Trying to figure out how I got to where I am now is kind of
hard. I know how it happened, but not why.
The first time I stepped foot in a casino since I returned
from New Zealand was with my old school friends on a night out. One of us had
come back to London for a month after moving out to Canada and he wanted to go
to the Hippodrome casino in Leicester Square. We drank in a pub nearby and
headed to the tables. I took out £200 and my numbers were hot. I was up £800 in
20 minutes and my friends wanted to leave so I cashed out and headed home. But I
didn’t really feel that happy about it. In fact I felt mentally drained from
the experience. It wasn’t more than a couple of weeks before I decided to go
back after work on my own. I lost £500 in no time and left with that sick
feeling in my stomach. I’d never lost so much in one session before and it hurt
for days. I went back the next week to try and win it back and lost another
£500. In a moment of desperation and despair I called my girlfriend and told
her what happened. She was pissed off at first and I went over to her place to
talk about it. When I told her my previous experiences with gambling and feeling
like I have a compulsive gambling streak in me, she was sympathetic and
supportive but told me never to go back to the casino on my own and of course I
told her I would. I think I believed it myself, but the bug had set back in.
It was October. I won a small football bet at some point in
the weeks after. I decided id put the £70 I won on online roulette and I got it
up to £600, so I withdrew £500 and played with the last hundred pounds. Over the
course of the next few days, I got that £100 to £5000. I was buzzing so much
having never won so much, but I was having trouble verifying my account so I wasn’t
able to withdraw. I kept playing and the inevitable happened, I blew the lot. I
don’t think I slept properly for a week after that, but eventually consoled
myself that I had actually profited from the session if not as much as I should
have. This was my first experience of gambling online on anything other than
sports and I was hooked.
The £4000 I had saved up that year didn’t last long. By Christmas
I was overdrawn by £4000 and the savings were gone. By this point I was in a
really bad way and had confessed it all to my girlfriend. She was horrified and
let me have it for a while, but again she supported me and told me she would
help me get past this. I feel guilty at how understanding she has been. I see
the hurt on her face but all she wants to do is help me. I decided it would be
helpful to tell my parents, and they were equally supportive. They gave me
money to buy presents for everyone and gave me some money to help ease my
overdraft situation. I think you can guess where most of that money went…
Things kept spiralling, I was so desperate to get my money
back that I couldn’t stop. My life was consumed at this point. I wasn’t eating,
wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t really turning up to work and when I was there I wasn’t
doing what I needed to do. All I could think of was how badly I had fucked up
and how I was going to make it better. I realise this is a mistake that I continue
to make. The money side of things is the inevitable outcome of a problem
gambler, but it shouldn’t be what we focus on as we try to recover. If anything
it is what has been holding me back from getting better.
I was majorly depressed and took a couple of weeks off work.
I was feeling suicidal and my self esteem had completely disappeared. Despite the
love and support I was receiving from my family and my girlfriend, I felt
completely alone and unable to properly express how I was feeling and started
harming myself.
Eventually I managed to get some sessions with Gamcare but I
didn’t find it particularly helpful. I enjoyed being able to say everything I wanted
to say to someone who isn’t personally invested in my recovery, but the
gambling didn’t stop and it still hasn’t. That’s when the lies you tell your
loved ones start to grow as you can’t face telling them about your repeated
failure to stop doing the one thing that you know is ruining your life.
I became distant. I stopped talking about it with them all
and pretended things were getting better. By this point I had amassed some
considerable debt on loans and credit cards, which in turn just fed my need to
gamble more and more and try and get it all back. As the months went by, the
feeling of desperation that had been haunting me every day started to be
replaced with numbness and an acceptance of my problem. It started to feel
futile to even try and get better, all the while trying to mask the misery I was
causing myself to the people I love who had no idea that things were still as
bad as they had been at the previous Christmas. The only positive thing about this
time is that I was unable to get into much worse debt than I was already in. But
that isn’t entirely positive, as the only reason my debt hasn’t been able to
get worse is because I have completely fucked my credit rating.
And here I am now. A year later and nothing is any
different. Only I’m more distant than I was. Rather than open up to my loved
ones about my situation I keep it all to myself. My girlfriend has stuck by me
but our relationship has suffered. I don’t ever have any money any more to go
out with her and have fun, spending time gambling rather than spending time
with her. The feeling of guilt gets pretty overwhelming at times, knowing that
she deserves better than what I can give her until I start to get myself right.
If this seems like a sob story or that I’m looking for
sympathy, I’m not. I don’t feel sorry for myself anymore, I just hate myself,
and its hard to look at myself and see that that’s what I’ve become over the
last year. I could go on about this forever, but I think I have made my point
and chances are that if you’re reading this, you know the feelings I’m talking
about for yourself. And that brings me to why I’m writing all this…
I’m sick of what my life has become. It’s November the 10th
2017 and I have had enough. I don’t want to spend another Christmas unable to
buy the people I love a gift for Christmas because I spunked the lot on the slots
or a roulette table. I don’t want to lie to them anymore about being okay. I don’t
want to lose everything I care about before and realise that I left it too
late.
So I have decided to start this blog to chronicle my
recovery. With any luck, other people will read this and be able to relate. Gambling
addiction is a lonely thing and if reading this makes someone feel less alone,
then it has done something positive. And if you have read this (it’s a long fucking
ramble so pat yourself on the back for getting this far!) I’d love to hear from
you. If you are struggling or you have recovered or want to share your story, I
think the people who suffer from this addiction can really benefit from the
support of like minded people.
I’m no professional when it comes to addiction and recovery,
but I feel like my experiences have given me a pretty decent understanding of
the issues gambling addiction can cause. I’ll try to update the blog daily and
discuss my progress and talk about the things that compulsive gamblers face and
my own personal issues with the way the gambling industry operates in the UK.
I last gambled 5 days ago. This time I’m not going to fail.
Hello mate. 348 days ago I was you. A decade cultivating a close to daily online slots addiction and £15k of assorted debts.
ReplyDeleteThe bit about feeling shitty for not being able to buy christmas presents really struck a chord. I remember all of it. The only reason I broke down and confessed all was because I literally spent every penny of my salary on payday. 30th November 2016.
I did some counselling with Gamcare. I gave my girlfriend full control of all my money and sight of all bank statements. Blocked online casinos, took out a loan to consolidate the debt. Four years. 330 pounds a month. It's a lot but I was spending double that on interest and double that on slots a year ago. I don't know how, I guess that's where the debt came from.
Anyway, I wanted to post to say that EVERYTHING gets better. I'm still skint, but that's because I became a dad and I spend all my money on my son, a much better way to waste it. I still watch the odd video on YouTube like the Bandit, it's where I saw your link, and I would be lying if I said I didn't get any sneaky urges. But time is a healer, cliche as it sounds. You'll never be able to gamble responsibly again, But the sick feeling in your stomach will go, You'll get some self confidence back and hold your head up high, feel proud of things you've done good, not just ashamed.
It gets better. And next month I start year two of recovery.
You could be me in a year.
Wow mate, well first of all thank you so much for taking the time to share your story.
DeleteIt sounds like you have come a long way and achieved a lot of healing over the last 348 days. I think stories like yours and mine can resonate with thousands of people out there. That was the reason I wanted to start sharing it in the first place and I really appreciate you doing the same, its great to see someone who has made the positive changes necessary to their life.
Isn't it strange how we don't think twice about the ridiculous sums of money we put into these casino sites? That's an aspect of it I just can't get my head around. I mean if i go into Costa Coffee in my lunch break I think twice about paying 4 quid for a sandwich but would happily blow hundreds in an hour online gambling. Fucking crazy.
Good luck to you in the future my man, like you say that urge to have another bet seems to be hard to shake but it sounds as though you have a lot of reasons and safeguards to keep you straight.
Cheers
What a whiny cunt you sound your girlfriend is best rid.
ReplyDeleteOh well thanks for your well thought out and stimulating response.
DeleteI'm glad that's what you took out of an attempt to be honest about something a lot of people experience but don't feel they can talk about. There's no whining here bud, I don't feel sorry for myself and I don't want anyone else to.
I'm glad it brought out one of you big Internet tough guys though 😂
Hi mate, my name is Sean.
ReplyDeleteReally incredible reading your story, as it is so similar to mine. I'm 31, my first real experience in a casino was in that very grosvenor on brighton sea front, i used to bet 50 or 60 quid a weekend when i was 21 and at uni. Somehow, 10 years later, ive lost over 200 grand of my own, parents and friends money. I've cheated, lied and stolen to people who are supposed to matter to me, and in essence, ive ruined my life. I'm a shadow of my former self, and i see no end to it unfortunately. I self excluded myself from every bookies in london, but used to walk in and out of them freely as if they didnt care. I tried moving countries to a Spain, where gambling isn't as easily accessible as it is in england, none of it has worked, i'm still capable of betting my last 20 quid to leave me with nothing to eat. If you have any advice i would appreciate it, but the truth is, i think this is the one addiction you can never truly recover from. Good luck anyway bro. x
Hey Sean, firstly mate thank you for sharing your story, it may only be a small thing but it feels good to write it down doesn't it?
DeleteThe first thing I want to say is absolutely you can beat this. It sounds like you're heavily addicted, and I totally understand the feeling that you can't beat it but you can!
As you may know I'm only three weeks gamble free, but you have to start somewhere and that's the best I have managed in many years. If you can get three weeks gamble free, what's to say you can't be three months or three years?
Can I ask what else you have in place currently to try and stop yourself? Perhaps I can suggest a few things that have worked for myself that might help you too.
Looking forward to hearing back from you mate