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...
What a difference six months can make.
On a very cold night in January of this year, I was driving home from the casino. I just gambled away my last dime - quite literally. I had tears in my eyes as I put my last $20 in a slot machine and lost it. I spent all the money I had, and overdrew my account by several hundred dollars - one day after payday.
I hit my bottom.
If someone had told me on that night that in six months I would have a great new job and hope for the future. That I would be reconnecting with those people I withdrew from and that I would be on the path to finally putting to rest those demons that led me to gambling in the first place - I would have said they were CRAZY. On that January night, in my panicked state, I imagined that it would take many, many years to fix the damage I'd done.
Here I am, six months later, happy and hopeful for the future. I started my new job yesterday (loving it) and with some discipline, I will be out of the woods (financially) by years end. Not completely debt-free, but well under control.
I don't write this to make anyone feel bad about where they are. Instead, I hope you believe that however hopeless you feel now your life can get so much better - much more quickly than you may think if you commit to stopping gambling. Put it behind you and accept that a happy life and gambling are mutually exclusive - they cannot co-exist.
Make a plan and stay strong. Get MAD! Not at yourself, but at this disease. Begin by searing into your brain that feeling of walking out of the casino and driving home filled with fear and regret. Then, invoke that feeling when you even think about a slot machine. GET PISSED!!!!
YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!!
On a very cold night in January of this year, I was driving home from the casino. I just gambled away my last dime - quite literally. I had tears in my eyes as I put my last $20 in a slot machine and lost it. I spent all the money I had, and overdrew my account by several hundred dollars - one day after payday.
I hit my bottom.
If someone had told me on that night that in six months I would have a great new job and hope for the future. That I would be reconnecting with those people I withdrew from and that I would be on the path to finally putting to rest those demons that led me to gambling in the first place - I would have said they were CRAZY. On that January night, in my panicked state, I imagined that it would take many, many years to fix the damage I'd done.
Here I am, six months later, happy and hopeful for the future. I started my new job yesterday (loving it) and with some discipline, I will be out of the woods (financially) by years end. Not completely debt-free, but well under control.
I don't write this to make anyone feel bad about where they are. Instead, I hope you believe that however hopeless you feel now your life can get so much better - much more quickly than you may think if you commit to stopping gambling. Put it behind you and accept that a happy life and gambling are mutually exclusive - they cannot co-exist.
Make a plan and stay strong. Get MAD! Not at yourself, but at this disease. Begin by searing into your brain that feeling of walking out of the casino and driving home filled with fear and regret. Then, invoke that feeling when you even think about a slot machine. GET PISSED!!!!
YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!!
Your story is one of those that inspires me.
You are not making us feel bad, you are giving us hope. I am on my 53rd day of being Gamble Free, and I can feel the difference, there's this calmness, some sense of control and genuine appreciation of all the things and people you have around :)
Happy Canada Day everyone :)
John
For me, that was the milestone I reached where I really knew I could make the changes I needed to make. I agree that stories such as yours are crucial to all of us, knowing that there is hope and a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.
Keep up the good work and all the best on the new job!
Jay