[Akpatel94]

My story
Life of a young gambler

September 2013, exciting year ahead, i got my results and was heading off to university to study BA Business management and Informatics at Sheffield. I was living in a shared flat of about 20 other first year students, was great to interact with different personalities. As it was just first year, we all use to head out into town for the craziest nights out every other day, life was great. we use to end up in a casino on our way home, probably only lost ￡20 a night that time, and would occasionally head back to the casino after nights outs.

The year ended on a high, passed all my exams except one, which i was due to resit in summer 2014. i decided to find a job that summer, thought the extra cash earned could come in some use for university.

Football session also started, so i decided to play some bet which i lost. Lost ￡1000 at thought to my self wow thats a lot and decided to not put anymore in and concentrate on making money and my exams. I also decided to pass my driving, which i successfully did in October 2014.

The resit came i thought all went well, results came in early September, my face dropped as i found out i had failed the exam, really didn’t know what to do. i contacted university and decided to start a new course, which then i dropped out off after only a week as i didn’t enjoy it, my option was to be a part time student for the year resit the exam in January 2015 and return back to second year in September 2015, i decided this was best for me.
My plan was to work and save up money, as i mentioned earlier in my story i passed my driving test i decided to buy a car on a interest free credit card. I bought my car and life seemed to be a bit better.

i decided to look for a job after my exam, that gave me 4 months to do solid revision to make sure i pass the exam. i successfully passed the exam on the 3rd attempt.

I got a call on the 18th January 2015 to take part in a game show, which i totally forgot about. It was a show where i could win a nice amount of money. so i decided to do it, i was told i would be called down to the set in February 2015, i decided to postpone my job hunt.

I went on to the game show and won ￡17k, was over the moon, 2015 started off with a good year, and thought the future would be looking bright.

First thing i decided to do is clear of my credit card of ￡6k which i did, and thought i would save ￡10k.

However i kept postponing the job search as i had won a lot of money. I tried my luck with gambling, lost 10K in 5months. Extremely angry with myself i decided to sell my car to try and make the money back, i also lost that! Ive lost ￡15k and got myself into 7K worth of debt on my credit card, and am due to start university next month. September 2015.

I realised what i have done, and will slowly but surely clear this debt off, i feel so stupid, but have learned from this mistake and thankful that it didn’t happen 10 years down the line when i would hopefully be married with kids.

Thanks for reading this, AP x

[monique]

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Hello and thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy forums

Here at Gambling Therapy we pride ourselves on being a caring and diverse online community who can help and support you with the difficulties you?re currently facing. We understand that this might be a tough time for you, particularly if you?re new to recovery, so come here as often as you need to and participate in the forums, access online groups and connect to the live advice helpline if you need one to one support. We?re in this together!

Here on the forum you can share your experiences in a safe, supportive and accepting environment. The beauty of writing it all down is that you can take your time and you will be creating a record of your progress that you can look back on if it ever feels like you?re not moving forward. So, share as much or as little as you like but do try to stick to keeping just one thread in this forum so people know where to find you if they want to be updated on your progress or share something with you.

And on that note….

I?m going to hand you over to our community because I?m sure they will have some words of wisdom for you ??

Take care

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our
privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

[monique]

I have read your post and want to encourage you to do all you can to support yourself in making wise decisions. You are young with lots of life ahead of you; it is good that you are taking stock of the dangers of gambling at this stage. You are thinking positively.
I think it is true that most people who get involved with gambling find that they need – or at least cope much better with – support from others who understand the power of what can be a very destructive addiction. You have already learned from what has happened and you have an awareness of the complex problems associated with long-term gambling. You have wisely taken the step of contacting this organization – you have been open in sharing your situation and feelings.
So do explore the site here, post more, read the experiences of others, share your thoughts with others, use the support groups, too, if you can. All these things are here to ensure you really can stay free of gambling. Do use whatever will help you forward. Sometimes our own will-power weakens and it is then that the support of others can be a life-saver.
I wish you well and hope you enjoy conversing with people here.
Monique

[charles]

Hello again AK,

Well done on coming back here.

You posted a similar thread a few weeks ago and got a bit of advice. Were you able to put any of that advice into practise? What things have you red on other threads that you can apply to your own situation?

To keep this thread running just write in the comment box at the foot of the thread; starting a new one each time just gets confusing with advice getting missed/duplicated.

Again I look forward to hearing about some of the positive things you have put in place. You can stop gambling I promise you.

[p]

HOw are things going for you AK? Give us an update, if you fall down, try again. Would love to hear how you are going?

P

[Simon15]

Hi, thanks for such an honest and open account of your problems. I just wanted to mention that many of us on here are older and have different perspectives and experience. The money you lost seemed like a lot, but there is no limit to how much money someone can make and how much someone can lose. Consider this: how would you feel if you made ￡100 million and then gambled it away and later became ￡100 million in debt? These are the sorts of things that can happen when people don’t get control of destructive habits, and that’s when you get major banks and even countries collapsing. Stay strong and realise that our actions affect not just us, but everyone around us and also people we haven’t even met yet (perhaps someone very important that we would hate to lose, like a future partner or wife). I hope these comments are helpful. Keep up the good fight – the fight against the personal demons, not against the games ??

[Author]

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