What now...
Well... as many on here do, I suffered another relapse. Hard to admit... so very hard to admit. I still want to "prove" I am not an addict by doing a little gambling now and again, or maybe thats one story I tell myself. I also WANT to gamble, its a fact. I might never stop wanting to, so what do I do? The choice I suppose is mine, but the choices I make are not always the best, rational choices, when I find I am driving and make a WRONG turn.
On the one hand I tell myself its not that bad, that if I stop, I will be fine. On the other hand I keep telling myself that, and then choosing to go back and make it even worse. Why am I such a horrible person? What did I think was going to happen? The writing was on the wall. I made the same mistake over and over and over, what a fool I am.
I watched the movie Flight on the weekend, with Denzel, and what an eye opener that was. Such a sad story of addiction. One of the greatest lines was "I CHOOSE to drink". Wow. Yes, we choose our own paths of self destruction. Is that what I want? Self destruction? He was basically saying he could stop if he wanted to but he didn't want to, he wanted to choose to drink. And just like in the movie, if I have a "drink" in front of me, I'm gonna drink it up... In my case though it seems to be access to cash and time.
Recently I had a little extra cash and a little extra time, and I figured I would take a shot, I knew my limit, and I played within it. I lost the money I took, had no more money I could access, so I left. Then another week or two later I had a little more cash. I went again, lost and left. At this point I'm thinking "OK that was stupid, but losing small amounts of extra cash isn't so bad if I keep it under control" - how wrong I was! The next trip was the worst, because I got another taste of winning. So, I had to hide my winnings, and of course that meant I had even more "extra" cash. You can guess what happened. Yes I went back, actually won a second time, but then since then I have been back about 8 times in a few short weeks. After losing the winnings and the original "extra", I had an offer to extend my credit on my credit card, I thought I could handle it, would only use just a little, and then I would call to reduce my credit limit back down to slightly higher than it was before. I was going to do it, and then tell my wife. If I lost I would tell her I just had to pay off my old gambling debts from before, make up some story. Of course losing once, one little bit, did nothing to stop me. I proceeded to use up all of the extra $3000 I was offered. Not all at once, one little bit at a time. How can a sane, intelligent person, go and make such a dumb mistake over and over and over? For some reason each time I went and lost $500 I would tell myself its all going to be ok. Well, it is and it isnt.
Now I have to try and hide this extra $3k in debt for who knows how long, and at the same time maintain that I am gamble free, AND at the same time try and fix myself so I CAN be gamble free, because thats the only way I can fix it and slowly pay back the 3k.
On the one hand, it isnt a huge amount of money, I will get a tax return for more than half that bc I have a bunch of claims to make and I overpaid last year. The problem is we combined our bank accounts so I can't simply take money out of the account to pay the credit card off, and my wife knows about the tax return and has already decided where we are spending it. So not only do I have to pay it off but I have to pay it off using cash tips I receive so I can hide that too. All this after I was feeling so good about being open and honest about everything!! :(
On the other hand it eats away at me how much money that is, how much I could have done! I could have completely wiped out all my other debts and combined them onto my credit card, and still not used it all up I think. I have been trying to pay off my Dad about 2k loan for the last 2.5 years... I still owe another friend 200 still from last summer, and my Mom another 300 from the fall ---- ALL OF WHICH ARE GAMBLING debts... oh boy now the reality is sinking in.
The only positive side I can think of is that I need to use this as motivation to try even harder to quit, and after 3 months or so to be guarded against that "one little bet". And also use it as motivation to work harder. In Nov/Dec when I was GF I did make quite a bit of extra and paid off about $1000 in payday loans and other silly gambling debts. If I stay GF, I could maybe have everything square again in 8-10 months perhaps.
On the one hand I tell myself its not that bad, that if I stop, I will be fine. On the other hand I keep telling myself that, and then choosing to go back and make it even worse. Why am I such a horrible person? What did I think was going to happen? The writing was on the wall. I made the same mistake over and over and over, what a fool I am.
I watched the movie Flight on the weekend, with Denzel, and what an eye opener that was. Such a sad story of addiction. One of the greatest lines was "I CHOOSE to drink". Wow. Yes, we choose our own paths of self destruction. Is that what I want? Self destruction? He was basically saying he could stop if he wanted to but he didn't want to, he wanted to choose to drink. And just like in the movie, if I have a "drink" in front of me, I'm gonna drink it up... In my case though it seems to be access to cash and time.
Recently I had a little extra cash and a little extra time, and I figured I would take a shot, I knew my limit, and I played within it. I lost the money I took, had no more money I could access, so I left. Then another week or two later I had a little more cash. I went again, lost and left. At this point I'm thinking "OK that was stupid, but losing small amounts of extra cash isn't so bad if I keep it under control" - how wrong I was! The next trip was the worst, because I got another taste of winning. So, I had to hide my winnings, and of course that meant I had even more "extra" cash. You can guess what happened. Yes I went back, actually won a second time, but then since then I have been back about 8 times in a few short weeks. After losing the winnings and the original "extra", I had an offer to extend my credit on my credit card, I thought I could handle it, would only use just a little, and then I would call to reduce my credit limit back down to slightly higher than it was before. I was going to do it, and then tell my wife. If I lost I would tell her I just had to pay off my old gambling debts from before, make up some story. Of course losing once, one little bit, did nothing to stop me. I proceeded to use up all of the extra $3000 I was offered. Not all at once, one little bit at a time. How can a sane, intelligent person, go and make such a dumb mistake over and over and over? For some reason each time I went and lost $500 I would tell myself its all going to be ok. Well, it is and it isnt.
Now I have to try and hide this extra $3k in debt for who knows how long, and at the same time maintain that I am gamble free, AND at the same time try and fix myself so I CAN be gamble free, because thats the only way I can fix it and slowly pay back the 3k.
On the one hand, it isnt a huge amount of money, I will get a tax return for more than half that bc I have a bunch of claims to make and I overpaid last year. The problem is we combined our bank accounts so I can't simply take money out of the account to pay the credit card off, and my wife knows about the tax return and has already decided where we are spending it. So not only do I have to pay it off but I have to pay it off using cash tips I receive so I can hide that too. All this after I was feeling so good about being open and honest about everything!! :(
On the other hand it eats away at me how much money that is, how much I could have done! I could have completely wiped out all my other debts and combined them onto my credit card, and still not used it all up I think. I have been trying to pay off my Dad about 2k loan for the last 2.5 years... I still owe another friend 200 still from last summer, and my Mom another 300 from the fall ---- ALL OF WHICH ARE GAMBLING debts... oh boy now the reality is sinking in.
The only positive side I can think of is that I need to use this as motivation to try even harder to quit, and after 3 months or so to be guarded against that "one little bet". And also use it as motivation to work harder. In Nov/Dec when I was GF I did make quite a bit of extra and paid off about $1000 in payday loans and other silly gambling debts. If I stay GF, I could maybe have everything square again in 8-10 months perhaps.
Replies
The same kind of thing happened to me... I went back and won and it was all I could think about again. I think it was really helpful for me because I discovered that winning was the worst thing that could happen. I was kind of scared of it and used that to keep me from going back. When I wanted to go back I said to myself - \"One of two things is going to happen; either you are going to lose your money and want to go back in a couple of weeks or you are going to win and immediately revert to wanting to go all of the time and having to fight like hell to stay away\". Both of those options are not appealing and I think it helped me when I wanted to go the next time. We can do this.... just keep at it, try new ways, stay vigilant.