you say you "cannot stop"

we are here to tell you, you can, before it STOPS YOU

i had the same addiction, like the rest of us on here, its not impossible, you have to want it...do you want it? start there.

First of all, super proud of you for coming here. I know its hard, and there is a ton of shame that goes with this addiction. And that is what it is, an addiction. For me, I had to come clean to everyone, and make amends. I also banned myself for life from casinos that I would go to. To be honest, as afraid as I was about telling people, it ended up being a huge part of my recovery, because the dirty little secret was out, although I never wanted to burden anyone else with my addiction, it turned out to be a huge relief and a source of love an support. Ultimately, its up to you, but, the first time is admitting you are powerless, and to me, from reading your post, you are taking the first step. So, read more posts, read the 12 steps for GA and go to meetings in your area. All of this combined, with your willingness to make a change, will lead you into a happier, healthier life. I promise. Hang in there, and as they would say to me "drop the rock" if you're carrying around guilt, and worry, and shame, you can't focus on your recovery, and isn't that what its all about? Don't place another bet, one minute, one day at a time, and it will get better.

Good job reaching out. It sounds like you are on the edge of losing everything anyway. Many of us had to loose the job, wife/husband, friends, house, and all our money before we got a strong enough wake up call to WAKE UP. The secrets are part of the sickness of this addiction - having your wife or someone else handle your money, putting limits on your access to cash, putting barriers between yourself and your money is helpful to start with. Finding something else to do is essential. Getting to GA meeting or treatment with a counselor will help you begin to heal and give you a support group. You have to want to quit bad enough to be willing to put some hard work in to do something different.

Many wise people here have told me to put as many roadblocks in place while my resolve was high and that has been one of the best advice that I have received and taken. I have self-banned.. and each time I fell off the wagon - I would put another roadblock in place.

What I have learned from this disease is it tries to outsmart me. It tricks me into thinking I can continue to gambling, that I have control of everything, that I can just go gamble for a few hours... it shames me into keeping it's secrets... it makes me feel so worthless that I can't stand myself and I have to escape and go back to it...

I have been there/I am there. I have lost personal savings, 401K savings, have racked up credit card debts in the thousands, etc.. I am just beginning to dig myself out of this financial mess and it is hard. Every time I look at my financial situation - I am angry and sadden that I did not fight back sooner. But I am also grateful that I finally came to the realization that continuing to gambling was going to kill me.. the disease became so unbearably painful that I had no choice but to stop.

The road to recovery is a process and as long as you don't give up on yourself and continue to do your best -- it will get better.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. Everything that everyone wrote rang so true to me. I know it will be hard, but it is great to hear from others who understand the way I am feeling. it gives me hope, which I have not felt in a long time.

I can tell you this.... it just keeps getting worse if you keep gambling. Soon you'll stop paying your mortgage and credit card bills. You'll think to yourself, at least I'm keeping the lights on and food on the table. I'll figure out how to catch up next month. Stop now, today, right this moment before you lose more than money.

I have a good job too and hid it from everyone. I was mortified at the thought of telling anyone what I had done and was doing. I thought I would rather die. The stress of it all was killing me.

It got to the point that I would float checks between bank accounts so that I could gamble a couple of days before pay day. So by the time payday came, I was broke.

The first concrete step that I took in the right direction was making an appointment with a therapist that specialized in addiction. I was all kinds of sick about having to actually speak the words out loud of all that I had done, even too a stranger, but I did it and it saved my life.

That was almost 3 years ago. It's been a long and difficult road out of gambling, but no matter how bad I feel - it's 1,000 times better than the hopelessness I felt when I was gambling my life away.

burrtom11 - I had a friend and sister who quit their addiction more easily that I did and I asked my husband how that was possible and his answer was they didn't have money (i.e. they struggled to make it payday to payday and both had pretty bad credit). So with no money and no credit, it was hard to get the funds with which to gamble. I make a decent living and was able to get all kinds of credit, so needless to say, I racked up quite the bill and wiped out a retirement account. The damage I did to myself financially was pretty bad. Fortunately, my husband was aware of what was going on so the joint savings/checking money was never touched. Only my savings/retirement and credit cards were destroyed. However, I paid them on time and never ruined my credit or my husband's. But I must tell you, you need to come clean with your wife if she doesn't already know and give her control of the money if you want to help yourself. I still have some control, but there is complete transparency with my husband. All of my credit cards now have no cash advance amounts. I called every single one of them and had them change the limit to -0- and they will do this with no questions asked. Good thing is if you try to reinstate the limit, they have to run another credit check which is a hard credit inquiry to your credit report. This should keep you from doing that. I know I haven't because hard inquiries lower your score. Also, once I admitted my problem to my husband, things got ugly for a bit, but then I went to a therapist/hypnosis and GA along with this forum. I made a plan to start widdling a way at the debt and realized that the only way to get from out of the big black hole was to stop. And I was on my was to losing my husband, life and everything I loved. You too can stop!

I am in the exact same boat. I am a closet gambler. I gamble on sports and blackjack. There isn't enough money in this world that would be enough for me. It isn't about the money it is about the crack high. Then of course it's about the money after. I was up 2300 with the boomy this week. Lost all that then the same at the casino. I have been trying to quit for 15 years. I agree not having money is the answer and the real desire to quit. I'm sick I
And tired of being sick and tired. Enough is enough

Nayne, I have a good credit rating. If I call and remove cash advance limit to 0, will it change my credit rating?

pjbf3kids - No, changing the limit to -0- does nothing to your credit score. Basically, you are still keeping your card open with the credit line still there. You are just preventing yourself from being able to access the cash. For all they know, you are just protecting yourself from fraud. No one asked me why I did it. If they do, you can tell them you are doing this in case your card is stolen or something, but if you have a history of withdrawing a LOT of cash, they probably know why. Haha! It never affected by credit score. However, in a weak moment when I was playing around with my "controlled gambling" which never worked by the way, I got desperate and called one of my credit card companies while I was at the casino and tried to get the cash advance limit reinstated. They told me it would take some time because they would have to run a credit check and it was like applying for a credit line all over again. So I asked what this entailed and basically, they said it would be a "hard inquiry" on your credit report. If you do any kind of monitoring you know the hard hits affect your credit score, so in my moment of weakness, I cleared my head and told them no and left the casino. I never reinstated the cash advance line. Thank GOD!!!! So once you do this to all of your credit cards and you change your mind, it is like applying for credit to get those cash advance lines reinstated, so it will affect your credit score at that time. This is one reason I have not gone back and it is keeping me from withdrawing money on them again! Here me when I say, THIS IS A GOOD THING!

Thank you. I am taking action today and calling the credit card company. I have only been using the cash advance for 8 months and it has only been at a casino. Thank you, thank you.

Thank you to each of you who posted here. I just got off the phone with my wife after a very long and difficult conversation. She called during the day just to say hi, and I just could not hide all these thoughts and feelings. I told her everything and we made a plan to help me. I feel hopeful that this will be a fresh start in my life. I am looking forward to doing everything I can to stay gambling free. A big thank you. You never really know how much of an impact sharing your story and thoughts can have on somebody. I really couldn't image ever telling my wife about my addiction, but I did, and it has given me a new hope that my life can only go up from here.