I qave up gambling

dvsax

Non-Gambler
Joined
Jan 11, 2011
Location
florida
Well gambling for me has been a nightmare. The wins made me feel high, mentally high. When I won $18,500 in a period of 4 hours playing slots at an MG casino online, I was hooked. It was beginners luck, it felt like getting high off drugs the first time. I liked it too much. I kept trying to win more, $20k was my goal, hours later, gone. The next 5 years I have chased that win. And I have had many ups and downs. The ups were $500-$5000 wins, but I never cashed out any of them successfully. The desire in me was too strong to win more. My willpower was not there, my mind played tricks.

Gambling can be an escape from realities of this world. It takes you away from your problems for a moment. I used to say that anyone that talked about gambling as a problem, was just losing. Winners don't have a problem, because they are winning, right? Well I was wrong in this line of thinking and it hurt me in many serious ways. It is human nature to risk little for much gain. It is in all of us. People do it everyday in many different fashions. Over time risk will outweigh the gain, and when it does it hits hard, and hurts.

I spent the last 3 months chasing that feeling. I won some, won even more, and lost it back again and again. I only lost about $1500 during this time. I even considered chargebacks to recoup my losses. But, I will not learn from this if I do that, and I really gamble on my future by making a false credit card claim. Which could land a person in jail. So I am letting it go this last time.

I quit Feb 6 2011. I contacted the last remaining MG casinos that i could play at and closed my accounts forever. I would buy the blocking software, but as a computer network guy, I feel I would find it a challenge later to circumvent this, and gamble again. No it has to be me that does this. I played some scratcher tickets for a few days afterward. It helped a little to ween off the gambling roller coaster. But I realize this has an ending to and decided to quit all money games forever, lotto, scratchers, all. It's like quiting smoking but taking a puff again, your mind will trick you back into the old habit.

I'm getting married in 2 months to a great girl I met last year. I cannot take this ugly addiction with me. I hope the best to anyone else that has decided to take a different path to happiness other then the dream of riches by gambling.
 
You have already overcome one of the biggest hurdles - recognising that you have a serious problem and resolving to do something about it, so kudos to you on that.

Your upcoming marriage to someone who is clearly very special to you will hopefully give you more motivation to stay with your commitment to stop....and you should stop completely and permanently for both yourself and your new bride.

Don't be afraid to seek help - there's plenty of it out there.

Good luck, dvsax.
 
Lots of luck to you, Dvsax. It sounds like you have taken the important first steps to quitting and your upcoming marriage should give you even more reason to step away from gambling. :thumbsup:

Be strong, you can do it, lots of others have and will do it in the future, and the money saved can go toward "happy things" in your future.

All the best to you. :)
 
Well gambling for me has been a nightmare. The wins made me feel high, mentally high. When I won $18,500 in a period of 4 hours playing slots at an MG casino online, I was hooked. It was beginners luck, it felt like getting high off drugs the first time. I liked it too much. I kept trying to win more, $20k was my goal, hours later, gone. The next 5 years I have chased that win. And I have had many ups and downs. The ups were $500-$5000 wins, but I never cashed out any of them successfully. The desire in me was too strong to win more. My willpower was not there, my mind played tricks.

Gambling can be an escape from realities of this world. It takes you away from your problems for a moment. I used to say that anyone that talked about gambling as a problem, was just losing. Winners don't have a problem, because they are winning, right? Well I was wrong in this line of thinking and it hurt me in many serious ways. It is human nature to risk little for much gain. It is in all of us. People do it everyday in many different fashions. Over time risk will outweigh the gain, and when it does it hits hard, and hurts.

I spent the last 3 months chasing that feeling. I won some, won even more, and lost it back again and again. I only lost about $1500 during this time. I even considered chargebacks to recoup my losses. But, I will not learn from this if I do that, and I really gamble on my future by making a false credit card claim. Which could land a person in jail. So I am letting it go this last time.

I quit Feb 6 2011. I contacted the last remaining MG casinos that i could play at and closed my accounts forever. I would buy the blocking software, but as a computer network guy, I feel I would find it a challenge later to circumvent this, and gamble again. No it has to be me that does this. I played some scratcher tickets for a few days afterward. It helped a little to ween off the gambling roller coaster. But I realize this has an ending to and decided to quit all money games forever, lotto, scratchers, all. It's like quiting smoking but taking a puff again, your mind will trick you back into the old habit.

I'm getting married in 2 months to a great girl I met last year. I cannot take this ugly addiction with me. I hope the best to anyone else that has decided to take a different path to happiness other then the dream of riches by gambling.

Hi, dvsax and thanks for the sincere post. I think most gamblers, including myself, know this "high" feeling that you speak of. I was in a similar situation several years back when I first started gambling. I had never been to a casino and was taken by some friends for a night out. At the time I was puzzled by all the patrons of the land based casino pumping money into these machines hoping for a payout. It seemed silly to me and I just didn't get it. Well that night I ended up winning a sizeable amount of money. It's like the casino knew I was a newbie and they had the answer to get me hooked.

We went home that night and my tune had definitely changed. I was eagerly on board and was saying that the casino is the most fun I had in a while. I was experiencing the high. I even said something along the lines of "this must be the feeling a drug user gets". I had taken my first hit and I wanted more. The feeling was a rush and the money in my pocket just helped this euphoria. The next day I went back chasing this high and the rest is history.

I continued to patronize my local land based and even went so far as to become a VIP earning the top "Platinum" level of their players club. There were ups and downs but more downs because of course it was gambling. I didn't want to stop and the entertainment of the casino turned into an addiction. When this addiction started to hit me financially hard, to the point I was dipping into my 401k, I knew I had a problem.

I sought moral support from friends and family and decided to quit cold turkey. I knew that the chasing of the high was still going to be there so I decided to seek out healthier ways of getting my rush without turning to gambling and definitely not drugs. I started using some of the money that I would have gambled on to take trips, buy things for myself and visit distant friends and family. These experiences were so enriching and delivered a similar adrenaline rush that I had been given by gambling.

One trick or gimmick that I used was to take a jar and put money in it. The money came from anytime I had an itch to go gambling I would take my bankroll that I had planned on using and "deposit" it in the jar. I would then go watch a movie or go out to eat or have friends over to further settle the urge. I was dedicated to this system and knew I couldn't touch the money for a while because it was money that I had "lost" at the casino. I really psyched myself up for this system to work. It in itself became a game that I played and was quite entertaining believe it or not. When I would walk by my new home theater system or something of the like, I would just smile and think, "Ha! Look who has the house edge now!" It felt really good.

The key here is when the entertainment of gambling becomes an addiction to gambling. This is such a fine line and I would often trick myself into thinking that it was okay because I was paying for entertainment. People spend money on entertainment all the time and this just happened to be my form of entertainment. What I needed to realize is that I definitely was not being entertained to the tune of $4K a week. When you step back and objectively look at what other forms of entertainment $4K a week can buy you it's quite silly to think that I ever chose the casino for this amount of money.

For the sake of full disclosure I still gamble today and the above situation was several years ago. I sometimes see myself getting into the same routine but have been able to recognize the tilting of the entertainment/addiction scale. I agree with your analogy of quitting smoking. It definitely is best to stay a way for a while or indefinitely once you have crossed the threshold into addiction. It is SO easy to forget the troubles of the past and think that "this time" will be different.

Sorry for the long post and I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors. Congratulations on your engagement and spend your "gambling" time with your new wife. Heck, take this time now to save your normal gambling bankroll and enjoy a nice honeymoon. This should give you a similar "high" and will be a memory that you can look back on and smile with pleasure.:thumbsup:
 
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Clearly a person of strong will - well done and thank you for an interesting perspective on problem gambling.
 
Dvsax Lots of luck to you,
You have taken the first step to quitting & it takes a strong person to admit it.
And with your upcoming marriage with the one you will love for the rest of your life I wish you both the very best.
Stay strong & be happy for many years to come.
~T~
 
I know this is a casino forum for gamblers but I am happy that some gamblers are quitting because they can't win. Most people can't win in gambling, that's only logical. But there is a very very small % that do win. Well, don't be sad for losing, take it as a learning process in life.

Take care....
 

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