Thank you for your reply and for giving me background to your story. I can see how the issues were building before gambling took hold. I can see that you tried really hard to find a job and to help yourself in those early days. You were hit with one disappointment after the other and your depression grew, along with the debt.
Then you found gambling. To be fair, you have not been gambling 'problematically' as you put it, for all that long, but it has taken hold of you quite quickly due to the frustrations you expressed in your back story. This is what gambling does. It's not addictive to everybody, only those that NEED it. For many people, it's just a laugh, a few quid here and there during the match. For me, and for you, it's horrifying. We have a very similar figure in debt, but the reason I am here talking to you is because for years, that figure stayed the same. It rose steadily, sometimes quite dramatically in one session, but it held around the 40K mark as I tried to curb and control my addiction.
The problem I had, is that it never came down. I had huge interest rates on my cards, as much as 53% and some of them cards had 7 or 8 grand on. I was paying nearly a grand a month in repayments, and only about £350 came off debt. The rest went back on in interest.
This tormented me for years, and stopped me from leaving gambling behind. I would obsess over the debt and I only ever managed a few weeks without gambling, and I'd be so frustrated at my situation, that I'd go back to gambling, only to set things right back where they were.
I got sick of it. I got mad. Not at gambling, but at myself. In these last 2 years, since I have not bet, I have repaid a hell of a lot. I have been patient and accepted my situation. I stopped obsessing over the figures and concentrated on myself and getting my hobbies and interests back. I threw myself into my work and just set the debt aside. I knew that I didn't want to bet any more, but that the debt was keeping me tied to gambling. I felt that I couldn't move forward because every time I tried to leave gambling behind, the debt was always in front on me.
My patience paid off. My credit score is improving enough for me to get a loan which I used to pay off high interest cards. I contacted my creditors and told them the truth. They were happy to help me, they reduced my interest rates so long as I agreed not to spend on the cards. I now have paid down that much that I can do balance transfers and I just bagged my first 0% credit card for 2 years.
It took so long but when all you get is no from everyone and you feel so depressed, you try to do things the wrong way by gambling but there is no quick fix.
I admire the effort you have put in and all you need to do now is get that mindset back. You kept fighting when you were putting in all those applications, you could have given up at the first rejection, but you didn't.
You are a fighter. I understand that you are worried about your job because of the conversation, but hopefully, things will work out. You should not be discriminated against. You are vulnerable and need support but you need to show commitment to your recovery and people and creditors will work with you. But you must be patient. Gambling feeds on discontentment and impulsiveness.
Draw up a plan and stick to it. Set goals, no matter how small and stick to them.
Everyone's situation is worse than everyone else's simply because it is theirs. You will come out of this okay provided that you don't go back for more of a kicking. Forget gambling. It is holding you back.
Look at the potential savings you can make. You can do this on your own without gambling and when you do, you will not make the same mistakes again because you will have done it the right way, with hard work and you will be proud of your self.
I'm not saying it could be worse, in the sense that you should be grateful for what you have. I am telling you that if you don't stop, you could be potentially homeless and not to waste the foundation that you have. Look at it this way, instead of hating being at your parents, if you don't gamble, you can potentially save more money and build up a platform to work from.
You say that you are blaming yourself, not your environment, but it is your environment that is now fuelling your addiction due to how unhappy you are and your discontentment about how things played out in the past. Environmental factors can lead to self loathing....'I hate my job, I hate living with my parents, I hate my debt'....these are all environmental factors that factor in to addiction. This is because we turn these factors into self loathing and come up with ideas like 'I am useless, Nobody wants to be with me....I am a waste of space'....In other words, it's not the environmental factors that necessary lead to addiction but the way that some people interpret them and assign a sense of low worth to themselves. You could take two different people in identical situations and both will behave differently. One person might be happy and content, the other might be depressed. Their environment may be the same, but they will respond differently according to the way their brain works. It is this subtle difference that addiction feeds on and why some people develop problems while others don't. It has less to do with what you have in the bank, but more to do with the way your brain is wired and how you perceive things. The glass half full or half empty scenario.
Gambling is not a disease in the conventional sense, but it is a disorder. A mental disorder. You don't choose to become addicted, but you always have a choice to gamble or not, to use drugs or not. By removing the choice, like you say, it is easy then to say we are addicted and we can't stop, but of course, you can.
We just say these things to our self because it is easier to stay the same.
I really hope that things work out for you. Post again when you feel able and very best wishes to you.
OK, it's actually a bit worse than I thought. Turns out a 2.5k deposit I made on the 8th Jan only just came out of my current account today which has put me... 2.5k over. This means even after payday next week I can't afford to get to work, buy food, phone etc. And all my direct debits from the other creditors will bounce.
I'm looking to discuss it with them tomorrow, either a temp overdraft increase with them (7.5k!) or try to divert the funds elsewhere. Looks like it takes a week or so to set up a bank account with online banking though.
On top of that, I've got this government clearance check coming in at the request of my employer where they will examine my financials generally.
I could be f****d now.
Just to think 2 weeks ago I could've been debt free.
Thanks again for your response Lost and Found, seems like there are some similarities in terms of debt and the way we dealt with it while gambling.
I was betting weeks and months worths of wages sometimes on single spins, not often but sually at the end of the session to get 'back to where I was'. A month at work, a miserable month. Which could be cancelled by a winning spin. I think when I was blowing through the winnings I even bet 6K on red or black (covering zero of course!) to get me back. Sometimes the big spins won but more often they lost. The amount of money you're spending online is lost on you because of the mundane aspect numbers on a screen but also because 10 minutes ago you had more. Like when I got that 25k and spent it down to 6, I didn't want a mere '6'. Even though that's several months wages. I used to put the big bets on then set my phone down under the chair, not able to see the result because it would get me to nothing if it lost. When I had the courage to look at it, it would either be jubilation or despair.
I lost the value of money, what I earned. It's so slow to pay it back. Like you say the interest rates are so high that you think to yourself you might as well gamble. In my case I hate my job, my living situation etc. Even if I get 'just a few K' that's one less month of living in this town. Every month ticked off is a boon. Doing it the hard way, maybe 18 months of the grind is (to my greedy mind), a bitter pill to swallow. Us gamblers want quick fixes.
All I wanted to do is go back to that coastal town, get some hobbies. I thought about this intentionally before I started the compulsive gambling back in late 2017, it was my #1 goal. I noticed a group on meet-up.com called '30 somethings'. I thought at the time I'd join it, but by the time the everything is done I'm going to be too old. I had an idea about 'settling down' but that's also not likely now. I never had a 'proper' girlfriend (one long distance 16 years ago, my goodness) in my younger days. Now I'm going to have to wait for that too, and I'm too set in my ways I fear.
I leave the house at 7:40am and get back 6:00-6:30pm. Not that bad, but what have I got to show for it? I worked out that I get paid less now per hour in real terms than I did when I worked at my first office job age 24. Sure I can get a better job in the future but I could've got a better job back then as well. I've got no friends anymore really (moved on, have families, totally different life stages) and because everything I earn is either gambled or thrown into debt repayments I can't do much.
Sorry for the sob story. I think I'm going to have to draw a plan up like you say. The message I posted above might throw that into chaos tho, I guess I see what you mean by it always being worse.
Following on quickly, I don't think I'd like any job. Certainty not one that I could do. I did one of the sciences at uni but kinda screwed that up and you need phds and post docs to do them. I'm not sure be capable of any higher paying job now. Even if I did I think I'd get sick of the grind when you don't have anything to show for it (house, partner, kids, funding for hobbies, plan for retirement etc).
You either lower the hours by flex time by doing something like a 4 day week, another thing I had an opportunity to do back in those days, or pick something pays the highest and is most tolerable. I'm certainly not expecting to be taken care of by sitting on my a*s all day, it's really just another failure of mine.
I get what you mean....what's the point in working so hard if it doesn't get you a nice house, a family to share it with...plans for the future. A job is meant to mean something and if it is just about getting a big pay packet, then you can get sick of it because your heart's not in it. I think whatever we do in life, we need meaning. Without it, we have no sense of self or no sense of direction or purpose.
I have a family, a partner and two kids. My gambling had nothing to do with being unhappy with them. It was my head. It just didn't feel right. like it was dead inside. I didn't connect to things or to people and pushed people away. I don't get people like I get animals. I enjoy nature and being outside and always wanted to work outdoors because I hate the idea of being stuck in a room, an office, a factory...yet that's all I've ever done. I have social anxiety and it stops me from pursuing my dreams and this leads to frustration because I want to be able to live like everyone else does. I don't want things in my life, I want experiences. I want to travel and be free and I have always been frustrated and tied down by my debt which I made myself and because I felt so trapped, all I ever did was seal my own fate. Now, I am also stuck with a load of hurt, debt and poor prospects and all because I couldn't get myself to see a doctor and get help, talk about my issues and my depression.
Being paid less now than you did when you were younger is rough on your confidence. I can see how that will compound your misery. I think it is worse when you hate the situation that you made yourself. In other words, you created the things that you hate now, like me. Otherwise, it would be easier to accept, but we put ourselves in this position and so we self loathe because we brought it on ourselves.
It's only now that I am 2 years gamble free, that I accept my situation and can see that without gambling, it is getting better. When you are in the thick of it, it seems futile and you can't stand the mess you made so you fight it, gamble again, self loathe and keep ourselves stuck there. That was me for the last decade.
I had to learn to let go of the debt, the pain and the self hate. I had to learn to like myself enough to make this stop. Slowly, I learned that I deserve to be happy and that there was only me that could make that happen. I think you need to do this too because you focus on your purpose in life, and wonder where your life is going and what it's all for. If you can find purpose again, you will find direction and meaning to your life. I get what you are saying about a house and a family, but all these CAN be yours in the future, if you learn to forget the past.
We have to live in the present. We plan for the future but we get there by learning from the past and moving on from it. If we don't, then we are always going to be defined by our mistakes and will keep making them.
Your way of thinking is very much like mine was. The debt is horrible enough, but you can't be left alone to just pay it back. They rip you off in interest and you feel like you are being punished. But things will improve, it's just so slow. Hang in there and try not to think about the debt. Concentrate on you and on getting your focus back. Small steps, nothing crazy. It's all about motivation. Without it, we just end up in our heads and self loathing, going over all the past mistakes and hating ourselves for making them.
What's the point? What does it change? We have to accept that we made mistakes, that life didn't work out as well as we had hoped and that also, life is not over. It's just the past that isn't great. The present will be affected by how we see our past, so if we can move past it, we can be more content today and happier tomorrow.
Yes, all value of money is lost when gambling. It is just numbers on a screen. There's no way I would ever hand over that sort of money in 'real life'. I took so many risks, like you, I bet more than I ever thought possible in a single spin, £1500 once. I was betting £300 spins regularly and if I messed up and forgot to back a number and it came up, I would be seething. You go over all the possibilities. I would take ages to place my chips, giving it tons of thought when really it is just random nonsense. I would get the urge to put it all on one number and then change my mind and cover others too, in case they come up. I would angry at my decisions often because there were times when I could have won loads, if only I hadn't played it safe.
All these decisions torture us, but they have no bearing whatsoever. They only serve to keep you gambling. I should have done this....Why didn't I do that.....I would also be afraid to look. I would stare at the board for ages, hovering over the spin button. Terrified to press it. Then, when I did press it, I would close my eyes and stay like that for a good 4 or 5 minutes, until I got enough courage to look. I would look at the screen gradually and see if I could see the stack of chips out the corner of my eye to indicate I'd won......
Yes, elation or despair. No half measures. I would often close the laptop in utter disbelief, staring at the £0.00 balance where thousands had been earlier. I turned all that hate on myself and it made me black inside. Learning the value of money again is really important because you can start to think that it is a waste of time working for a wage when you can get that in half an hour spinning. The speed at which money is won and lost on a machine is frightening. Yes, you can have thousands in seconds, but you can also bury yourself in debt that will take decades to repay. Debt as you know, is easy to make but incredibly slow to pay off. Gambling is all about being reckless, impulsive, about not thinking about the consequences. We tend to focus on the prospect of winning much more than the prospect of losing. The vast majority of people have only ever lost in the long term, so losing money clearly doesn't stop us from gambling. If it did, we'd all have given up long ago. For some people, it's about quick fixes, trying to win big, undo your mistakes...for others, it's just the act of gambling that is the lure....the trance, the anaesthetic of hours sat spinning, staring at a screen. If we want to leave gambling behind, we have to focus on how it makes you feel, not the outcome of your time spent gambling.....I found I was unhappy and discontent no matter how much I was winning or losing. I was just stuck in a cycle of spinning and wasting time, unable to move forward, hating myself for what I had become, but unable and unwilling to move on. I started to believe that I deserved to suffer and the big losses stopped hurting. I became numb and just accepted that I was a failure. The wins didn't help either. In the end, I couldn't feel anything any more. Money lost all meaning, whether won or lost. I was just a slave to a machine. It became easy to throw away huge wins and accept huge losses because I was so deep in addiction, I had lost all sense of direction.
As hard as it was to walk away from gambling, I knew I had to do it. I didn't want to accept the debt I had made. I still clung to gambling, hoping that it would save me, but it threw me to the gutter and left me to wallow in such despair that I began self harming.
I urge you to let go of your past and live in the moment. Forget about the debt, just keep paying what you can and it will come down. It will help you to relieve the pressure on yourself and your need to gamble will disappear. Of course, we want things to improve faster than is possible, but those methods do not work. It's important to feel the consequences of our actions, but not to continually punish ourselves for them. If we learn from our mistakes, then that is enough and we must move on.
Focus on your well being and on the present. Let go of your past because it fuels your discontentment and keeps you stuck there. Your present is what affects your future, not your past. If you live happy in the moment, then your future becomes bright. If you live in your past, then you are doomed to stay there.
Best wishes and stay well. 🙂
Hello again Sardo122 & Lost and Found. I have to say that the thread on this diary is incredibly enlightening, frightening, shocking, encouraging and sad. I felt compelled to read through it again.
Sardo, I sincerely hope that you will be brave and willing to fight for a better future. I feel your pain and desperation - not just with the financial loss but in other aspects of your life. However, as it has already been spelt out - gambling is not the answer. Nor is alcohol for that matter. But I think I know exactly how you feel. I personally accept that I have 'wasted' 40 years of my life with gambling and drink, and at every point of assessment and reflection I failed to see how my habitual actions were just a sorry excuse for my status in life. All those little sayings that were meant to spur me on - 'you get what you give give', - 'you reap what you sow', 'the universe rewards action'. I wanted to be successful, happy and content but I also wanted to take the easy route - the 'get rich quick' ideology.
Although many aspects of your gambling do not reflect my own experiences, such as online casinos, I can feel the connection with several other important factors such as the personality changes of becoming withdrawn and depressed.
It's just heartbreaking to learn of the devastating effects of gambling addiction and the destructive side effects that can take a hold. But we must continue to believe in a new life without gambling - a new life without fear or turmoil. And ultimately a new life with real hope.
Sometimes we may need to focus on a 'worse case scenario' in order to make the positive changes in our lives. I sometimes think of the time as I walked through a city centre late at night accompanied by my wife. There were several people sleeping rough in shop doorways and I remember questioning how they ended up like that. To which my wife said "it's quite possible that some were living perfectly 'normal' lives until recently. Husbands/wives with kids, homeowners - people with good jobs. Then maybe a cruel twist of fate turned their whole world upside down.
@Lost and found, you mention you have a family, a partner and two kids. I assume have a mortage on your house?
I can imagine the stress and shame it would cause you to feel when you got into all that debt (about the same debt I'm in now - 40k) from gambling. For your partner and for your kids.
But I have to sat this. What if you don't have any of that. Your work is meaningless (you addressed this tangentially) and no 9-5 job, or 7-6 job as the case may be at the moment including commute. When you get back from work, you walk up the stairs in your parents' house and get under the covers. No kids, no house, wife to fight this for. Not even any hobbies.
You get too weird, too stuck in your ways past about 30-35. In terms of Maslow's hierachy (parts of it are BS), if you'e stuck on level 1 you can't get to level 4.
Now in some ways it's worse because you are responsible for others, for me (other than a loan my parents are paying which I feel shameful). But you have goal, a future rather than just being some entity of skin and bone that is swiftly entering middle age.
You just exist to work a job to pay off debt, or pay rent (as you should) and there's no payoff so to say. No girlfriend or wife to come home to, no kids, no house, no hobbies. That's really difficult, and for some of these things almost impossible to turn around) as you hit 40. No 'passions'.
What I'm trying to say is that you have to have a reason to turn things around. If I was 25, I'd be be in a completely different mindset with regards to recovery. Maybe I would now to a lesser extent if I didn't have such large debts and was ready to move out, but I'd still know it's kind of over. Stopping gambling is a must... but the damage is done now. I can't go on my first date in 20 years at 40 years, man. I go home, go under the covers or if I'm not tired enough (in fairness these are side effects of medication) I play video games or mindlessly browse the internet. I have no money to do anything anyway. If I stop gambling (which is a must quite clearly), it's not going to change any of that.
I've always hated all my jobs, certainly don't want anyone to pay for me though. So getting a mortgage at age 50 ish is kinda pointless if you're paying it off through your 70s and beyond. Dating in middle age is not for someone who has barely more dating experience than a teenager. It's hard to explain. You get too stuck in your ways.
So what's left? working some job to pay rent so you can rest up to go to the job the next day. I really regret not figuring this out in my prime.
I understand what you are saying. Yes, esteem and a sense of self often comes from love and belonging, so without relationships ie, others by which to define ourselves by, we don't know who we are and we lack purpose.
But that's also not a reason to destroy and sabotage oneself. It is important to really understand your own needs before you can ever hope to offer anything to anyone else. I can see how you feel stuck on the pyramid. Although I have a relationship and a family, I was still stuck at the first stage because I couldn't get past my mental problems which prevented me from engaging and enjoying what I had.
I can see both sides of the story when it comes to having reasons or not to change our lives. I see your point in that your life feels empty and you feel it lacks meaning but I can also see that this is because you don't factor yourself in to this scenario. Your life can't mean anything if YOU don't mean anything. That's why my life fell apart because despite having a family, I was what was missing from my own life and that's why I started gambling because I didn't know who I was and why I was even here on the planet. My head was so dark and I was badly depressed.
You have to believe that you are worth fixing this for too because if you don't, then it doesn't matter who might come along in your future because you are still keeping yourself stuck here because you don't see enough reason to change. By doing this, you seal your own fate. You need to climb the pyramid YOURSELF and give yourself the best possible chance of meeting someone on the way. We don't always have life mapped out or a foolproof plan. Most of us are stumbling, crawling, falling back down.....many of us will be stuck on this pyramid at various stages of our lives and when this happens, it means that we need to change something.
You can't move on to the next step where you find emotional purpose because you are denying yourself the sense of self that you need. You have to have an emotional connection to yourself and then you can love yourself enough to make the changes that you need.
By gambling, you are depriving yourself of one of the most important things in life and that is stability and safety and you also fall into the trap of defining love and belonging as intimate relationships when it is much more than that. The need for love and belonging includes the range of intimacy between/among people and encompasses caring, compassion, empathy, a sense of having a place in the world, being part of a community, feeling accepted and approved of versus rejection and disapproval, attention, and affection. If you don't love yourself enough to stop gambling, then you cannot possibly hope to stop gambling. You are your own reason to stop. You can be motivated by family and friends to stop, but if you don't want it for yourself, first and foremost, then it will fail. If you don't see your own worth, how can others value you?
I understand that you feel that you have no reason to change your life and you feel this is because you are getting old and lack purpose and you are saddled with debt. You don't see how gambling can change things for you because it is not going to wave a magic wand over your life? If that's the case, why don't you keep gambling, surely then it can't make things worse? If you are in 40k debt, then why not make it 50? If you really believe that giving up gambling can't improve your life, then why do you want to stop? Ask yourself why are you here on this forum? I'll tell you why.....because you do have something to lose and you DO want to stop and you can see that gambling is holding you back from the life that you CAN have. You keep gambling now because you don't have the life you want, but in doing so, you make sure that you never get any closer to the life you actually want.
You can't write yourself off just because you are older. You could take out a mortgage at age 20 and be dead at 25. You could take out one in your 50's and live till you are 100. You have no idea what is around the corner. No one does. Is someone who has married many times during their life any better off than someone who has not yet married? How do you define happiness?
Why does the first part of your life have to be the best? Most people don't find true happiness until later in life. There is no clock ticking except the time bomb of gambling. You are the only threat to your own happiness.
Debt is not a death sentence. Giving up on yourself could well be.
If you can look at it that I had more reason to give up gambling because I have a family, you could also say I had more reason NOT to do it in the first place. If you consider that having a partner and a family equals happiness, how did I find myself self harming, deep in depression and gambling myself into an early grave. Nothing around you can make you happy if you are not happy yourself. True contentment and happiness has to come from inside yourself. There is a reason why wealthy businessmen with nice houses and families throw themselves off their own penthouses and you cannot say that someone SHOULD be happier than someone else just because of what they have in their life.
A rock star life won't make someone any happier and if anything, can make things worse if they have mental health problems, and the fame and fortune they may have won't change anything underneath. They are still depressed but they also happen to be rich and famous. Nothing in this life can save you from yourself EXCEPT yourself.
The guilt and pain that I feel everyday because of the way I affected my family is something that I have to learn to live with. I started gambling when my kids were only young. They both got diagnosed with lifelong conditions within a month of each other. I was devastated. My mum got cancer twice, my grandma died and my mental health was at an all time low. I had already suffered social anxiety, depression and OCD since I was a teenager. I consider myself very lucky to have found someone who understands all my problems and whom I started a family with. However, it didn't change any of my problems because my problems were my own. Not my family's. Having a house, a partner and kids made me feel even more guilty for being depressed. People don't always understand that other people can't make you happy if there is something wrong inside. My head felt dead for years and I couldn't find joy in anything. I invited gambling into my life instead of facing up to all these issues.
Having all those things did not stop me from trying to destroy myself and if anything, they served to keep me gambling. I could not stop gambling because of the weight of guilt I had to bear. I love my family yet I stole from them. I lied to them and I put the addiction first. My daughter now has university debt because I took her college savings and lost them gambling. She has to be taken to uni every day in our car because she can't buy one because I lost her money. She is looking at getting a job to help fund her uni and she is also not well herself and has heart problems like I do. I worry so much about my kids. I wanted the best for them, but I did things all wrong. I was misguided and meant no harm whatsoever and in my mind, I actually thought I was doing good by gambling. What a fool I was.
Can you possibly understand just how much I suffer because of my actions. I have all my own suffering and I carry all theirs too because they suffer because of me. It is hard if you have people in life and hard if you don't. I can certainly see both sides of our problem.
I started gambling when they were only young. They are now ready to move out. My daughter will get her first experience of a nice house without me. I wanted to do that for us as a family, somewhere nice with a garden and room to play. Now she doesn't need room for a trampoline. She is an adult. So much time wasted. So much pain.
It never happened because of my gambling. I thought I could do good by gambling, get there quicker, but I ruined everything. It will take me another few years to pay off this debt and in that time, she will have moved out and in to her own place and all I ever wanted was the time to fix my mistakes, and finally live up to my promises, get us a nice house and be happy. Now that is not going to happen because I too, have run out of time and that torments me.
I am crushed every day by the way I have affected them. I have left gambling behind but it follows me around every day like a dark shadow. I could carry on hating myself for what I did, but what good will that do? Then I may as well still be gambling. I have to move forward and leave my mistakes behind. I have to do this for myself. I can't expect my family to sit around and wait for me. Their lives need to carry on and my daughter needs to do what she wants to do and I have to live with that.
I could look at it that I might as well still be gambling, I haven't fixed anything. I didn't achieve my dreams or my goals... I lost the best decade of my life gambling while my kids were growing up. Now, I really need them and they no longer need me. They are almost independent now and I could look at it that I have sorted my life out too late. But I don't. I refuse to believe that because I have still sorted my life out and I still have a better today because I am not gambling. I have done it for myself. You can't change the past so you have to accept it and learn to live with it. Yes, I wish I had done it earlier but I am still grateful that I had the sense to do it at all.
This is what the word FUN in gambling really means...
DysFUNctional
@changemylife I am happy that you have been able to take something from it and wish you continued success in remaining gamble free. It sounds like you too, have been through a lot and it can be very hard to accept that we have wasted so much time and created so much turmoil but this is also how we recover. Acceptance is an important step in moving forward and it is so very hard to do but when you do, you are letting go of the self hate and allowing yourself the freedom to move past your mistakes.
So many warm wishes to you
Thanks - Lost & Found for your understanding and encouragement. I think you have been through hell and back with gambling/anxiety etc. But you have turned the corner and are giving back through this forum as part of your continued recovery.
Sardo - how are you mate?
I do hope that you can find some inner peace and happiness but as you will realise - we find it from within ourselves. I totally get what you say about your current situation but I would second the notion that everything can change for the future. The truth is that it's so easy to be negative about everything that effects our lives. I still go through the self-defeating, 'beat-me-up' mind games such as: "how could I NOT be depressed? My life is s**t... I've been in debt all of my adult life... I hate my job... I never have any money to buy things I want... I'm getting old and feeling tired... I'm unfit... I have no future prospects... I am a poor husband and father... life isn't worth living".
But then somehow I manage to turn things around. I remain positive and optimistic. I consider options and solutions. I believe in a better future.
I honestly think you can change your future but you know that it's up to you. They say that life begins at 40! and it's also a fact that many people experience real success in their lives after the age of 50, perhaps due to their urgency to make something happen before it's too late. As for the chance of romance/relationships - 'Lost & Found' has spelt it out exactly. When we meet someone special and make a connection it's usually when we are in a good place personally - happy, confident, content and not necessarily 'looking for love'. P.s. this could certainly happen for you.
Maybe you'll benefit from reading books on the power of positive thinking. In any case, I wish you all the best. And remember: 'gambling ain't the answer'!
Ok Sardo. You may feel lost and bewildered. But debt is debt. And it ain't gonna be wiped out any time soon. But what are the options - seriously... Gambling will almost certainly get you deeper into debt. Crime may get you into prison. Doing nothing will get the wolves pounding on the door. But doing something positive will give you a chance. A chance to formulate a plan of action - a repayment plan. Yes it's gonna hurt. Of course it will test your resolve. But it's a chance to get back to square one. And although that sounds daunting you should bear in mind that you may still be able to surpass the accumulated debt with prolific actions. But just remember that everyone has talents and you may need to reassess your status quo.
@Lost and Found Thanks for the enlightening reply, I'm not still not sure about about the whole age thing (of all of the thing of mice and men, the saddest are it might've been). But reading my other reply, it could've potentially come across as crude as something like 'well you're alright, you have the family and house etc'. That's not what I meant to get across. All of this is MY fault... I'm not envious in the sense of 'well you have this and that'. I just wanted to get across (as probably know anyway) a sense of not having anything to work for, if it's nothing - and all you have in your life is regret and squandered opportunities, why are you going ahead with all this? Giving up gambling is a must, but the coals of failure have remained hot and should've cooled down a while ago as it doesn't just involve gambling (had a bit of a bombshell dropped on me at work see below). Me announcing 20,40,80 days free from gambling... I've always been a binge gambler rather than an everyday one. I've done that before and I didn't feel all that better. The debt was still there.
I really appreciate your heartfelt response on how gambling affected others close to you, your family. It's alright for me to say well I have nothing to work toward but I forget that the damage is mostly (certainty not all of it) centered around me. I have a sense of shame of not being able to pay my parents back properly on a loan at the moment and I'm living there currently without contributing much which I want to change, have to. I'd imagine that's magnified many times with your experience. So there are both sides to this S****y coin: one it's mostly only me (who cares), but my parents should be close to a good well earned retirement not a manchild living and also borrowing. I should be treating them. And then the other side, which you eloquently laid out.
The gist from your message the, for both cases, is you have to do it for yourself. Not in a selfish way, but to at least begin the process yourself. I'm not going to lie, I find this very hard to do and this not really to do with gambling. 1st world problems. Which adds to it. Weak. I've moaned a lot here when people have mentioned being homeless due to gambling. I just don't see a good reason - I don't know what to do other than work some job to pay debt and pay the rent. I feel that I let myself down in many ways and I could curse myself for it. I never found the answer, not in 37 years really.
@changemylife Hi mate, sorry I didn't respond to you earlier. You're right, some people who are now destitute in some way in a past life or even recently were living as a 'normie' until something happened to them. You just don't know.
I'm afraid a curveball has been thrown my way. I got into work today and was presented with a letter which detailed the end of my probation and my unsatisfactory performance. It came as a complete surprise as I thought the probation would be extended pending this security review. Apparently hr can't extend it, so something has to happen.
I thought was I doing OK, but I have to come up with a case to defend myself when the formal meeting comes up. I've asked for a delay and expressed my surprise, but I'm preparing for the worst. If this happened 3 weeks ago my gambling self tells me I would've had second thoughts on those 25k pending withdrawals that took weeks. Would made the sitation milder. I think that's kind of true, but who knows now. I'm going to start looking for jobs, but I'll be contacting stepchange if I get let go. I figure my creditors will give me a month or so, maybe slightly longer but after that there's a possibility of bankruptcy I suppose. What great timing.
There are a few users on the forum I've read, I believe Canterbury and also S85 who posted again since his last thread (who is in a very similar situation to me).
No gambling since last messages.
Hi there, no your reply didn't come across as crude at all. Our problems are always worse than anyone else's simply because they are our own. It always helps to see the other side because everyone's perspective is different.
We can all feel like a hamster on a wheel sometimes, getting up, going to work, going to bed, rinse and repeat......but for some, that feeling of just going through the motions with an emptiness inside is a feeling that won't go away. Often, we chop and change the things in our lives because we think that it will change the inside, but sometimes, it's not about changing the things we do, but changing how we look at life. We might change jobs, switch towns, try a new look...to try to make that feeling go away, but if we focus only on the outside world, then that feeling of discontentment will not go away. It is often the inside that needs to change the most. Sometimes, we resist transformation on the inside which leads to frustration, stalemate and depression. You feel stuck and you have all these other hurdles in your way. You have so many things going wrong in your life that you put problems in your own way, like addiction, alcoholism, drugs and then we stay stuck because it is easier to say we can't change.
So what can we do about it? Well, for one, we keep trying. We get up off the sofa because we can. If we don't fight for our own selves, then who else will rescue us? I have social anxiety so it is so easy to just stay in and do nothing. I have no money, I have depression and I have a lot of debt. There are days when I feel sorry for myself but I shake it off and push myself to do things for myself. Not for anyone else, but for me. By extension, everyone else around me benefits.
I get outside and into nature whenever I can. I can see when I am going into my own head and mulling over thoughts and negativity and I force myself out of it and into the real world because what's in my head is much worse than my reality. I have to keep things in focus and you do too. The reason things are bad in our head is because we cycle the same thoughts, the same negative way of thinking. We have trained ourselves to do it and therefore, we can never find the answer we are looking for because we are stuck in the same way of thinking. We need to think outside the box and that means thinking outside of ourselves. The kind of thinking that solves problems rather than dwelling on them.
One of the worst things we can do is just shove the pain down. It is okay to feel like c**P but instead of punishing ourselves for feeling down and making ourselves feel worthless and weak, we need to embrace the way we feel because that feeling is meant to make us address the reason why we feel that way. Making ourselves feel bad because of our mood only makes the mood last longer. So instead, we acknowledge that we feel awful, we give ourselves some time and then we find ways to pick ourselves up. We do something that makes us feel better, whatever that is. That's what indulging the mood is, it's not a bad thing, it's not feeling sorry for yourself, it's giving yourself the boost you need to get things done.
Your brain is very easily trained to get stuck in bad patterns of negativity. It will reinforce either good or bad behaviour, so it is important to feed it good thoughts. Many people think that what we think is automatic, but it isn't. It is trained and conditioned just like your addiction is. What we think is also just thoughts, it doesn't make it necessarily true just because the thought persists in our mind. The problem is, that if we think something for long enough, we can choose to believe it and then we self loathe on the feelings that we have fabricated and insist on believing them and reinforcing them. 'I'm not good enough, I'll never be able to do that, I'll never amount to anything, no one will ever employ me'..... and so it goes.
Cycling negative thoughts prevents us from thinking productively and it's why we stay stuck because we always think the same. We can change a million things around us on the outside, but changing all the things we see around us, won't work if we don't change the way we see them.
Recognising your negative thoughts is the first step to overcoming them. You also have to believe that you are worth it and that you will accomplish what you set out to do, whatever that may be.
You have to realise as well that what you think, you also feel. You are in control of your thoughts, but they run away with you, tell you that you are no good, not going anywhere in life....This is your inner critical voice. It's not the world telling you that you are no good, it is yourself and you can change that by showing yourself that you are up for the challenge.
Problems don't make you feel weak and vulnerable if you see them as challenges and ways to better yourself. They could actually be a way to show off your talents, find ways to overcome them and feel good. We are often the hardest on ourselves, so change the way you treat yourself. Be good to yourself and nurture your mind and spirit. If you don't give yourself any time or encouragement then an important part of who you are will die. How can you possibly face life's challenges when you beat yourself up every day about how pointless it all is? You are your own coach and your game sucks because you are telling yourself that you will fail and that there is no point in trying.
Often, the best way to figure out who you are is to find what you are good at and get yourself out of your head and out in to the world. You are alive, you have a lot to give and to offer the world and yourself and as soon as you start to see that, then the cloud will lift and you will feel like you are connected to life again. Jut remember that this process starts with you, so try to stop looking inwards and letting that taint the way you see the world. It's not what happens in our lives that affects us so much as the way we respond to what has happened.
Stay away from gambling as this is destroying your foundations, and removing your stability and security. Without a strong foundation, you cannot hope to build the rest of your life and what you do build will crumble, so give yourself a fighting chance and leave gambling behind.
Believe 🙂
@sardo i commented on one of your threads last week advising a course of action for your situation regarding the potential loss of your job / bankruptcy etc
i can't find the thread now but i hope you managed to take some of it on board ,
in this thread you talk a lot about it being "too late" for you to create a decent lifestyle
you talk about wanting a higher paying job, a mortgage a family etc
these are not ready made things you can just go and pick up off the shelf .....they usually manifest through living your normal life they can appear at any stage
not being able to have a mortgage isn't the end of the world !?! .....our housing market is on the verge of collapse anyway and property is grossly inflated due to false economy the days of the old fashioned
" you cant lose money on bricks and mortar" are long long gone
family's are stressful i dont have any kids and dont really want any ........but everyone i know that does mainly complains about how hard work they are and how unrelenting it is raising them
the grass isnt always greener
as far as jobs go the old 9-5 is well past its sell by date ......theres a million and one ways you can make money online these days .....use some of that time that you are spending wallowing in pity to find some ideas
i sell some clothes online through various online channels .....some days i can make more than i make in a week in my boring 9-5
anything is possible but first you must sort your mindset out
Thank you for this thread it really helped me reflect on Thursday night / Friday morning
All the below is bookies / arcades / offline gambling as I actually somehow have remained strong enough to stay off online.
I need to stop myself now...I was in major gambling pain back in 2010 which I managed to pull myself out of so don't know how it has managed to grip me so quickly again, the only slightly positive this time is I'm not fighting a mountain of debt, although if I carry on the way I am!
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