You sound exactly like me El Zhar!
Dave, your advice seems the most sensible to me, maybe it's because that is what I want to hear - that discipline and self-control can be taught - and that giving up isn't the only option.
I genuinely enjoy gambling, I love the buzz, not just of winning a bet, but of spending ages researching it, putting up a big write-up on here, seeing my mates all getting on it and then it coming in (those in the bets threads will say that doesn't happen often, but y'know
). I can't see myself ever giving it up completely, I wouldn't want to, but like I've said, something has to change. Whilst online gambling makes it much more accessible and easy to develop a problem, the problem actually lies with me, not the gambling. If I deposit money and lose it, nobody forces me to deposit again, I do it myself because THAT is my problem.
Gambling is like anything else, you pay your money for your entertainment/service. When I go to the match, I pay my money for my ticket/travel/food/ale and never see that money again. If we lose I don't feel angry at losing the money, just the result. I don't go chasing the club to give me my money back, so why do it in other situations?
I feel a lot of the issue is attaching value to the money I deposit. Say, there's a group of my mates going out at the weekend and I've only got £20 in my bank, I'd gamble that money in order to get enough to be able to pay for the night out. Doing it like that adds pressure; that money MUST become £100 before the end of the week, so encourages silly betting/chasing.
Maybe it would be better just to have a completely separate betting 'allowance' - put away the money every week that is essential for bills and other living costs, don't rely on winning money to have a social life, otherwise the desperation will kick in at some point, and just use what is left. I don't earn a lot, so it won't be a lot, but that way, whatever I lose has no impact on anything else, so should decrease the chances of feeling the need to immediately chase it back.
Whilst I feel better when thinking like this, I don't know whether this is part of the issue. Here I am, in a thread where I've poured my heart out about my need to stop gambling, and now I'm exploring avenues of being able to continue with it.
I do genuinely believe that I don't want or need to completely stop gambling, just that I need to learn to control it, but is that genuine belief a classic symptom of my problem or a sensible approach to tackling the problem? I don't know.