Hey guys, just want to give you a quick update:
This is my day 27 without gambling and I feel great. No strong urges yet.
Just want to share what has been some key factors for me so far.
• Connection and support. I told my wife about my struggle and asked her to read more about gambling addiction to understand it better.
• Apps like betblocker and gamban did nothing for me, they are way to easy to by pass. Instead my wife is total control of our finances. I am the bread winner in our family but still I had to let go of ego and pride and be real about my problem. So now it’s really hard for me to gamble even if I wanted to. And even if I did she would find out, that’s reason enough for me not to.
• Be sincere in your quest to stop gambling. Do you want to quit? I mean are you really ready to leave gambling behind? Or is quitting just a temporary fix and a way for you to feel better since you already lost it all? For me this was important, I decided to stop while I was ahead and still could gamble a lot if I wanted to.
• Be aware of your thoughts. I realised after so many failures that gambling itself was not the biggest problem. Gambling was my support when I had a fight with my wife, when I was feeling stressed or sad. when I needed to zoom out and forget. If I had money problems gambling was there to offer a solution. It was a coping mechanism, a way to escape reality when things got rough. I think the same mechanics are at play in any kind of addiction, for example drug abuse. We need to find alternate healthy ways to connect and find stress relief.
• This is a life sentence. Never leave your guard down. Don’t get too comfortable. It’s never over. I’m sure it gets easier but this addiction can strike any time and leave you broke in a matter of hours. Never forget the pain and misery.
I’m sorry if a come off or mr knowitall or wannabe gambling addiction expert – I’m not. I’ve had long stretches without gambling before, sometimes as long as a year, but I still relapsed. Today is only day 27 but yeah, I honestly wanted to stop this time. My failed attempts usually wasn’t even me trying to stop, I just lost all my money and forgot about it. This time I made active decision to stop, to really work on it. To take action to stay gambling free is different than just not gamble.
Anyways, I feel great guys. Also I’m more willing to spend money on the kids and wife for a lot of fun stuff nowadays because I feel I already saved so much from not gambling. I was never cheap really just very careful with spending. Not gambling makes me wanna enjoy my money on other things. Like I said before I make good money but gamblling always held me back. Now I can start setting up financial goals and feel confident abour them.
Thanks guys.