The title is a bit of an exageration as I’m still alive, I have a job (but not as good as the one I used to have) and I have a roof over my head. But how I wish I’d read this sensible advices four years ago: Avoid Gambling Addiction by Following These Tips.

At that time I was working as a salesman for a telecommunications company, making high value deals and receiving a substantial commission. I had what I thought was a great relationship with a great woman who loved me to bits. We were sharing a rented flat in a nice part of town and regularly saving towards the purchase of our own property. We both had our hearts set on a little house with a garden so that we could have a dog.

For many years I’ve enjoyed gambling. I grew up in a family where all of my male role models gambled, grandfather, uncle and father. They never bet more than they could afford to lose and it was clearly something that they did for enjoyment. When I was old enough and had a little spare cash I too started to visit our local bookies office, placing small bets on advice from my grandad.

As my earnings grew so did my gambling. I started to go to a regular monthly poker game where it wasn’t unusual for the pot to reach as much as £5000. This was where my taste for poker developed. I played with the boys at the monthly poker game for about two years over which time I think I must have just about broken even. Towards the end of this period I discovered online poker and that was my downfall.

I was soon playing every night. In fact I was playing at every spare moment I had, even on the quiet at work. I stopped going to the monthly poker games and became an online gambling obsessed introvert, losing touch with many of my old poker playing buddies and other friends. It wasn’t long before I had gambled away all of my savings and my long suffering girlfriend gave me an ultimatum. Either give up the gambling or she would leave, which she did!

Without her around the flat I started to skive off work pretending to be ill when in fact I was at home playing poker at various online casinos. I would con myself into believing that everything was really OK and that I wouldn’t continue to lose money because I was getting some poker rakeback or because I had set a limit on my spending. I was clearly in a state of denial as I didn’t acknowledge that I was actually playing at several online casinos and the rake-back commission was negligible, particularly when compared with the amount of cash that I was losing regularly (daily).

It wasn’t long after my long suffering girlfriend had left that I was sacked from my job. They called it redundancy but that was just a quick way of getting me out of the door. My sales successes had completely dried up and I’d been taking weeks off work with a variety of fake illnesses. By this time I had racked up significant debt, through my online poker playing, on all of my credit cards and was already in debt to my landlord for the rent on the flat. Inevitably I was kicked out and was forced to persuade my old mum to let me stay with her.

Finding myself back in the little bedroom that I had occupied as a boy was a blow. But not big enough to stop my gambling. Surprisingly I still had a bunch of credit cards and found it very easy to increase the credit limits, convincing myself that it would just take one big win and all of my problems would go away. Sadly this was not to be the case.

My lowest moment came one day when all of my credit had completely dried up, I had no cash whatsoever and could no longer play online poker. I found myself looking around my mums house for things that I might sell to make a few quid. I felt like a junkie, which is exactly what I was. Luckily my mum came home and caught me bagging up a few of her prized antiques. They each had enormous sentimental value to her but would have only made a few quid in resale, but I was going to sell them anyway. How bad is that!

It’s my mum who I have to thank for sorting me out. I’d reached rock bottom and couldn’t go any further. She immediately called an old family friend who had experience with gamblers anonymous in the UK. He came round and paid me a visit persuading me to go along to a meeting. I am now, slowly, getting my life straight again. I’m still living with my mum, but I have a driving job and I’m giving her some money every week for my keep. I still think about gambling, a lot. But I’m not actually doing any. It is still early days for me and I now know that I shall probably always be susceptible to the gambling temptation but I am feeling that, with the support of gamblers anonymous and my mum, I can stay away from the online poker games, casinos and horses.

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DOUBLEHARDBASTARD AGONY AUNT - REAL LIFE LETTERS FROM REAL LIFE SITUATIONS 

Annabell Proctor from Plymouth 

Dear Doublehardbastard,

SEX with my lover is fantastic and he spoils me like mad when we’re out – but he refuses to have a proper relationship.

I’m 30, he’s 45 and we are both divorced. We’ve known each other for years but met up again at a mutual friend’s silver wedding and spent the whole evening together.

We danced and kissed and the feelings inside me were electric. He says he has always fancied me and should have married me years ago. We’ve been seeing each other whenever we can since. When we make love I feel so at ease about my body and being naked in front of him.

It was never like that with my husband. My lover and I go out a lot and he always pays for everything. He never takes a penny from me and says that treating me is his pleasure.

He has even offered me an all-expenses-paid holiday in Cyprus in March but still won’t have a full-on relationship.

He recently left a long-term relationship and says he doesn’t want to go out of the frying pan into the fire by getting serious with me. I have two children from my marriage and unfortunately my son took an instant dislike to him because he saw us kissing at New Year.

I think it was a bit of a shock because he’s still missing his dad, although it has been two years since our divorce.  I think the children will come round in time and I’d like to put things on a permanent footing but he won’t hear of it.

Can you make sense of this for me?

Dear Annabelle,

Seriously, get real, your getting cock and getting pampered! By the sounds of it you don’t have to wash his smalls. If you go steady, he’ll dump you within months. Face facts your just his shag piece at this time. I bet he has to take 2 or 3 viagra at a time to get a hard-on to shag you!

Why would he want to get serious when you open your legs more often than a waiter opens a bottle of wine.

Face facts you are a slut and this relationship is all in your head.

Let me know how you get on - Doublehardbastard

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