Love the topic. I've been hemming and hawing about buying a $50 piece of artwork to hang in my entryway. I keep putting it off -- but $50 would be gone in a flash if I were gambling. What am I waiting for? Crazy. Thanks for opening the topic.

Great topic. I always thought I'd buy a keyboard after a couple months GF. I never did even after 7 months. Maybe soon I will. I liked playing piano as a kid/ teen.

I love this topic, too.

I've been using the 'saved' money to do much needed small repairs and updates to my house - not something you can actually put your hands on but satisfying to feel like a responsible adult, something I hadn't felt in a very a long time.

I bought new shoes. Good shoes, normally $120 on sale for $75.
I could have bought is a house with the $ I gave to gambling. I could have bought a new car - cash.
I could have paid for counseling, even Freudian or Jungian Analysis at $200 an hour for 100 hours and only spend a 1/3 of what I spent gambling during my last year in "action".
Needless to say, that could of been a nice retirement fund account, a trip to Europe for two for a month. 10 cruised to the Mexican Riviera.
Could have fixed all my teeth.
Could have gone to a deluxe health spa every other weekend for a year.
OMG!

That's weird you ask. I just totaled up the atm withdrawals for the year and said ... Wow. I could have taken everyone on a deluxxxxe vacation with what I lost

P.s. I WANT THAT VACATION with my kids and grandkids.

Retirement account (I emptied two of them over my gambling career.) and I am too old now to make much difference if I started one again (60).

I hope no one got down after thinking of all the things we could have bought. I have to self talk a lot when I think of the could haves. We have to think of the ground we are gaining now by not throwing away money, but most of all we gain a new life of self respect. In this processes I am finding my old self. ....

spending money has always been a huge problem for me, yet throwing away hundreds isnt, even if i get in a safe/non sick mode and buy something or splurge, i worry about that plus gambling again, so now i have x and also gambling.....i suggest we learn a healthy relationship w/money and our connection w/it before buyin anything until we are healthy and abstinent for a year

just my opinion

Even a year is not actually enough for me. I am over a year abstinence but have only begun to explore my relationship with my money. I am reading a book called: Prince Charming Isn't Coming, How women get smart about money.
I will need more counseling around this subject, this book is a little more than what I need right now, but it is helpful.
Many American women my age, have been raised with a sexist subset of norms. For me it leaves me "waiting for Prince Charming". Stuck, if you will and leaving conscience healthy decisions about my money and future blowing in the wind. Just like my gambling, I pretty much let my finances and my life decisions get made by default or which ever way the wind was blowing I went along. Perhaps subconsciously this was a ploy to be able to avoid responsibility. I dealt with finances in the same addict method I dealt with the rest of life: Avoidance, denial, minimizing, procrastination along with the 1960's mantras of "Love the One You're With" , "Do it, if it feels good" and "Go with the flow".
All and all, not a healthy way to go through life. The more I grow internally, it seems, the more I can see that I must work on to be healthy. I realize we are never done, but certainly I can strive to at least be healthier. One day at a time.

My things are health, motivation/ambitions, time and self-respect. Those don't restore...fully.

That is very interesting Quit4good.
My abuse of money started when I inherited a lump sum. I did some smart things with a chunk of it and then my depression kicked in and that is when money had no value anymore.
I have always been very good with money and not spending what I don't have. Worked hard and didn't waste it. I was all grown up when I was a little kid. I think I just got pissed off at the money. I didn't ask for it, but yet it was now controlling me. I needed more.
I have said to my husband that the money I received ruined me. How can a person who values money, now blow it and not even care? My last trip to the trap I dropped 2T which was borrowed money. I know exactly what I was thinking as ever dollar disappeared. "Oh well it is just money." It was like I didn't want any more of it.
The relationship we have with money is important.
It is a tool to get what we need, but it can be tool that corrupts too.

After 1 month:
Could pay my bills. Bill collectors finally stopped calling.
Utilities stayed on. No more having the lights turned off.
Started to save money.

After about 3 months:
Had enough to pay down my debts.
Started to lose weight. Gym membership + fitness classes + workout gear + paying to see a nutritionist, all with just some of the time and money I would have spent at the casino.

After about 6 months:
Paid off my car. Don't even have a car payment anymore.
Down 20 pounds.
Started to buy new clothes and shoes for the first time in years.

After 8 months:
Redecorating my place. I'm finally starting to live in the type of atmosphere I've wanted to since I was a child: sophisticated, modern, clean. I can finally afford to repaint, buy furniture, and get decorative items. I'm starting to feel proud of my home, as well as myself.
Down 25 pounds. Thinking about paying to become a certified Pilates trainer.

Best of all, if I can stay clean for a year (which comes up in June), I think it will be time for my husband and I to start seriously thinking about getting pregnant. It would not be an environment conducive to raising a child if I am gambling all of the time.

MarieH2, I have a very similar way with money. I scrimped and saved and lived like a monk for years, then I got a big chunk of money and frittered it away gambling. I think that comes from not feeling like you deserve the money or that you deserve to be happy. so you gamble it. i'd waste hundreds on gambling and then hem and haw about spending $10 for something I needed. WTF?? I really felt like gambling today but I think I'm going to go to the hair salon. Another thing I scrimped on. I'm going to get my hair cut and highlighted and not give a hoot about the cost because it would be a fraction of what I would scratch away. Thank you for the post.