Start of recovery (9 days in)

Hi all,

I’ve been reading the forums for a little while now which massively helps alleviate the feeling of isolation from having a gambling problem and so thank you to everyone who posts on here. I find it’s still a taboo topic which makes it hard to speak to people about my issue including my wife, and so by having this forum as an outlet is huge.

My story is similar to many on here. I’m 32 now and since the age of 18 until 9 days ago I can say that despite having a well paid job, my gambling has wasted every penny of spare money I have earnt plus £40k of credit card debt. For me an enjoyment from casinos and sport’s betting in my early 20s turned into an financial spread betting problem where I would keep falling into the same trap of tricking myself into thinking I was getting control of the situation and trying to win back my money but repeating the same mistakes again and losing more. The amounts grew considerably and the more I have earned the more I would lose, with the constant being that I will always be left with no money left in the bank and not paying down credit cards.

Financial spread betting is a less common issue mentioned on here, but for me it’s the been the worst of all due to the ability to lose huge sums of money in a very short space of time and the illusion that you can use your intelligence or knowledge to make successful bets on financial markets where in reality I have always just been a gambling addict looking for the excitement and adrenaline of gambling, and using it as an outlet for that rather than making long term investment decisions (it’s not investing if you’re always betting on what happens in the market in the next few minutes, hours or days!). I am now convinced that there is no other outcome for me by doing it other than losing everything I have. Even if I win quite a lot one day, I will keep on going until I’ve lost it all again.

I find weirdly a big problem for me is I’m actually a very positive person and I can brush off things easily. And so despite doing unbelievable financial damage to myself and hiding this secret from those I love, I always find a way to say to myself “it could be a lot worse, I’ve still got my health and my family and friends” and soon put it behind me. I used to pride myself on this characteristic, but I now realise it also is a huge blind spot for me as it stops me from taking my problems seriously enough and allowing it to progressively get a lot lot worse. I guess those of us who gamble can be prone to focus on the positives and the “win” and be blind to the downside. 

So for me this is 9 days since I last gambled. I’m living on a credit card at the moment to get me through to payday, following which the real test starts when I will have some money in my account again. 9 days ago also happens to be the day I started a new job. My last job did not work out with it me leaving after only 4 months in the job, and in truth I think it’s because I couldn’t focus on it whilst spending so much time thinking of spread betting. I’m lucky to get another go with my new job and so am determined to not screw this up. I’ve also been trying to educate myself on the reasons and biology behind addiction and risk taking behaviour and I’ve found it is helping me control it by better understanding it. I would recommend this to others. Two particularly good books are The Hour between the Dog and Wolf by John Coates and Recovery by Russell Brands 

I think we live in a world where there is too easy access to gambling without appropriate limits or support, and do I hope for everyone’s sake on here and for others not yet suffering with this problem that it changes soon. But for now I plan to regularly check in with this forum and respond to others to use this as the much needed support it is. 

Thanks for reading, JLC