My Story Part 1

Hi there. My name is ...... (but you can call me CGR!), I’m 25 years old and I’m a compulsive gambling addict. After making repeated failed attempts to stop gambling and regain control of my life, I have decided to give it one more try and share my story with other people in the hope that this time, things finally change. Perhaps someone who is struggling the same way I have will see this one day and find it helpful to see that they’re not alone, so here’s my story and how I got to where I am.

(EDIT: this is a fairly long description of the background to my gambling. If you can’t be arsed to read it all, go to Part 2 where I describe my current situation and the aim of the blog)

My first experiences of gambling were from the age of 16 playing poker with my buddies from school. We used to hang out most weekends at a friend’s house, have a few drinks and smokes and play little £5 rebuy sit and goes. My friends were much better poker players than me and I never won, but it was cheap entertainment and a great way for us to all hang out and have a laugh.

When I moved away from home and went to university the poker games ended and I didn’t do any form of gambling until I was about 19. There were a couple of casinos in Brighton and some of my friends liked to play blackjack, so one night we went into town and decided to have a few drinks at the local Grosvenor casino before hitting the bars. I had never stepped foot in a casino before and was struck by the buzz in the air as I reached the casino floor. The drinks were flowing and the punters dressed up as they crammed around the gaming tables trying to get their bet in. I was young and it was exciting, but as a bit of a gambling novice I found the tables to be a little intimidating. I found myself an empty roulette terminal, stuck my 20 quid in and played low stakes for a about an hour. I can’t remember whether I won or lost, but I think back to this day sometimes and wonder how my life might be different today if I had never stepped foot in that casino. I may not remember the outcome of the evening, but I do know that I got a buzz out of it.

There were a few more occasions I visited the casino with my friends on nights out. I really enjoyed the buzz of being in there. My stakes stayed low and id gained a bit of confidence to play at the tables. The jostling around the table to get my bet down in time, the feeling of the chips in my hand. I loved it.

It wasn’t long before I was asking my friends if they wanted to go down there every weekend. But seemingly they weren’t as keen as I was, so I started to visit the casino on my own. But now it was maybe a couple of times a week, and I’d go during the week and during the day when it was quieter. I never took much money, and I’d had a couple of decent wins and started craving the buzz. Before I knew it I was a regular, joking with the croupiers and getting to know some of the other regular gamblers. By the time I left university I was gambling 3-5 times a week. I felt in control and didn’t get myself into any financial difficulties through my gambling, but I recognised that I had become kind of obsessed with it. I would lay in bed at night and try and think of new roulette bets to make to beat the odds and I was always planning my next trip down to the casino.

I finished my degree and left Brighton to go travelling in New Zealand. There were only 4 mainland casinos in the whole country at the time I was there, and as I was travelling in more rural parts of the country, I never really thought about gambling. It wasn’t until we made a stop in Queenstown, which is home to half of all the casinos in New Zealand that I was able to resume my favourite past time. The roulette table was a little expensive for my taste so I played blackjack instead. It wasn’t long before I was down $200 and walking back to the hostel feeling sick. If you’re reading this as a compulsive gambler you will know the feeling well. It was the most money I’d ever lost and I was travelling on a budget. I felt a sense of relief leaving Queenstown knowing that I wouldn’t be able to gamble for a while.

I rented a flat with the girl I was seeing in a town up North and didn’t have the opportunity to gamble any more as I was hundreds of miles away from the nearest casino. Even though I eventually split with the girl, I made some of the best friendships I’d ever had and have some of the very best times of my life. But eventually they all started to move away and I decided I’d do the same. My closest buddy was going down to Queenstown and I made the decision to go back down there and try to find myself some work. I only realise on reflection how big a mistake that was.

It was out of the tourist season and finding a job was proving hard, the money I had saved from my previous job was running low, and the girl I had gone out to New Zealand with and subsequently broken up with had started living in Queenstown and was making my life difficult. I was determined to stay as I loved the country so much, but my visa was running out and I lacked the funds necessary to extend it for another year. My Dad agreed to help me out and sent me £2000. But I didn’t go and get all my medicals done as I should have. Instead I completed part of my application and started to just live off the money having still not found a job. I was spending a lot of time drinking and smoking weed with my friend and started going to the casino again. It didn’t take long before the £2000 was running out, and I still hadn’t found work. I found myself getting increasingly depressed, but I kept gambling and before I knew it I was down to my last couple of hundred bucks. I confided in my friend, who being such a great guy told me I could crash on his floor as long as I needed to.

Eventually I found work but it was a crappy cold calling job and it made me miserable. I was good enough at it to make enough money to enjoy myself, but I was gambling most of it away every week rather than getting my own place to stay, and when I wasn’t at the casino I was getting drunk and stoned every night. After I couldn’t take working there anymore, I quit, blew most of my money and had to get my parents to buy me a flight home.

I was 23 now, and very soon after returning to England I got a decent job in the city. I was earning more money than I ever had, and while I had started betting on the football every weekend I could afford the £20 a week I’d put on the games and didn’t step foot in a casino for a good couple of years. But certain circumstances in my life were making me depressed again. I think that my tendency to get really down at times is probably related to my compulsive gambling. But then things got better. I met a girl and quickly fell in love with her. We would go out into the city every weekend together and after only a handful of dates we were in a relationship. My previous relationship was very toxic and damaging and I couldn’t believe that I had found someone who could make me so happy. For about the first year of our relationship I was as happy as I could ever remember being. We would go to museums, go out for dinner, go to the pub and get drunk together. I was saving money to get a deposit on a house and I felt really positive about where my life was heading. But something happened. I don’t know what triggered it, but I began to slip back into my own ways. Before I knew it, things had gotten bad. Really bad and really fast…….