56 thoughts on why I gave up gambling - addiction

Raising the stakes of self-control!

I wrote this over a few months, many, many years ago. It was interesting to read back through it now! What is interesting is realising that gambling was just one of the vices that was used to cement a much bigger issue. Peace with one’s self. The journey I had to go through to turn the corner was vast.

As they say, addictions are like whack-a-moles! As one disappears, another one pops up.

Taking out gambling will, without a doubt, have you staring in the face of what you are hiding from; and may increase your other addictions. But it has to be one of the most stress-inducing, long-term issues that I know.

I hope the points below can help you on your journey to peace!

1. When I do my monthly budgets and see what I have left in the account — that is what I actually will have left.

2. It is tough sometimes, as there is just so much time in the day; how do you fill it all. TV is rubbish, films are losing their appeal, I can’t be bothered to read, what do I do? With time to think about it, I know an idea will come.

3. So that I don’t have to explain to my Girlfriend that I don’t have enough money to go on the holiday I promised and feel awful about myself.

4. Have you ever considered which would be better? Some nice clothes or winning on black!

5. So that I can spend any sunny day that comes along — outside.

6. The monotony of life is more interesting than the monotony of gambling.

7. I hate the fact that online gambling is even legal. I hate that we can judge a government on its ability to provide state welfare, yet, it thinks that taking a child’s money through gambling is OK!

8. My bank statements now look respectable, and I don’t need to be embarrassed should anyone need to see them.

9. Things are bad enough money-wise when you are not throwing it down the fucking drain.

10. I can be confident that I will not stay up until 3 in the morning tonight and go to bed shaking.

11. I am confident that I will stay on track financially, and I spend less time awake at night, dreaming of how I would spend my winnings.

12. I don’t have to live behind that lie, at least; now I have to live behind the lie of my debts, which I still have to pay off, but it is one less lie to live behind.

13. If I hadn’t given up gambling when I did, I would have gone bankrupt — fact. How close to the edge would you like to get before you hopefully make the right decision?

14. I can play a bad round of golf and be sad about that, but the sadness goes when I leave the golf course. I don’t then have to go home and realise what an idiot I am.

15. There is so much time in this world to fill if you strip back all your vices; you practically unlock immortality; do you want it?

16. My friend said I wasn’t too nice to know last year; the fact that he can now tell me this and I can have a proper conversation with him is quite divine.

17. I don’t get back ache anymore.

18. I am much, much better socially with people.

19. I can enjoy a conversation with someone and then not have to hate myself because I am an idiot.

20. I spend the time I otherwise would have spent in front of my computer doing things like exercise. This, in turn, makes me look better, feel better, and be less angry. I know which I prefer.

21. It will be some time until I get back on track financially! But what is good is that whilst I have stopped and faced the perils of trying to get out of debt, I can make the correct decisions.

22. There will be certain times in a gambler’s life when all things seem to be going wrong and there is no one to turn to. Now I can have a day of sadness rather than hide my emotions behind gambling.

23. It doesn’t get instantly better when you give up gambling; it will take a lot of work to not gamble; it will also be hard as you will likely be paying back a lot of money. I don’t know many people who gamble, win, and stop.

24. I no longer dream outside of reality; I dream, instead, about my own life.

25. I no longer have to max out my credit cards.

26. I have time to burn; describing what can be achieved is simply impossible. You know, when you dream about having a perfect body, give up gambling for six months, and you will have one. It is pretty amazing.

27. I am starting to get my sleeping patterns back to how they should be.

28. Today I started reading some financial stuff and thought, ‘there is some easy money to be had here’. My spreadbetting account is only one click away from having £100 in it. Even if it made me £500, it would have cost me so much in time, effort and stress that it is not worth it. Better to live in the real world.

29. It rips hours out of your day like a harvester picking corn.

30. Boredom is a force to be reckoned with; like fighting a Tiger, it will not lay down easily — you need to put some energy into it. Don’t relent and go back to the old ways.

31. It is not about winning; you can’t win — not in the long term. Otherwise, why are you still playing if you think you have won?

32. It takes too much time and wipes your brain, so you can’t make the proper decisions in real life.

33. It has all been won, lost and played before — don’t think you’re cool.

34. I can’t gamble with my future anymore; I want kids and can’t afford to throw away any more girlfriends.

35. I don’t sweat out of my forehead for hours and hours.

36. I can fill my time with so many better things. I can then start to take real gambles in life, not pansy little gambles on a computer!

37. I have a hatred for all celebrities who advocate advertising online gambling, more specifically, those that do! They are running low on ‘eating out’ tokens, so they feel it palatable to ensure a few million people are more persuaded into losing some of their money. Especially Bingo sites which, I assume, are like the metaphorical weed which turns the ‘Bingo-ers’ into crack addicts.

38. I took out some cash the other day, and my account has stayed the same in the last 5 days. There has been no repeat amounts disappearing from it!

39. If you have anger issues, it will make them worse; if you don’t, online gambling will find them somewhere.

40. I am just two minutes away from betting online. This is all it would take, two minutes, and I could be clicking buttons which decide how much money I will have tomorrow. Two minutes away from going back in and trying again…it is stressful just typing it. I am so relaxed these days. I am so much nicer. I am still trying to find ways to pay it all off.

41. You are so much more than playing on someone else’s money earner!

42. I don’t inadvertently attract other people to it.

43. It is fucking boring.

44. What a crock-of-shit way to spend your life.

45. It is not for those who are in debt to get out of debt.

46. Don’t get sucked in.

47. I can’t think of anything more boring now. The sweaty spotty face, the painful back, the heart that beats erratically, the moods that could not be predicted and the hatred of myself; fuck that.

48. I may get in bad moods now, but I don’t get angry like I used to when I had just lost a thousand pounds.

49. You end up using other people’s money.

50. I often keep thinking of the quick fix. But now that I have stopped, I can actually spend my time getting my head around how I am going to pay this money back and, then, how I really want to live my life.

51. Because you are, metaphorically speaking, being arse-raped by someone else’s business.

52. I have nothing left to gamble.

53. I have nothing left.

54. It shows up on your bank statements, which can mess you up if you need to move house or do anything that involves people looking at your bank statements — the shame.

55. I was shit at it!

56. I thought I was good at it!

Have you suffered at the hands of online gambling? Did any of these points resonate with you?

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