I have struggled with gambling for the best part of my adult life. Things have come to a head in the past couple of days. I feel worthless, sad, pathetic, angry and now very driven to make today my day one. I have taken steps such as self exclusion to put that barrier between myself and gambling. I have joined this forum as I feel it would be really helpful to chat with people in the same boat as me. From the reading I have done it seems a great forum and I hope I can be a part of it and help people along the way.
If you have any questions fire away.
Thanks for listening, Ben.
Hi Ben,
My name's Ben too and looks like we are in a similar boat. Ive been gambling since 18 and Im 32 now. Have tried all methods to stop. I am booked in to get some treatment in the next few days and hopefully that will help as I always seem to keep telling myself that I can conquer this addiction alone but I continue to prove myself wrong. I think support from others and talking about issues rather than isolating yourself seems to be the way forward.
What kind of gambling do you do?
Cheers
Ben
Hey Bro, sounds like we have followed a very similar path. My gambling was primarily online on football and some horses. In my younger days it was fruit machines. And there's been occasional blow outs in the casino.
This time feels different for me, I am absolutely sick of myself, the way my life is going, and letting others down.
So I have self excluded from every website I used, signed up to gamstop, barred myself from all of my local bookies and signed up to sites like this for help.
So far so good I'm on day 3 of no gambling now, still feel like c**P but getting on with it. I have even been dreaming about gambling. I hope it wont always be like this.
Ben.
I find it quite embarrassing, I can't walk past a bookmaker without having a bet, today is the final fu***g straw, I have refrained from gambling for 10 months in the past so I'm going to give it another serious go, I have no problem with the internet because I use £5 maximum stake for the week and that is a brick wall.. I gave up smoking in April 2005 so I do have some willpower , horses.. football dog racing, is my main poison. Definitely one day at a time good luck everyone.
I'm finding that having a structure to my day in advance is helpful. Especially dangerous times when I'm alone. For example when I get home from work I have a 3 hour window of alone time before my girlfriend arrives home. So I've written a list of things the night before. So yesterday I got home, did the housework, did a home workout then gave myself an hour and a half of time on my playstation (nerdy I know). But it's nice to enjoy playing a game again after so long of neglecting the little things I enjoy.
Anyways, i hope everyone is well and staying strong!
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