Hey mate, I’m in the same boat as you married with one kid, mine is only 8 months.

I’ve been in constant denial too, my last gamble was 3 days ago and I blew everything, borrowed money of people pulled out a loan and in the end was left with nothing. I’ve had to reach out to my mother for a loan which I’ve told her is the final straw from me just to close everything out and start living a normal life, I have to.

Guess what I’m trying to say is that you can do it man, think about it properly you have a wife and a kid and they probably both love enjoying spending time with you, watching TV and doing family things. Me and you both don’t want to ruin that, what’s the point – just for gambling? It’s no way near worth it but this thing is a disease, all it takes is one little small thought and then you’ll go in saying oh just a 50 or whatever. Next thing you know you keep depositing and chasing. Even if we won, eventually we’ll get greedy put a bigger bet lose that, chase more and lose even more than we started with. It’s a vicious neverending cycle!

For me what I think works best is to have constant reminders of how you screwed up. You might not feel like you need GA meetings but one thing it’ll do is remind you of how bad it is with peoples stories, and perhaps you can even help someone. Imagine going every week and getting that constant reminder of it! You will be much stronger with holding back, that’s for sure. Gotta start somewhere and we can’t keep doing the same things, because they haven’t been working. Saying we’re going to stop and all this crap is all just when we’re humble after our losses, the moment things get comfortable again we get thoughts and gamble again.

Anyway I wish you the best of luck man, and yeah maybe give the GA a go

Welcome to the forum!

If you haven’t already I would go ahead and set up all of your self exclusions and gambling stops to give yourself the best chance possible of stepping away from the addiction. Also, look at when you normally gamble. Do you sit on your phone whilst at home for example? If that’s a common habit, place your phone on the other side of the room to help prevent you from feeding the habit.

Recognising triggers will help too. If you know what encourages you to gamble you can remove those triggers wherever possible.

Wishing you all the best! Make sure to update your journal often.

Hello and thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy forums

Here at Gambling Therapy we pride ourselves on being a caring and diverse online community who can help and support you with the difficulties you’re currently facing. We understand that this might be a tough time for you, particularly if you’re new to recovery, so come here as often as you need to and participate in the forums, access online groups and connect to the live advice helpline if you need one to one support. We’re in this together!

Here on the forum you can share your experiences in a safe, supportive and accepting environment. The beauty of writing it all down is that you can take your time and you will be creating a record of your progress that you can look back on if it ever feels like you’re not moving forward. So, share as much or as little as you like but do try to stick to keeping just one thread in this forum so people know where to find you if they want to be updated on your progress or share something with you.

As well as the forums New Members are invited to join Charles in the New Members Practical Advice Group On Mondays at 21:00 (UK) and Thursday at 19:00(UK)

And on that note….

I’m going to hand you over to our community because I’m sure they will have some words of wisdom for you 🙂

Take care

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

Keep going strong brother, you’ve got this. We need to keep our wives in our head constantly as they’re our rocks through these things! Not many partners would choke on the gambling habits for as long as some. Just keep her in your head all the time and keep researching ways to stop gambling, posting on this forum and going to any support groups that you can. I feel like if I constantly have quitting in my head, that I won’t actually do it. It’s only when we are comfortable and havene’t thought of it for a few days we start saying to ourselves “Ahhh it’s okay this one small bet, we’ve been good and it’s just one bet” it never really is just one bet though.