Cjones8555's Journal

Having been two days game free, it occurred to me that the best way for me to really get away from this awful and dangerous habit is to ask the site I primarly use for online game to "Exclude" me just like a casino would. I'm going to respectfully write them a email and ask them to block my account and my IP address from accessing their site.  The problem with this is that when I log on the site I will have "bonus" bucks in my account that I acquired from past gaming and it will be very difficult for me not to play those bucks.  Perhaps I will look through my past email and see if I can find a general support email address that will allow me to do this without logging in to the site. I'm also tempted to start a crusade expose the entire failure of the US legisislation that supposingly banned onlined gaming.  For over a year I did not play Poker online because I was under the assumption that it was banned it the US.  Through trolling for free no deposit bonuses, etc., I discovered that sites that Full Tilt still allow US gamers, in fact on the ocassions that I used the site this year I found that the majority of their players are US players.  Through exploration I discovered that the primary failure in the legislation that it relied on banking and credit card issuers (e.g. VISA /Mastercard) to be the enforcer of this legislation.  The sites have found innovative/foreign payment processors that diguise the transactions to prevent the financial insittuations from knowing that they are for online gaming.    I will be an avid supporter any way I can for any action to "ban" internet gaming.   Having access to gambling via a computer is much much more dangerous that a casino.  My BINGO buddies often brag about spending the entire day in their pajamas playing and so have I.   Tomorrow I plan to start to journal about really being honest with friends and family.  I told my best girlfriend that I wanted to meet her for a drink to talk about my struggle and my plan.  Next week at my husband's insistence I plan to attend my first GA meeting.  It is a closed meeting so before I'm honest with my friends and family I will get to be honest with a group of strangers (caveat...though many of them will be strange and face and name, I'm assume they will be more like many and familiar with my problem than any friend or family member).  I'll closing today's journal entry by saying overall I'm feeling encouraged today but I'm having major difficultity trying to decipher how I will handle the financial and other problems that are now manifesting as a result of my compulsive gambling.  For some reason I feel like writing tonight>>> maybe because I'm not gambling.  I'm going to close the entry and write a bit about how it all started.