I know I have a problem. I had stopped for a while. My friend invited me to a local online bingo page on fb. I put some money on and didn't win. I then went online and put more on slots, got it up and then lost it all. I've then continued to chase the money and spent more.
I've done this so many times before and I can never sleep after, and when I finally get to sleep, I wake up in the morning and my stomach sinks. I've not got any money to gamble! I will now have to scrimp all month and I have 2 children. I'm so ashamed I could cry right now. I want to stop for good but i dont know how to do it 🙁 none of my family know about it. I've had big wins in the past and they say I'm lucky but them wins only last so long. You're already hooked and the losses make you feel disgusting:(
Hi Steph, well done for coming on here and reaching out. If you want to stop there is no magic formula but you have to go all in as thinking you can stop for a while doesn't work as I'm sure you know.
First you need to get blockers in place to stop you being able to gamble. Register with Gamstop for the full 5 year term, put a blocker on your phone or whatever you use to access the sites, I have Betblocker installed, again for the full 5 year term which stops access to gambling sites. Contact your bank and get them to put a block on gambling transactions on your debit card. Doing these things will hopefully stop you being able to gamble but you also need to address the emotional side of gambling. I would suggest contacting Gamcare, they are amazing, and they can organise some counselling if that is what you want. I speak from experience as my compulsive gambling was found out by my wife and straight away we did all the blockers and contacted Gamcare. They organised counselling which was extremely helpful being able to talk to someone without any judgement about the how and why I got into the mess I was in.
Read other peoples stories to help you through, we are all here for the same reason that we want to stop gambling and get our lives back on track. It will be tough to start with but with support and blockers in place I'm sure you can turn 1 day into 2 and so on. Take the positives that you have opened up on here and that every morning you wake up be proud you have got through another day gamble free.
We have all chased losses thinking we can win everything back, but in reality know it wont happen. Part of the recovery process will be accepting the losses, putting them in the past and moving forward with your recovery.
Think of your children and how much better life will be without this evil addiction controlling your life.
You can do this!
All the best
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