Compulsive Gambling Help - Stories & Advice From Gamblers in Recovery

Are you looking for compulsive gambling help?  While the focus of this site is to help family, friends, and loved ones affected by a problem gambler in their lives, this page is dedicated to hearing directly from those who have struggled, or are currently struggling with a gambling addiction problem.  If you're impacted by a loved one who is a problem gambler, please feel free to anonymously share YOUR story in the Gambling Addiction Help section.  This section is dedicated to hearing from actual problem gamblers.


Why do we want to hear directly from people who have struggled with a gambling addiction problem?  Unless you're the person impacted by the problem, it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, to truly understand what it's like to work through a gambling addiction problem.  Experts and professionals (which I am not!) can certainly have a tremendous amount of insight, however, there's nothing quite like hearing about the insights of the person themselves.  It's been said that problem gamblers in particular generally tend to have a higher than average IQ, so when they're not in an addictive state (and in recovery), the reflection and insight is amazingly helpful. It's that insight-fullness that this page is dedicated to.


It's my personal belief that someone currently in the throws of a gambling addiction (i.e. not working on recovery) probably can't be as helpful as someone who has received compulsive gambling help, and has been able to enter the recovery process.  Recall that recovery is not the same as abstinence.  Read more about that topic in the Gambling Addiction Recovery section.  That is why I'd like to reserve this section for people who are in, or who have experienced long periods of recovery.  Please share your story with us, including any insights that you think may be helpful.  Some things that I've found particularly help are things like:

• How our behaviors negatively or positively impacted you before you entered recovery?

• Specific things that you recommend that friends, family, and spouses of a problem gambler should do to help, as well as specific things that we should not do.

• Anything that you can share that you feel would help family and loved ones better understand the problem, and how to both help and/or cope.

Of course, these are only a few brief suggestions.  While I don't expect that you'll want to share your most personal thoughts and feelings openly (even though it's completely anonymous, so please feel free to do so!), anything that you share will be extremely helpful for people looking to get a better understanding of how to get compulsive gambling help for either their gambler or themselves.  Thank you in advance for sharing with visitors of this site!


Submission Tips:
1.  To remain anonymous, please use only your first name in the Name field.  Also, feel free to use an alias if you'd like, or feel free to leave the Name field completely blank to submit anonymously without a name at all.

2.  The submission form currently has a limit of 3000 characters, which I expect may not be enough for many people.  If you get the over character limit message upon submission, please simply cut out some of your submission by highlighting a portion of your text and pressing Ctrl-X (cut), and submit the form.  Then navigate back to the submission form and paste in the second half of your submission (Ctrl-V) using the same title.  I'll ensure that the two submisisons are properly linked together.

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