated so you will have some wiser brains than mine to tap into.
I wish you well.It is interesting that you have externalised your behaviour as a demon outside of yourself. I don’t think that is a bad thing. I communicated with the part of me that gambles and tried to understand what were the pluses of gambling that I couldn’t see. Working with those through counselling helped a lot.
You said, “I have stopped him before, a year once but drifted back. The demon convinces me this time you have it controlled and I believe him.”
A year is good going for someone with this problem – and if you can do that once you can do it again and more. But don’t allow yourself to be convinced. I have been stopped for over a decade and part of that is knowing that I cannot control myself when I play. I have tried the “setting limits” and “when the fun stops stop.” None of this works for me. My brain goes on overdrive and I can’t think straight and I am convinced to gamble just to switch off. The only thing that works for me is not to start – EVER.
So live with the demon, maybe find out what he wants with you, but don’t let him out to play. I wish you well.
I remember once being in a plant nursery and being shown around by one of the staff and he took some small seedlings out to show me and said that they were being nourished whilst they healed (from frost or something) and when they were stronger they would be planted out – where they would flourish.
I sometimes thing we are like that. There are times when we have to take time out to heal – and there are times when we can move forwards and flourish. I think the important step is to know when to step outside.
Watching netflix and reality shows might be part of your healing – it is what your mind needed then and you allowed yourself to do it. Now you are questioning it – perhaps it is time to move forward.
At this time of lock-down, virtually everything is on-line – so decide what you want to do and make it happen. Charles has started a thread on this forum on things to do whilst stuck at home – try some things out.
Making meaningful connections might take more time – but I am sure through social media and forums you can find people with the same interests as you to “chat” with – perhaps with a view to meeting up for real when this lock-down is over.
I think this enforced period of sobriety will work in your favour, you know you can’t go back to gambling – even scratch cards and raffle tickets are a no-no for a non-gambler as you now are. Find those interests and indulge them. Enjoy the life you deserve Kolberg! I wish you well.
I didn’t phrase my answer to you very well – I apologise (not good as I teach English!)
I was listing another 3 things you need to do in order TO STOP gambling.
So those are losing access to gambling (which you are doing by installing Gamban – well done!)
Losing access to finance – if you do tell your parents, perhaps they can handle your money for a while until you feel stronger.
Doing other things.
Make things as easy for yourself as possible and don’t rely on your willpower or good intentions. I wish you well.
You have admitted you have the problem and you have admitted it to us … that is a great first start. Yes, it you can also admit it to a friend – it will help and hopefully you will get some support.
Stopping gambling will save you a lot of heartache (as well as a lot of money) and if you read through some of the posts on here you will see what I mean. You will also see the other things you need to stop – which are … 1) losing access to gambling, 2) losing access to finance and 3) finding new, more positive ways of using your time. I wish you well.
“I want to stop but I don’t know how.”
The four steps that I recommend are: 1) Lose access to gambling – ban or block yourself from gambling places or websites – there is information on blockers under information on this site – or check other posts in this forum. 2) Lose access to finance. Easier if you have a trusted family member or close friend that can take over this for you for a while. If you are on your own, more tricky – but again if you read through this forum you will find some ideas. 3) Keep busy with other things (non gambling) that interest you. Yes anything as long as it is non gambling or addictive in another way (no point in trading one addiction for another!) 4) Get as much support as possible. There are lots of on-line meetings at the moment – from Gamblers’ Anonymous, through to SMART recovery and facebook groups. There are probably local options as well (I don’t know which country you are in.) There are the groups on here – click on the link to see what times suit you.
All this will help you to stop. Staying stopped is another matter! I wish you well.I think hiking to a volcano and then to a beach with a loving girlfriend – sounds so much better than spending hours on a poker machine in a crowded bar.
I am glad that you are enjoying your new life and wish you well for the future.
Firstly – it is great to see you posting here, although I am sad about the circumstances. It does show the determination a gambler has when he wants to bet – to use crypto-currency to do so.
I smiled with recognition when I saw your comment about Africa. I too had a thought to do something “out there” when I kept “slipping,” only I was not as brave or as philanthropic as you. I resolved to become a Buddhist monk in Laos – as I thought there will be no casinos, slots or any temptation there + I might learn something. It felt like a good plan. Then I thought – well if that is my back-stop what can I do to make my present life better and I worked my recovery.
Working it, for me, meant not only stopping gambling, but looking at the reasons why I was gambling in the first place. That did mean group work (GA and other) counselling and talking to people on help-lines and forums. All things I had resisted when I was seriously in action. Feeling I was now a recovering gambler and not in action – helped to keep me in recovery … if that makes sense!
I wonder if it is worth seeing a medic about your depression. Sometimes it has a physical cause and medication can help.
Please do get as much support for yourself as you can. You are not alone with this and by seeking support you are trying to do something about it and put your life back on track. I wish you well!