10-05-2010, 11:47 AM
Hi there
I am in pretty much the same situation although I have lost thousands on bingo, slots, roulette... etc.
You said something in your post which smacked me in the face like an anvil. I WON. It happened to me too. I got hooked after winning and then falling into the trap of believing I was different to the "losers". Of course now I am a loser. Anyway in terms of things you can do.
Have you contacted the sites you've been using and asked them to suspend your accounts?
I'm not sure whether this is even possible but one thing I always considered doing was contacting my bank and asking them to block transactions I make to certain accounts, the sites will be on your bank statements so I'm sure they'd be able to identify which ones you mean. Might be worth asking them, although like I say whether it's possible, I'm not sure.
At the end of the day there is no easy way of stopping yourself from gambling online. It's too easy, right? You don't need to travel to a casino in the wind and rain. You don't get see the cash you're losing in real terms, i.e a pile of bank notes in your hand one minute and gone the next, the scary way. Nobody even knows you're there, in a virtual world, so how can anyone drag you away from it? My favourite trick was to have another browser window running behind the casino site so with one click anybody who looked at the screen would see I was only looking at Ebay or amazon or something similar. It's all TOO EASY!
Anyway I hope you can find a way of stopping yourself, if not for your sake, for your kids. You may not think that you're losing too much money now, but you will. You've gotten on the merry-go round and you're already justifying it by saying I'm not losing too much money. ANY LOSS is a LOSS, no matter how big or small. It's YOUR MONEY in somebody elses pocket! You really do sound like you're where I was four or five years ago, and I hope this sums it up for you... I'd give ANYTHING to be writing this to myself, back then.
Anyway keep in touch and let me know if any of those ideas worked.
I am in pretty much the same situation although I have lost thousands on bingo, slots, roulette... etc.
You said something in your post which smacked me in the face like an anvil. I WON. It happened to me too. I got hooked after winning and then falling into the trap of believing I was different to the "losers". Of course now I am a loser. Anyway in terms of things you can do.
Have you contacted the sites you've been using and asked them to suspend your accounts?
I'm not sure whether this is even possible but one thing I always considered doing was contacting my bank and asking them to block transactions I make to certain accounts, the sites will be on your bank statements so I'm sure they'd be able to identify which ones you mean. Might be worth asking them, although like I say whether it's possible, I'm not sure.
At the end of the day there is no easy way of stopping yourself from gambling online. It's too easy, right? You don't need to travel to a casino in the wind and rain. You don't get see the cash you're losing in real terms, i.e a pile of bank notes in your hand one minute and gone the next, the scary way. Nobody even knows you're there, in a virtual world, so how can anyone drag you away from it? My favourite trick was to have another browser window running behind the casino site so with one click anybody who looked at the screen would see I was only looking at Ebay or amazon or something similar. It's all TOO EASY!
Anyway I hope you can find a way of stopping yourself, if not for your sake, for your kids. You may not think that you're losing too much money now, but you will. You've gotten on the merry-go round and you're already justifying it by saying I'm not losing too much money. ANY LOSS is a LOSS, no matter how big or small. It's YOUR MONEY in somebody elses pocket! You really do sound like you're where I was four or five years ago, and I hope this sums it up for you... I'd give ANYTHING to be writing this to myself, back then.
Anyway keep in touch and let me know if any of those ideas worked.