[ToRDeathsFang]

I have no advice to give but all i an say is all the best and i hope it works out for yourself and your family in your time of need. I hope you find a way to end it.

[PantlessPete]

All the good advice has already been said, so I'll just add my own heartfelt sentiment that you can sort it out. Good luck!

[Sagachii]

I'm so sorry I can't provide any help, I'm not quite sure how to approach the situation but I just want to say that I wish you all the best! I have much respect and appreciation for your situation and you, i think its brave that your taking such responsibility, hope it works out for you and your family. Fighting~

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by ke_ivan

Yeah, he probably uses bookies to gamble. If he's not paying for his phone bill, you might want to cut his phone line. Obviously, this is more complicated - I put my dad on pay-as-you-go to prevent him from over-extending himself and I stopped the internet plans, but this is different because bookies don't care about whether you have enough money to pay or not.

I agree that now is probably not the best time to let your sister in on this. You should at least tell him that by doing this, it will worsen your sister's condition. Tell him not to do it anymore for the sake of his family. If he doesn't listen, all of you might just have to abandon ship. This is obviously the last resort, but sometimes the best thing is to just leave. It's not an easy decision, so you need to think about the consequences carefully.

You should talk to your mum about this. Just tell her that this has to stop. Ask your telco if you can have certain numbers restricted. Get your dad a plan with no internet. And take care of yourself. You're the key to solving all this.

You see, right now, he's gambled, but he really hasn't lost anything important to him. Right now, he's just thinking of himself. If he was really thinking about the family, he would not put his family in this position. Remember that, and you will know how to make your decisions.

He's paying the his phone bill by himself.
In my country , we have less practitioner with solution and advice for this kind of things.
Eventhough i stop his phone , he'll just look for another , because all his friends he hang out with are also gamblers.
I'll just look for the right time to talk about it.
For now i need to calm myself so that when i confront him , i can talk and do as i plan to and not letting anger take over.

[AlphaWhale]

My father is/was a problem gambler. My parents eventually split up and nothing has changed, I stopped talking to him after he told me he won the lottery and bought a race horse (a quarter of a race horse). Which I later read came dead ******* last. So it's probably the most expensive glue he's ever bought.

To put this in perspective, my parents split when I was 8. Now I'm 21, my father is still the same man my mother left.

These types of men are leeches than pin their futures on miracles and dreams. They're not fit to be fathers in the slightest. Any man that puts anything before his family is scum, and any man that puts a game of chance before his family is lower than that.

You can have dreams, but when it is simply delusion it is not the same. There's no "treatment" for these "illnesses" because they are not physical afflictions but character flaws.

You can love your father, but you can hate everything that makes him who he is at the same time. That's family.

My words of advice are: Get out while you can. Your sister and mother, too.

[PrimeTime]

Thanks for all the support people.

[Next_rim]

Take his wallet with all credit cards away from him, remove all laptop chargers and PC power chords. He will have lots of trouble and hassle to replace those, and then you can just do it again.

And don't listen to your mom. Allow me to be straightforward. People are weak and do stupid things when under emotional pressure. And she is under enormous pressure. She will tell you to fix things for your dad. Don't. My advice is as such because I went through something similar.

I had to be very rough to both my parents when they divorced. They both did huge mistakes just because they were mad at random things. My mother was so depressed, she decided not to ever work again. She kept saying she was too old (43? lolwut?) to find a good job, that no1 needed her anymore. She wanted to pass by on savings until I graduate and work to support both of us.

She also decided to bring action in court against my father so she could get as much cash as possible out of him. I hid property allowances for our countryhouse just so my Mom couldn't go to fight for it in court. Without the papers, she wouldn't be able to prove 50% of it belonged to her. She wanted to sell it and get the money just so she could keep being unemployed and live on savings.

I took her driving license and reported her to police when she took off to the pension fund to withdraw savings. She got stopped by police and had her car taken away for 2 weeks. And I knew she is the kind of person who would rather choke herself, but would never take a cab or walk.

When she asked me to help with a cash deposit, we both went to the bank, and I played it so the account was on my name, so she couldn't withdraw the money whenever she wanted to. She ran out of accessible savings money 8 months and had to look for a proper job. Without an urgent drive to do so, she would've never do that. I know she wanted just to wait for me to graduate and find a job, and support us both, while she does nothing. Awesome plan, except for that completely ruined my masters degree prospects and any chance to move out and live together with gf.

It's been 3 years now, and she is doing fine. So am I. I do regret some of my actions and decisions had to be taken, but I think it was necessary. I was 19 then, just like you.

Lesson from that? You have to be very tough. These family shenanigans take a lot of willpower to pull off. It is especially painful, because it's your parents, the closest people you will ever have. It's only your call. People don't fix their own shit. Unless you take direct and focused action, change will never occur. I learned it very hard way when I left for college abroad at age of 15. Now, 7 years later, everything I had to do seems so obvious and simple, but at the moment the choice had to be made - very tough decisions. Stop thinking, start doing things.

[QuestionMark]

I worked in a casino for 1 1/2 years, I know how gamblers can be. They are really tough to handle.

http://www.ncpg.org.sg/

It's the best solution I can think of.
Any other advise that can be given verbally won't really work. Trust me.
I don't know if it'll help, but my best advise is the site I suggested.
Do take a look at it

[jason]

Is he a Christian? Are you a Christian?
Whatever the answer is, please bring him to church and ask for help there.
There are a lot of cases in my church where people were drug addicts / gamblers and stuff and made the family going into poverty. But going to church changed everything. Please trust me bring him to church. I am serious. Even though this post may not seem like as if I care, I actually do understand how you feel, and I do feel for you, so please, bring him to church. It will help a lot if not solve everything.

[nard]

hi PrimeTime, I asked which country you are from because if you are from Singapore, I can offer my services to you and your family free of charge. I am a trained counsellor in gambling addiction. nonetheless, I would like try my best to help you out.

Firstly, I only read the opening post and your response to my question so bear with me if some of the things i say is a repeat of what others have said.

Helping a gambling addict overcome his addiction is not only the responsibility of a counsellor, but also the gambler and his family. Reading your opening post, your father does realise the pitfalls of gambling but his problem would simply be that he does not realise that he himself is a gambling addict.

Step one would be to get him to admit that he is a gambling addict. Whilst you have pointed out that this is not an easy task, it also the first and most important step towards overcoming the addiction.
Try having a family talk. Where everyone talks to him. Do not use an accusatory tone or a "i am better than you" ie. superior tone. Get him to agree with small things related to gambling... start with the small things like "The odds always favour the house/bookie". Move on to slightly bigger proclamations like "I have lost more times than I have won" and follow it up with "I have lost money which could be better spent elsewhere." It is important that you move on to bigger proclamations after he had agreed with the smaller ones. Do not move on until you have made him agree with you with the statements. It is also important that the whole family is present.

Your final statement should be along the lines of

"I have a gambing addiction"

"I know gambling is bad but I can't stop"

The moment you get him to agree to either of the two statements is the first step towards recovery.

Step two

Let him know gambling hurts the family.
Keep reiterating stories of how gambling has split families up (like his friend).
It is important to do this only after you have successfully completed step one.

Step Three

Engage him with family activities. Keep him busy.
I have noticed that your father does not work. This is particularly unfavourable for your situation because he has a lot of time on his hands and the rest of your family might not due to school/work commitments.
I read that your father uses bookies to gamble, I take it to mean that he bets on football games most of the time.
Engage him during the weekends (when most matches are played) and particularly during the World Cup or European Cup tournaments. Do not let him get distracted by the ongoing matches.


I am off to dinner now and would be following this thread.
I hope this reply would help you and your family on the way to recovery from gambling addiction.

Best Regards.

Quick Comments

	Nemo:
	Aean(::
	Cyanide:
	nirvAnA:

[Nemo]

No child should have to deal with irresponsible parents like that ...

I can't add any better advice that have been said but I would like to say I'm immensely impressed by your courage, sense of responsibility and dignity. Just continue to fight, what you're doing is what has to be done.

Quick Comments

Sagachii:

this is exactly what i wanted to say! :)

[aztecx]

You're 19, smack him up a bit.

No but really, gambling is a really strange vice. I think gambling addiction is far different to a drug or alcohol addiction. People that think logically in most situations can obviously see that placing a bet is a negative investment, whilst others are very results orientated and believe in luck. People that can think logically about gambling are less likely to get addicted in my opinion, if they even decide to gamble in the first place.

I don't know if there is a correlation between intelligence and likelihood of addiction since a lot of very smart people in history have been huge gamblers.

[littlemozart]

Perhaps you could lay down a few scenarios for your dad to think about, given the fact that your family's financial situation isnt well

One example i can think of is where one of your family members fell ill and is in need of a large sum of money for treatment. Let your father know that if he squanders the family reserves away via gambling, there will be no money for whoever that is in urgent need of treatment. What happens next? Your family have to sell house, borrow money, homeless, basically in a situation that im sure your father do not want to be in. If he truly still cares for the family, im sure this little situation will give him some food for thought, or at least he would gamble with more awareness and limits himself such that he does not deplete the family reserves.

Another example could be your future, explain to him how important college is to you, and sustaining school fees is no joke. If your family cant support you for your education, its basically an even tougher life ahead for you and your family.

I feel the key is to let your father be aware of the consequences of the worst case scenarios, and if this do not work, then you just have to battle it out with him man to man, as im pretty sure you do not want to be in the "worst case scenario" situation, hence you have to step up

[crAzerk]

This thread brings tears to my eyes. I'm deeply moved by how supportive the whole community is.
I wish you all the best Primetime, hope you're able to find a solution to this with the help of the SC2SEA community and your family and friends.

[divinesage]

I think the whole family needs to constantly remind him that he shouldn't gamble at all (yes, not even a single cent). If he promises that he will not gamble again, the whole family, including your mother and sister needs to take a more active role in reminding him of his promise.

It's not easy but the best way to change the behaviour of somebody is to constatly make him realise his promise and make sure he DOES NOT at any time at all gamble. The moment he does, everything goes back to square one again.

All the best for your family. If it still does not work I guess looking for relatives/friends to help him would be a good idea.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by AlphaWhale

My father is/was a problem gambler. My parents eventually split up and nothing has changed, I stopped talking to him after he told me he won the lottery and bought a race horse (a quarter of a race horse). Which I later read came dead ******* last. So it's probably the most expensive glue he's ever bought.

To put this in perspective, my parents split when I was 8. Now I'm 21, my father is still the same man my mother left.

These types of men are leeches than pin their futures on miracles and dreams. They're not fit to be fathers in the slightest. Any man that puts anything before his family is scum, and any man that puts a game of chance before his family is lower than that.

You can have dreams, but when it is simply delusion it is not the same. There's no "treatment" for these "illnesses" because they are not physical afflictions but character flaws.

You can love your father, but you can hate everything that makes him who he is at the same time. That's family.

My words of advice are: Get out while you can. Your sister and mother, too.

Eventhough all the things he has done , i won't turn my back on him , because he's my father , the one who raise me since my first cries in this world.
I just hope for a better solution rather than leaving him.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by Next_rim

Take his wallet with all credit cards away from him, remove all laptop chargers and PC power chords. He will have lots of trouble and hassle to replace those, and then you can just do it again.

And don't listen to your mom. Allow me to be straightforward. People are weak and do stupid things when under emotional pressure. And she is under enormous pressure. She will tell you to fix things for your dad. Don't. My advice is as such because I went through something similar.

I had to be very rough to both my parents when they divorced. They both did huge mistakes just because they were mad at random things. My mother was so depressed, she decided not to ever work again. She kept saying she was too old (43? lolwut?) to find a good job, that no1 needed her anymore. She wanted to pass by on savings until I graduate and work to support both of us.

She also decided to bring action in court against my father so she could get as much cash as possible out of him. I hid property allowances for our countryhouse just so my Mom couldn't go to fight for it in court. Without the papers, she wouldn't be able to prove 50% of it belonged to her. She wanted to sell it and get the money just so she could keep being unemployed and live on savings.

I took her driving license and reported her to police when she took off to the pension fund to withdraw savings. She got stopped by police and had her car taken away for 2 weeks. And I knew she is the kind of person who would rather choke herself, but would never take a cab or walk.

When she asked me to help with a cash deposit, we both went to the bank, and I played it so the account was on my name, so she couldn't withdraw the money whenever she wanted to. She ran out of accessible savings money 8 months and had to look for a proper job. Without an urgent drive to do so, she would've never do that. I know she wanted just to wait for me to graduate and find a job, and support us both, while she does nothing. Awesome plan, except for that completely ruined my masters degree prospects and any chance to move out and live together with gf.

It's been 3 years now, and she is doing fine. So am I. I do regret some of my actions and decisions had to be taken, but I think it was necessary. I was 19 then, just like you.

Lesson from that? You have to be very tough. These family shenanigans take a lot of willpower to pull off. It is especially painful, because it's your parents, the closest people you will ever have. It's only your call. People don't fix their own shit. Unless you take direct and focused action, change will never occur. I learned it very hard way when I left for college abroad at age of 15. Now, 7 years later, everything I had to do seems so obvious and simple, but at the moment the choice had to be made - very tough decisions. Stop thinking, start doing things.

If i do things like taking his connection and laptop , i'm afraid the one who will suffer the most from the argue is my mother , he doesn't scream or get physical with me , but he scream to my mother , and the after-effect will be my mother lacks of sleep and restless , which i would rather avoid.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by QuestionMark

I worked in a casino for 1 1/2 years, I know how gamblers can be. They are really tough to handle.

http://www.ncpg.org.sg/

It's the best solution I can think of.
Any other advise that can be given verbally won't really work. Trust me.
I don't know if it'll help, but my best advise is the site I suggested.
Do take a look at it

Yes i will take a look at it , thanks

Originally Posted by jason

Is he a Christian? Are you a Christian?
Whatever the answer is, please bring him to church and ask for help there.
There are a lot of cases in my church where people were drug addicts / gamblers and stuff and made the family going into poverty. But going to church changed everything. Please trust me bring him to church. I am serious. Even though this post may not seem like as if I care, I actually do understand how you feel, and I do feel for you, so please, bring him to church. It will help a lot if not solve everything.

No , he's a Buddhist and even as a Buddhist , he doesn't go to temple , maybe at least once a year or none at all. And he won't come to the Church with me because he's not interested at all.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by nard

hi PrimeTime, I asked which country you are from because if you are from Singapore, I can offer my services to you and your family free of charge. I am a trained counsellor in gambling addiction. nonetheless, I would like try my best to help you out.

Firstly, I only read the opening post and your response to my question so bear with me if some of the things i say is a repeat of what others have said.

Helping a gambling addict overcome his addiction is not only the responsibility of a counsellor, but also the gambler and his family. Reading your opening post, your father does realise the pitfalls of gambling but his problem would simply be that he does not realise that he himself is a gambling addict.

Step one would be to get him to admit that he is a gambling addict. Whilst you have pointed out that this is not an easy task, it also the first and most important step towards overcoming the addiction.
Try having a family talk. Where everyone talks to him. Do not use an accusatory tone or a "i am better than you" ie. superior tone. Get him to agree with small things related to gambling... start with the small things like "The odds always favour the house/bookie". Move on to slightly bigger proclamations like "I have lost more times than I have won" and follow it up with "I have lost money which could be better spent elsewhere." It is important that you move on to bigger proclamations after he had agreed with the smaller ones. Do not move on until you have made him agree with you with the statements. It is also important that the whole family is present.

Your final statement should be along the lines of

"I have a gambing addiction"

"I know gambling is bad but I can't stop"

The moment you get him to agree to either of the two statements is the first step towards recovery.

Step two

Let him know gambling hurts the family.
Keep reiterating stories of how gambling has split families up (like his friend).
It is important to do this only after you have successfully completed step one.

Step Three

Engage him with family activities. Keep him busy.
I have noticed that your father does not work. This is particularly unfavourable for your situation because he has a lot of time on his hands and the rest of your family might not due to school/work commitments.
I read that your father uses bookies to gamble, I take it to mean that he bets on football games most of the time.
Engage him during the weekends (when most matches are played) and particularly during the World Cup or European Cup tournaments. Do not let him get distracted by the ongoing matches.


I am off to dinner now and would be following this thread.
I hope this reply would help you and your family on the way to recovery from gambling addiction.

Best Regards.

There are times everyday at around 6pm when i got home from work and my mother and sister is sitting in the living room watching TV , after around half and hour , my father will come home (usually) , Do you think it's a good time if before my father comes home , i told my mother and sister that it needs to have a family talk with him ?
I believe my sister will follow , but my mother.. She's more like the passive type and i guessing that she would rather say " Let him be , don't fight anymore , don't talk about it anymore. "
How do i convince my mother that having a family talk is the best way ?

And when the family talk or maybe just a four-eyes talk between me and him , is it good if i told him that the effect of the gambles for my college like , my future and my sister's ?

How do i engage to him during weekends ? Because in my family , most night of the weekends , we end up at home sitting talking , or eventually entering our own rooms.

Yes he bets on football games all the time. And as time goes , if he lost , he'll try to bet bigger so that he'll "get even" , which often leads to big lost.

[PrimeTime]

Originally Posted by Nemo

No child should have to deal with irresponsible parents like that ...

I can't add any better advice that have been said but I would like to say I'm immensely impressed by your courage, sense of responsibility and dignity. Just continue to fight, what you're doing is what has to be done.

As i'm getting older , i started to have my own perspective view and my own believes.
Thanks for ur support.

Originally Posted by littlemozart

Perhaps you could lay down a few scenarios for your dad to think about, given the fact that your family's financial situation isnt well

One example i can think of is where one of your family members fell ill and is in need of a large sum of money for treatment. Let your father know that if he squanders the family reserves away via gambling, there will be no money for whoever that is in urgent need of treatment. What happens next? Your family have to sell house, borrow money, homeless, basically in a situation that im sure your father do not want to be in. If he truly still cares for the family, im sure this little situation will give him some food for thought, or at least he would gamble with more awareness and limits himself such that he does not deplete the family reserves.

Another example could be your future, explain to him how important college is to you, and sustaining school fees is no joke. If your family cant support you for your education, its basically an even tougher life ahead for you and your family.

I feel the key is to let your father be aware of the consequences of the worst case scenarios, and if this do not work, then you just have to battle it out with him man to man, as im pretty sure you do not want to be in the "worst case scenario" situation, hence you have to step up

There was time one of my family , my sister felt ill , and our family went to Singapore and found out there's something wrong with inside her brain and need a small operation to take the unwanted thing out from the brain , this is where everybody broke down to emotional pressure because this is the first operation needed for one of my family , and my father stop gambling because of this , because it needs a huge pile of money , but after the surgery done and when my sister started to feel better and better , my father gambles again.
Yes , i am planning that when there's a family talk or only me and him alone in the room , i would wanna discuss this matters and ask to him.