Why??? Because you are addicted! Just like being addicted to drugs or drinking....you can't help needing your fix just one more time. So don't dwell on the why but finding what will work for you to put an end to this behavior. You just need to take one day at a time and join the rest of us here as much as you can for support.

Thank you, I will be logged in, all night and all weekend. Thank you.

one of the 'why's' I had to come to understand was this: since I am compulsive, there is no such thing as gambling for a few hours. I can not stop once I start. the compulsive part of me makes me play and play, until finally I realized: I will never win......gambling won. so I started one day at a time: I will not gamble today. Just for today. and the days started adding up. it wouldn't matter if we stay away a year: once we go back, the compulsion starts again. Now I'm compulsive about quitting. lol.

I"m glad you posted Leapyear22....So, one reason you do it is probably because you are compulsive about gambling. that doesn't make us bad people, just people with an addiction that we have to work on daily.
Please post again. At least you are not there this Friday night. that is a start....

Thank you. I thought about going, with the little money I have left from last weekend, but decided, to stay home tonight, so,, you're right, just today, just tonight, I'm not going to gamble.

its funny, I'm a successful real estate broker, self made, I worked so hard for so long, for everything I have, self respect, earned income, and I raised my daughter alone. I was able to finally buy a house three years ago, and I would love coming home. This last time I went, I gambled my mortgage payment, which I never did before, and I realized, not only did I gamble my mortgage payment, I gambled away my self respect, my dignity and my hard work. Over the last 10 years, off and on, I have told myself I'm done, hundreds of thousands of dollars later, I still went. I live alone, although my family knows, and they worry, they have surrendered and I think they all say a silent prayer for my recovery one day. I need my life back, I need my dignity back. When I pull off the freeway, instead of making the right turn to the casino, I need to make the left turn to my home, open the garage and close it behind me. I pray I can make the left turn from now on. I excluded myself from a major card room in san diego, but found that I could go to others, and they wouldn't know. I can go exclude myself from the newer casinos I have gone too, but I know, in San Diego, there are so many, it would be a matter of time before I found a new one to go to, where they don't know me. Left turn, please.

Hello Leap :)

huugggsss

you are not alone :) we can find strength in one another.. it is a tough battle..

i hear you.. i feel you..

Thank you Charmed.

Leapyear22, I missed feeling good about myself. My decisions to gamble ate up my self-esteem. I felt like I was slumping around with my head hanging low all the time. until I got tired of feeling like a loser. that is what gambling did: made me feel like a loser, even if I won, I was still a loser.
Staying away has started to change that 'loser' mentality. It can sneak up on us so quickly and quietly, we get sucked in out of loneliness, boredom, or whatever. At least take a break from it this weekend. you will feel better.

it helped me to know I was not alone, and I wasn't the only one feeling like a 'loser' because of gambling. whew! please keep posting.

For me, there was no simple answer to why, but it was necessary step to understand and accept different elements of this horrid behavior.

From my experience, being able to absitinent from gambling for years at a time, just quitting and staying away was the easist part. Yes, the occasional urges were there, mostly thinking i can go easy on it and make my 500 dollars to 2000. All though it did not happened frequently I was able to stay on my limit and controlled my money and time each time I started back again. I remember thinking I had this under controlled, boy, I was so proud of my self being able to gamble "normal".
My mistake of believing that person like me being able to gamble "normal" was the biggest deception I had.

The progressive nature of gambling addiction and my compulsive, obssesive and competitive nature just don't go with hane in hand.
That one big winning or loss will put me right back to the same position I am so familiar with. Its the inevitable results I fought so hard to win over.

The why question had to be answered in order to accept that I have this incurable illness and find a way to live with without gambling as a crutch. If gambling was a poisonous mushroom why would I eat them?

I am a pathological gambler, I have compulsive / obssesive characteristic flaw and all though there is no cure, I continously work on my defects everyday.

It's a beautuful saturday morning, would you like to go and contibute some more of your money so they can build another mega resort? Or would you like to join me in getting some much needed vitamin D under the sun?

Love,
Victoria