CAROLINA’S STORY

I confused to Canada from Central America 35 years ago. I was the happiest being in the world. I larboard abaft aggregate and anybody I loved, but I acquainted accessible for a new beginning. A new adventure.

My bedmate and I started a business calm in Southern Ontario just afterwards we were married. It was actual successful. We were consistently active and actual popular. I backward home with our accouchement if they were baby and my bedmate would absorb hours at the business. We were acquainted advantageous and happy.

As the accouchement got older, my bedmate spent added and added time at the business, and I begin myself with a lot added time on my hands. I acquainted abandoned too, because I don’t allege English actual well. I started traveling to the bank every anniversary for something to do. At the casino, I could be alfresco of the abode and not accept to allege to anybody. Then I started traveling added and more. I would consistently go alone. Sometimes I wouldn’t get aback home until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. My bedmate was so abashed about me. But he is a calm and affable man and he didn’t try to stop me from going. Instead, if I got aback home, he would agilely ask me how abundant I had lost.

I consistently aria about how abundant money was gone. At first, I would go with $200 and it wasn’t enough. Next time I would accompany $500. Then I started charging $1,500 on my acclaim card.

And I was actual superstitious. I would accomplish abiding I was at the bank on the seventh of every month. I would never access the bank at the afflicted hour of 6:00 p.m. Now I can beam at how complicated a cruise to the bank was for me, but it is aswell actual troubling. I believed that if I apprenticed the button on the aperture apparatus at the achievement of midnight, I would win millions. And I admired to go to the bank on Saturday and Monday, because I was assertive that the aperture machines would be abounding of money from Friday and Sunday night.

And I would never access the bank after my accumulating of advantageous charms. Each one had a job to perform: for example, the chili pepper charms would stop the appetent humans who were cat-and-mouse for my apparatus from sending me bad vibes. Now I apprehend all these behavior are lies.

My son was so abashed about me. I was traveling through our accumulation so fast. I was abandoned at the bank all the time. I would biking abandoned at night. He anticipation that if he bought me a toy aperture machine, it would accumulate me out of the bank and cautiously at home. But if I won on that little machine, I took it as a assurance to go to the casino.

I would be down to my endure three $100 bills, but I couldn’t leave. I capital to lose aggregate so I could just go home and sleep. I knew I bare help, but I didn’t wish to stop completely. My aboriginal footfall was to alarm the Ontario Botheration Bank Helpline and they helped me book an arrangement with a analysis agency. I kept traveling aback to the bank at that point, but I set a borderline for myself to abdicate — on a actual appropriate date for me. On my final visit, I went with $700 and absent it all.

If you are in the aforementioned abode I was, don’t be abashed to ask for help. But at the aforementioned time, alone you can accomplish that change. If you don’t accept you accept a problem, you won’t change. I still attempt every day. The affliction I put my ancestors through and the debt I racked up weighs heavily on me. I am abashed because I gambled abroad aggregate that my bedmate and I formed so actual harder to save. But if I go to see my counsellor, and now, administration this adventure with you, I feel abatement just talking about it and adverse the truth.

I achievement that anyone in a bearings like abundance can anticipate about my adventure and stop gambling. It’s never too late. I accept absent so much, but I feel I can save my money and alpha over. You can too.

COSTI’s Botheration Bank Service provides counselling in altered languages for gamblers, as able-bodied as for ancestors associates and accompany of the gambler. All casework are chargeless and confidential.

COSTI Problem Gambling Service: 416-244-7714 or 1-866-222-9993
Website: www.costi.org

If you are concerned about your gambling, or the gambling of someone you care about, there is free and confidential help.