- This topic has 19 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 10 years ago by bellman.
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28 October 2014 at 7:49 pm #27264bellmanParticipant
Hello
I am a compulsive gambler in Jersey. Jersey has a huge gambling problem however our GA meetings have only 10 registered members with an average of only 5 attending each week. Being at the meetings has helped to a certain extent but they are boring and mundane. Every member simply says no gambling to report this week had a good week at work etc and that is that. The 5 people all say the same thing I am desperate to talk to people properly. Obviously it’s a good thing that these people are all doing well however I was hoping that GA meetings would be a form of therapy which it does lack. Does anyone understand where I am coming from as I am hoping I can talk to people who understand
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28 October 2014 at 8:13 pm #27265mickyParticipant
Hello bellman and welcome to our family, yes i can agree with you it doesn’t work for me either, although like you say if it works for other people thats great. Micky
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28 October 2014 at 8:21 pm #27266bellmanParticipant
Hi Micky good to hear from you and thanks for your response. What is the reason why GA didn’t work for you and what specifically was your gambling addiction?
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28 October 2014 at 8:50 pm #27267mickyParticipant
Me personally, it was the same old stories every week and i thought that was negative but please remember thats my opinion if it works for others thats great , my gambling was in the bookmakers either horse or greyhounds live or virtual . I have been educating myself recently about the gambling industry and all the destruction it causes, wether it’s being cruel to horses and greyhounds or sucking the last penny out of a desperate human being . I now abhorr everything it stands for . Micky
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28 October 2014 at 9:24 pm #27268bellmanParticipant
Hi Mickey I am a 43 year old woman married with 2 lovely children who we have brought up the right way. My focus was always on my children. However my gambling started at a very young age around 10 years old. My family were not well off and we never went on holiday at all and my parents never drove a car so rarely took us anywhere apart from the beach. I never complained because I didn’t know any better. My mother also had a serious mental illness (which I was never told about in my youth) though it always appeared to me that my mother was strange. When we were young we had a couple of places that had arcades. I spent my young days in these arcades I was drawn to them they were exciting and I found myself helping the holiday makers win money on the slot machines and they would give me a few pound for helping them, and I then also had money to go on the machines myself. At the age of 12 I was bringing home £15 per day which was loads of money and I eventually saved up £300 in my wardrobe and purchased a new racing bike and a gold ring. I was hooked. At the age of 16 I got a decent job working in finance, my starting salary 30 years ago was £90 per week, I was earning more than my own dad. He charged me £40 per week rent which was a lot of money but it didn’t matter to me as far as I was concerned I would get this money back in the arcades. The gambling was definitely a distraction from my home life – win or lose it was exciting I loved being around the arcades. Eventually the arcades closed down however I was 18 by this time and it was my first experience of a bookie. I think I was only one of the only women to ever go in a bookie, everyone knew me but I didn’t mind I still enjoyed it even though I was a little embarrassed to be gambling being the only female. I actually remember my first bet £40EW on a 16 runner sprint handicap called Cumbrian Waltzer. I was so nervous I couldn’t watch the race. I walked back into the bookie and was so shocked to see the horse had won. In my excitement I threw my betting slip away and had to search in the ash trays. This win got me approx £670 – if it had lost who knows what would have happened but I suppose I still would have ended up in the betting shops every day. During this period I met my now husband, lovely man never bet in his life I was head over heels in love we had to be together. We were so hooked on each other that we decided to get engaged after only 6 months but made a terrible decision to move into his parents house so we could save up enough money to buy our first house. This was a destructive period for me because I was suffering from severe boredom, I spent these 5 years at work then going home to spend all my time in the bedroom. I didn’t want to interfere in my boyfriends parents space. This was the start of using teletext and spending time in the local bookies placing bets mainly on golf and football. I made many thousands and lost many thousands. My boyfriend spent many hours at work, and I spent many hours spending all of his hard earns cash and that was the pattern. We purchased our first house at the age of 23 but again this was destructive, because I spent most of the time in the house alone and this was my first experience of internet betting. This was the period of spending many thousands of pounds – we had to remortgage twice after my gambling sprees spending £70,000. I did have 2 major wins of £20,800 and £20,000 on the golf which we spent on our wedding and a new BMW however everything else I lost or wasted. I always promised my husband I would never bet again. He took me to my doctor however 18 years ago in Jersey there were no GA meetings they only started up locally 12 years ago so there was no support for me. I did manage to get a little better by taking my bank account away and restricting my cash allowance but I felt bitter about working all month and having nothing for myself. We got married 14 years ago and had our first child, with our second child 4 years later. I still gambled however not to such a heavy extent but if I got down in the dumps I would go on gambling binges not to win but just to gamble. I really just feel at my time of life I need to sort myself out it’s gone on for too long. I have attended the last 8 weeks of GA meetings but as I explained earlier they are only a tiny group of people who all say they have not gambled from week to week. I need to speak to people in a therapy type situation and feel this is the best site for me. I look forward to speaking to many people that understand where I am coming from
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28 October 2014 at 9:53 pm #27269mickyParticipant
You have come to the right place , you can post as often as you like and use the chatrooms when they are on. 🙂 Micky
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29 October 2014 at 1:17 am #27270Dorothy777Participant
When I started to go to GA meetings after I got out of treatment, I would head off to the casino right after the meeting ended. What was that????? Willfulness, denial, anger ….. all of the above. I am starting to return to meetings but distance is a big problem, so I am trying this online tool.
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29 October 2014 at 11:12 am #27271DuncKeymaster
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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 youre currently facing. We understand that this might be a tough time for you, particularly if youre 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. Were 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 youre 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.
And on that note….
Im going to hand you over to our community because Im 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!
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29 October 2014 at 8:30 pm #27272bellmanParticipant
Hi Dorothy so what was the type of gambling that you were drawn into – was it mainly casinos? We don’t have any casinos in Jersey so for me it was mainly online gambling – though we do have 28 bookies in our capital st helier and the island only has a population of 100,000
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29 October 2014 at 8:37 pm #27273bellmanParticipant
Just wondered how many of you still actually gamble from time to time or whether the majority are in full recovery?
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29 October 2014 at 10:07 pm #27274moniqueParticipant
Welcome to this site and I hope it will be at least part of what you are looking for. Just a quick thought, also, about the GA meetings. You are finding them a bit repetitive and that the other members are not really exploring things in depth – the problems, struggles etc perhaps. I just wonder if you have explained what you are looking for? Some of the others may have got into a bit of a ‘rut’ and are (hopefully) coping well now, but I imagine there will be some really strong stories behind the current ‘successes’ – could you try somehow to encourage more sharing of past experiences and struggles? Ask what they have been through? What helped them? What kind of thoughts and feelings did they have to overcome? etc. If you say it is because you want to get to a ‘good place’ yourself and would value knowing more of how they got there, it might draw them out. Who knows, maybe some of them are also hiding a bit and long for more ‘reality’!
On the other hand, maybe this will not work – you will read on here that some people love the meetings and others do not get so much from them. In that case, you turn to where you can get the right help for you. Have you attended the group sessions here? Click on Support Groups at the top of the page and find out when the groups take place and just log in when you can. And, of course, keep writing and reading on the forum – and maybe also other reading that will help, as Mickey suggests.
Your gambling goes way back to a time when you were vulnerable and needed some kind of ‘escape’. There is a whole road of recovery to follow now, one step at a time. It can take a while to really feel you are launched on this new journey, but, when you really search for the best ways forward, you will find them, I think.
All good wishes,
Monique
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29 October 2014 at 10:45 pm #27275bellmanParticipant
Thank you Monique this is very useful. We all went into depth at my first GA meeting everyone told me about their own gambling history and I also did the same. I really enjoyed that meeting, however every meeting since then the members just saying hello my name is xxx I am a compulsive gambler no gambling to report this week and they all say the same, and this is the pattern to every meeting, I have got bored to be honest. Gambling wise I have been pretty good only £20 to report on the football in 2 weeks normally this would be many hundreds of pounds – I have self excluded myself from all internet betting sites with no betting to report in my bank account since 28th August which is a massive step in the right direction
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30 October 2014 at 11:12 am #27276mickyParticipant
HI Bellman just wondered how you were doing ? Your last post is positive you said it “a step in the right direction ” Micky 🙂
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30 October 2014 at 5:57 pm #27277bellmanParticipant
Hi Micky yes no internet gambling to report at all since end of August. That was my major source of gambling I have self excluded myself so no way of internet gambling
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30 October 2014 at 7:18 pm #27278charlesModerator
Hi Bellman and welcome to the Forum. Well done on getting banned from those internet sites, why not get banned from where ever it is that you placed those footy bets as well?
I facilitate some of the groups here and there are 3 consequtive groups this evening running form now till 10pm UK time. It would be good to meet you if you wanted to talk to other compulsive gamblers.
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30 October 2014 at 7:45 pm #27279bellmanParticipant
Hello
I am trying to access a group but it says you need to wait for it to go green? How do I join up
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30 October 2014 at 7:57 pm #27280charlesModerator
Click on Support Groups at the top of this page, hover over the group time and it should show a green “join” link, click on that.
Alternatively – Click on Support Groups at top of page, click on view as list and it will show the groups that are open and you can click on it there. If you take that option then make sure you click on the right group as there are usually several different language groups on at the same time.
Hopefully see you shortly! 🙂
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30 October 2014 at 8:15 pm #27281bellmanParticipant
Unfortunately I do not get the green “join” link when I hover over the group the page refreshes automatically but I can’t get this join button to come up
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30 October 2014 at 11:20 pm #27282charlesModerator
Hi Bellman,
i’m glad you managed to connect in the end. I hope the group helped, see you again soon I hope. keep posting and let us know the positive steps you are taking in recovery.
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31 October 2014 at 7:26 am #27283bellmanParticipant
I really enjoyed the session thank you and will definitely keep in touch with the group it was very helpful
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