[charles]

We all know that when we have no money we can’t gamble, we made that discovery many times after we lost it of course!

Something that is often said here in the forums, in groups and at the GA meetings I go to is “Give control of your money to……”  It might be a partner, parent, trusted friend or whoever.  It’s not about not being able to access our money, it is still our money of course, it’s about not being able to acces it without being accountable for how we spend it. 

This is a barrier that will make it hard for anyone to gamble.  Even true accountability is a big deterrent for us to gamble if we can’t put an actual physical barrier in place, say because of distance.  I know that when i first stopoed gambling I lived far from anyone who could actually hold my money for me; having my bank statements etc sent to my mums address meant I knew that family would know if i was gambling. I knew i would be found out.  With online banking we can make ourselves accountable even if living in another continent to whoever we have chosen to be accountable to.

Now the mind rebels, the addiction certainly rebels.  Giving control of our money to someone else?  No way!!

Now ask yourself this:  if you have felt the need to come and look at a forum like this then how much “control of your money” do you really have right now?  Not much probably; if you are gambling the addiction controls it.

So who can hold your money for you?  Who can you be accountable to?   It’s still your money, you still decide how you are going to spend it, you just won’t be able to gamble.

Go on, regain that control.

[Mred321]

I followed most of the ideas above. I destroyed all credit cards. I put the money into my wifes name at the bank. only carried small amounts of money. Everything was fine until the place I worked at wanted direct deposit my pay into the bank account and this required them to put me name on the account. It was fine for a long time until one day I saw the check book laying on the table . I got the idea to cash a check. I thought if I took it from the back of the check book. My wife would not notice at least for a few weeks. That worked for a few weeks until she got to the end of the checks . She asked me about it of course I said I dont know anything about it.Well in the end I admitted to it . I guess the lesson in this is to always be on guard and never let your self to have access to money because we can not control our selves. Always have someone to watch over your money for you. Thank you for your time.

[Author]

Posts