All that did was to give you more bullets to kill yourself with. Get serious about your recovery or at least respect those here that do not really care what you win. We are a group of people that are trying to recover, we have won, and we have lost, and we now know it is better to just not play.

I agree with Skip, we have all won but this is not a message board comparing our winnings and loses, it is a recovery forum for people who do not want to gamble. The only time you should talk about gambling should be in remorse or you are in the wrong place. I am sure I could gamble and win sometime, but I never want to live with that obsession again. Hopefully you will realize you didn't really win you just prolonged your agony.

Isn't the reason people gamble due to feelings. And everything that happens with playing / winning / losing / is all part of those feelings. So basically you want people to suppress whats really going on and only write about the recovery and remorse. Doesn't that negate millions of people with a gambling problem that continue to gamble off and on? Is this a Utopian world we are living in? Sure feels like it. So freedom of speech doesn't work in this forum and I should be very careful what I say. Ok ... got it.

Someone want to handle this? That is not what I meant.

Ok, thinking about this a little more, here is the bottom line just for me. I am/was a poker player too, and your post about gambling and winning $700 makes me want to gamble. I haven't gambled in 5 months but I still get tempted So that's it, say what you want, there is free speech on here, that's just my take on it. Best wishes to you.

It was never my intention to do anything that would encourage you to gamble. In my lifetime I've lost far more than I ever won. I'm sorry.

Hats off to both new girl and Joe. New girl for saying what she did and Joe for the way you responded. God bled you both.

Bless

No hard feelings Joe and thanks.

Hearing people talk about how much they won is what happens at the casino, or wherever gambling action is happening. In fact, that is all they talk about, not the losses. For many folks the big win was the beginning of the end. It is the spark that allows a compulsive gambler to point to winnings and say "I can do that again", and again, and again, and again. It is the talk of winnings and not losses that adds to the "magical thinking" fairyland that we can trap ourselves in and sometimes NEVER get out. It is often reported that a big win was the line we crossed when we became compulsive. This is the reason that specific amounts of winnings are not discussed in recovery support groups, you will trigger others even if you don't re-trigger yourself. Can you imagine someone coming in to an AA meeting and talking about the great, wonderful drunken time they had and all the FUN things they got to do, how good it made them feel, how free, and powerful? That too is "magical thinking".
A big part of my recovery has been listening to what I tell myself. I would not have 2 years of abstinence if I focused on what I could win, that is not conducive to saying goodbye to gambling. I would suggest that your $720 win probably looks pretty measly next to the sum total of your losses, otherwise you would not be coming to this site. If you want to keep gambling that is your business, but leave those striving to quit out of your torture, please no more mention of specific amounts if you have empathy for others.

Quit4Good, you are so right about this
" For many folks the big win was the beginning of the end. It is the spark that allows a compulsive gambler to point to winnings and say "I can do that again", and again, and again, and again. It is the talk of winnings and not losses that adds to the "magical thinking" fairyland that we can trap ourselves in and sometimes NEVER get out. It is often reported that a big win was the line we crossed when we became compulsive."
I remember long ago, before I became a compulsive gambler, hearing on the news about people winning the lottery, then soon after becoming bankrupt. I had always presumed that maybe they just didn't know how to manage their finances and weren't accustomed to having a lot of money. Now of course I see it differently.
For those of us who've had to work hard to earn and save in the traditional sense, it comes with the idea of building towards a better future and eventually retiring from the treadmill of financial stress.
But then we're introduced to the slot machine, and gambling completely distorts our perspective of what time is, relative to what a dollar is worth. Money means everything and nothing. Addiction starts with our distortion of its value.

wow, being a in recovery, and reading your post, gave me so many flashbacks, and reminded me, once again, why I don't want to gamble, and why my recovery is so important to me. I remember, oh so well, the sound of the chips, the wins, and the losses. I remember trying to balance out the wins, against what I had lost previously, and then, I just stopped counting. Towards the end of my addiction it wasn't about the money for me anymore, although, trust me, I lost and won a lot. The addiction had me, hook, line and sinker. It took away so much more than money, it took away my self respect, my life really. All I could think about was the next bet, the next drive to the casino to play my next game of poker.... today, at least, today, I didn't have to do that. I don't check my bank account anymore to see what I lost, or rush to the ATM with my winnings to cover the amount I had taken out, prior to that. So, maybe you won, maybe you wont. But, when you are ready to try recovery, we are all here for you. Actually, please keep posting, not only will it help you, it definitely helped me. Thanks for the post.