[despot35]

Good evening everyone. This will actually be my first real confession, ever.
I just hope my story will be helpful to someone.
It all started when I was 16, in Serbia you can find ways to gamble even when you’re under 18. I was playing football (soccer) since I was 4 and I was always interested in playing or watching it. It started with a 0.2$ bet with a friend. We played 4 different games, and we missed one win to reach the win of 5$ each.
I was the best student in the entire school till the middle of a high school. I wasn’t eating since I was saving my parents tips for roulette or slots, and on Fridays my school day was spent by looking on a betting papers, planning the weekend.
I went to college, and I remember at least 10 times I haven’t gone to the exam, since I was chasing for money comeback on slots, roulette, sport gambling… I’ve tried it all. Good guess, I’ve started to lie. I wasn’t paying my college expenses, house bills, and I was always in small depths. That small made my university to kick me off, and I lost three times that money by gambling today. Yesterday was a bit worse. The day before was similar. Yes, I was gambling till two hours ago.
Now, you all know about the mutual bad feelings we have as gamblers, and that we are always trying to find the solution and quick help when we’re in the mud.
My first thoughts are:
-Sitting with your mother and father you haven’t seen for a few months, you are there only for a couple of hours, and you are playing online slots and mechanically answering to their questions. Let me remind us all. Those mother and father made me. They love me. They don’t know I’m gambling.
-Sitting with your girlfriend you are in a relationship with for 8 years, love of your life, asking how was her day, while hoping someone will score a goal or you will get free spins.
-Working as a entrepreneur, non stop, earning good money, but come to a situation that you don’t have 10$ to buy a gift for your born brother’s first son.
Lie. Lie. Lie.
Nobody knows. Nobody except my liver after all those cigarettes. My brain after all that stress. My heart after it lost all the feelings because of the gambling. I feel so empty and disappointed in myself. I’m 35 now. Half (hopefully) of my life passed by, I haven’t noticed it while chasing for a big win. I haven’t even noticed those big wins when they came. It swallowed me completely.
Don’t do that as I did. I’m begging you. If you already did, let’s try to live at least the other parts of our lifes properly.
Best regards,
Ivan

[charles]

Hello and thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy forums. By posting to the forums you’re allowing the diverse and caring Gambling Therapy community to help support you through the difficulties you’re facing.

This may well be a tough time for you – particularly if you’re new to recovery, so we encourage you to post here as often as you need to, as well as making use of the online groups and the live advice helpline if you’d like some one-to-one support. We’re all in this together! If you’re a new member, you are warmly invited to join Charles in one of the New Members Practical Advice groups (Mondays at 21:00 UK Time and Thursdays at 19:00 UK Time).

The forum is a great place to share your experiences in a safe, supportive and accepting environment. By writing it all down you can start to build a record of your progress that you can look back on – particularly useful if you’re ever feeling stuck. Share as much or as little as you like – but you’re encouraged to stick to keeping to just one thread in this forum – so people know where to find you to check in on your progress or to share something with you.

The Gambling Therapy staff team don’t generally post to the forums as it is a peer support area of the site – so we’ll hand you over to the community from here.

Take care,

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS. Please take a moment to review our privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works.

[charles]

Hi Ivan and welcome.

First of all I must apologise – it shouldn’t have taken this long to approve your post.

Well done on looking for help. Here we have these forums – read the other stories here and you will see a lot that you will relate to. Also live groups and a 1- 1 helpline.

Now that you ahve stopped gambling you have a lot of support available.

I can relate to what you say, I was pretty much your age when I stopped gambling. Put some barriers in place to start with: exclude from your usual sites, get a blocker to stop you signing up at others. Try and speak to your parents or someone else you trust, they can help with some of the financial barriers you will read about here. It is a lot easier to tell them now that you won’t just be presenting them with the problem – you can be showing them what you are going to DO about it which is a big difference,

There is also a lot of other support around. Places like Gamblers Anonymous, counselling, even zoom support groups. The important thing is to use it.

Keep posting and let us know the positive steps that you are taking.

[Author]

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