Gambling Addiction & Recovery Support Group
Compulsive gambling is an urge or addiction to gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. A preferred term among many professionals is problem gambling, as few people described by the term experience true compulsions in the clinical sense of the word. Problem gambling often is defined by whether harm is experienced by the gambler or others rather...
Every morning I wake up promising myself that I will not gamble. Every night I go to bed wishing that I hadn't. It's a cycle and I can't break it. So I'm going to try posting here to see if it can help me get out of this circle of betting, winning, betting, losing, betting, chasing, quitting, betting to win back some losses and then planning to quit for good, betting and winning, betting to win more since I'm now on a roll, losing, chasing to get back the winnings, losing it all, betting again, losing, chasing, quitting... The next word in the cycle is "betting," but I'm replacing it with "posting" and hope that can put an end to it.
My vice is online sports. It's a combination of escaping from the day and the addiction to winning money. I've had a problem for 4 years now and it has escalated over the past 6 months. Before that, I was betting $300-$500 a week. It was a bad habit and I wanted to quit, but didn't. And then I discovered bitcoin as a way to fund my account. And the stakes went up. My deposits went up in both amount and frequency. In the last six months I have turned an intial deposits of $1000 into over $20,000 on five occasions, only to lose it all within 72 hours and repeating the process again and again. Of course, I always end up losing the $1000 deposit followed by losing the redposits in the chase.
So today I stop. And I'm posting this both for your support and so I can read it the next time I have the urge. Hope to update this and track my progress. I want to stop. I need to stop. My first goal is one day, my second goal is 7 days. My third goal is 30 days.
I hate being a compulsive gambler.
We're hitting June. No more gambling. None. I must stop, I have to shake this thought that it's just a losing streak and I'm due for a short winning streak.
GAMBLOCK is a software that won't let your computer go to gambling sites. Give up your bank account to someone you trust or hire someone to be your payee. As long as you are actively gambling you are not thinking straight - your brain is acting on the flood of dopamine that gambling gives you - you are making bad decisions that always lead to gambling. There is no other way to quit but to actually quit. I guarantee you will not solve your money issues by continuing to gamble. I have been where you are - you will loose more than money if you do not quit - your family, your sanity, your freedom your life are all hanging in the balance.
Btw, I appreciate the support and comments. It is helpful to know that people understand how I could do this to myself and my family. Though I'm still trying to understand how I could do this. I just want to erase this nightmare. Why doesn't life come with a reset button?
What else have you done to create tools to help you quit gambling in this 2 months of white-knuckling through? Do you have any other support groups or meetings you go to? (GA, ACOA, AA, NA) Do you have a counselor? Are you looking at educational material about gambling addiction either online or from a library? Are you seeking out any self-help books? Are you doing anything creative? Do you have a relationship with a higher power? Do you meditate? Have you written out a good-bye to gambling letter yet? How about writing out your triggers and a plan of what you will attempt to do the next time you have that trigger, instead of gamble? Have you written out 20 things you can do for 20 minutes that cost little or nothing that you can do instead of gambling? Have you tried affirmations? What is your favorite one? Have you started keeping a journal? How about starting a gratitude diary, just writing down one thing per day that you are grateful for each day? You are the one that got you into this miserable state of affairs and you are the one that needs to do the lion's share of the work. You are the one it needs to matter to more than anyone else. You need to throw yourself into this and fight from as many angles as you can. Staying abstinent and learning to be a good parent to yourself is what you need to do. Being a good parent is being firm, yet kind, making decisions that are healthy throughout the day, being aware of your needs and taking care of them, all of them. The money will get paid down over time - the debt is not the problem - the reasons we want to gamble- the roots of our addiction(s) is the problem.