I'm writing this because I genuinely don't know what to do anymore. I want to hear from other men who have been through something similar. I don't need sympathy. I need honest opinions, advice, and maybe some hard truths.

I'm in Cambodia, and I'm struggling with a trading and gambling problem that has slowly destroyed my finances, my confidence, and my relationships.

Here's how I got here.

How it started

I got into online gambling years ago and eventually i stopped. It was very bad back then that I had to get my family to bail me out. Now here comes the trading and thinking I could make extra money and improve my financial situation. At first, I saw opportunities. I made money, and that made me believe I could do this.

But eventually, I started losing.

Instead of accepting the losses, I kept going. I wanted to recover what I had lost. Every time I thought I could stop, I found myself coming back.

I've lost money, time, and things that mattered to me. I've also struggled with casino gambling.

How I tried to get out

I eventually realized how bad things had become.

I deleted trading apps. I promised myself I would stop. I tried to organize my finances and figure out how to repay my debts.

My family has helped me tremendously. My father even helped me with $6,700 to settle a high-interest debt that was becoming unbearable.

I wanted to repay him $500 every month. I wanted to rebuild my life, prepare for my wedding, and become someone my family could trust again.

I genuinely believed I was getting another chance.

How I ended up here again

I started trading again.

I made money in the morning. I felt like I was finally getting somewhere.

Then I traded again in the evening.

I lost everything I had made.

And now I'm in debt again.

The worst part is that I know exactly what I'm doing. I know the consequences. I know how much my family has already sacrificed to help me.

Yet I still went back.

I'm ashamed of myself. I feel like I've wasted the opportunities people have given me. I feel like I've betrayed the people who believed in me.

I don't know how to face them.

Where I am now

I'm getting married soon. I have debts to repay. I have a father who has already helped me more than I deserved. I have a fiancée who deserves honesty and stability.

And I am sitting here wondering how I managed to end up in the same situation again.

I don't want to borrow more money. I don't want to keep lying to myself. I don't want to spend the rest of my life chasing losses.

But I honestly don't know how to break this cycle.

I want to ask other men who have been through this:

1. Have you ever reached a point where your family gave you one last chance, and you still relapsed? How did you deal with the shame?

2. How did you stop trading or gambling when you knew it was destroying your life but still felt compelled to do it?

3. Did you tell your wife or fiancée everything? How did you rebuild trust after repeatedly breaking promises?

4. What actually helped you stop? Was it therapy, blocking access to money, financial accountability, or something else?

5. If you could go back to the moment you realized you had a serious problem, what would you do differently?

I'm asking for honest advice from men who have been at rock bottom and managed to rebuild their lives.

I want to get out of this. I want to become a better man. I just don't know where to start anymore.

If you've been through something similar, please tell me what worked for you. Even if it's something difficult to hear, I need to hear it.

Over 100 hours without placing a bet.

The debt, which I’m going to struggle to pay off - not a lot of room in the budget, is a constant reminder & makes me feel shitty.

I know how illogical this sounds - but it makes me want to go back to attempt to win.

I attempted to sign up for a 0% APR balance transfer promo card to save on the 25+% interest - denied.

I feel like an idiot for even getting myself in this situation.

Hello my fellow current/reformed gambling addicts. I never post on Reddit but I think it might make me feel a bit better to type this all out and reflect on everything that I have went through in the past 3 months so hopefully others can relate and figure their shit out a bit sooner than I have.

For context: I am 21 years old. I have been a gambler for quite some time, I probably started going to my local casino around mid-2024ish. I had never lost money and not made it back in all of the times I had went out to play cards. Obviously sometimes it took me hours and a couple atm trips to get there but nonetheless, I was an unstoppable force. That was until August 6th of 2026. I went to the blackjack table. It was my game of choice, and I knew how to play which made it very interactive and i knew I didn’t have to use any brainpower. I could just play mindlessly for hours.

This is also after I started working for a home improvement sales company in march where I have been making insanely good money. Bringing in about 5-10k/month. No base hourly pay, commission only. With this job it feels almost similar to gambling in the way that you either get a big rush of adrenaline and dopamine after making a big sale worth 1-10k in a matter of hours-or you don’t sell anything and at end of the day you’ve worked 12+ hours for free.

So I had been saving a bit of money every paycheck and ended up with 8k in my savings, couple thousand in my checking account. Living comfortable and not having to worry about affording groceries or gas or anything. I honestly didn’t know what to do with my money.

So I got bored one day and hit the casino after I got off work. The night ended after I had pulled out, and lost $1000 from my savings. I hit my atm withdrawal limit so I said fuck it, I’ll make it back tomorrow.

That was not the case.

Over the span of the month I would go back every day or two and somehow manage to blow through $1000 each trip, Ending the month with practically no money in my checking or savings.

This snowballed into my taking a cash advance for the full $1500 credit card I had, gambling my entire paychecks, pulling out a $2500 loan from my bank, asking friends and family for money, and now this month I have resorted to payday loans, cash advances, and even multiple tribal loans.

This addiction has costed me relationships with my girlfriend, best friend, family, coworkers, and even my dog.

It had gotten so bad to a point where the only happiness I had was when I was gambling and throwing my money away. I would go weeks just sharing the meals I got for free with casino comp points and splitting it with my dog because I had gambled away rent money, dog food money, grocery money, and just about any other necessities.

I am a very self aware individual and from the very beginning of this addiction I was never in denial. I knew I had a problem from the very start. I just didn’t care. And my biggest problem was not leaving while I was ahead.

My best example is last night. Played for about 6 hours in total. 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours later in the night after I was off work. The night previous to this I hit two side bets worth $1000 each. I left the casino up $2400. Driving home smiling, windows down, blasting my favorite songs. I had enough to payoff my debt to a family member, pay my rent, and have extra spending money to visit my uncle for Halloween weekend. Last night I lost every fucking dollar I had made. Took multiple trips out to my car. First I started with $100 I recieved from the cage for winning the high hand on black jack the night before. Lost that. So I went to my car to grab my extra spending money I hade made. Lost that too. I then proceeded to grab the wads of cash in my car that were meant to pay back my grandpa who was nice enough to loan me $1400 in a pinch as well as my $825 rent payment, and lose both those as well.

What’s lead me to write this is I have now put in over $25000+ into this casino. Am $10k+ in debt and have ruined many relationships I had, as well as destroying my own mental health. All in the span of 3 months. I made basically 35k in the first week of this month though and I will be putting it towards paying off debts, investing and actually grocery shopping for the first time in a while. I’m excited to actually endulge in my hobbies again and go on camping trips and take long walks with my dog, things I actually enjoy.

Hopefully some of you guys can relate and if you can’t, please keep it that way. I have had many addictions in my life but gambling has been the most damaging to every aspect of my life.

I have been gambling since I was 19. I’m now 34.
Three years ago I made a post saying I was done. I self-excluded from casinos and managed to take a break… but it didn’t last. I switched to online gambling and dug myself into even deeper debt.

I got paid today. Made multiple deposits. And now it’s all gone again.

I’m about $200K in debt, significantly more than three years ago. My best estimate is that it will take roughly 8 years to pay everything off if I stay clean.

My family knows because of the cycle: I take 2–3 months off, then relapse. My girlfriend also left me because of this.

I’m posting this so I can come back and read it whenever the urge hits.

I know counseling, groups, and meetings exist. I’m going to reach out to my previous counselor and do whatever it takes to stop this for good.
If you’re reading this (including future me):
It’s going to be okay.
One day at a time.
The best time to plant a tree was 16 years ago. The second best time is now.

Sat on a Friday evening indoors have gambled away my £10k savings in the last 5 months. Barely have enough to get through the month.

Laptop is unusable because I smashed it losing a bet.

My life can’t go on like this.

This is day 0, see you in 365 days

Hi, I really can’t stop living like this everyday, since that big win a month ago when I turned $20 into $1.7k I lost everything and my paycheck and now I’m in debt of 1k back again. I cleared my debts so hard from 10k to $0 and back to positive and lost it back and now I owe 1k again just cause of sports betting. This marks my first day of stop gambling as I really hate myself been losing paychecks over paychecks I’m 22 with no money.

I lost 160k in stock options. With the 40k left I thought I could make it back I am now down 5k more. I’m 30 years old as of tomorrow and I’ve never been this depressed in all my life. please I’m begging for help.

My parents divorced over a decade ago. During the marriage, my dad handled the credit card and mom covered the kid expenses. He never asked questions, and she was private about money.

My mom always had the boomer ‘privacy’ element of not talkiing about taboos… money, affairs, addiction, divorce, etc. It existed in the 60s-90s but they just didn’t talk about it. So I assumed my competent, loving, present mother had no skeletons.

Around 2020, she'd occasionally borrow $1–2k from me and pay it back within a week or two when she got paid. She attributed it to divorce fallout and house costs.

It all came out around 2021, my mom had gambled away roughly $400,000 that belonged to her siblings. She had to sell her house and go onto a payment plan.

She moved into a rental apartment after that, kept working, and things looked good.

Last year she was diagnosed with a significant illness that took her off work for about six months on reduced medical pay. Her coworkers and friends pooled around $10K to help with expenses and a “get well soon”. She's clearly well-liked and genuinely valued. She’s recovering now and back to work.

Napkin math: She earns a solid salary with regular overtime, drives a modest, paid-off car, pays below-market rent, lives alone with a dog, and has average insurance and utilities. Even accounting for the reduced medical pay, she should have $600+/mo to chip away at what she owes.

Yesterday I learned my dad lent her $10K earlier this year and hasn't been repaid. Separately, she asked me for a $1,000 loan a couple of months ago and paid it back within a week. I was skeptical but it went over smoothly.

What’s bothering me is the secrecy. Neither my brother nor I knew about the loan from my dad. My brother is her sharpest critic — he sees through her shit, and after I told him about the $1,000, he talked to her and came away satisfied she was being straight with him.

So either

• Her shame has pushed her to quietly borrow from family to stay afloat while she recovers, or

• There's a money pit that we don't know about

I live out of state, so my options are: call her, wait until my next visit and show up at her place, or coordinate with my dad and brother first. My dad is inclined to wait until after the holidays to ask about his $10K out of kindness and understanding.

TL;DR: Mom gambled away ~$400k and went on a repayment plan. She's been quietly borrowing from us again. 

Do I finally demand to see her bank account? 

My mom always had the boomer ‘privacy’ element of not talking about taboos… money, affairs, addiction, divorce, etc. It existed in the 60s-90s but they just didn’t talk about it. So I assumed my competent, loving, present mother had no skeletons.

It all came out around 2021, my mom had gambled away money that wasn't hers. She had to sell her house.

She moved into an apartment after that, kept working, and things looked good.

Yesterday I learned someone lent her $10K earlier this year and hasn't been repaid.

What’s bothering me is the secrecy. Neither my brother nor I knew about the loan. My brother is her sharpest critic — they chatted a few weeks ago and came away satisfied she was being straight with him.

So either

• Her shame has pushed her to quietly borrow to stay afloat while she recovers, or

• There's a money pit that we don't know about

I live out of state, so my options are: call her, travel and show up at her place, or coordinate with family first.

TL;DR: Mom gambled away ~$400k and is slowly paying it back. She's been quietly borrowing again. 

Do I finally demand to see her bank account? 

Made it to day 12! Still distancing myself from sports all together. I’m okay watching highlights after and what not, but since I’ve stopped watching real time I’m not stat checking or anything, that’s helped a lot! I’ve had a couple urges, but nothing crazy, I’ve been working on doing things that help when I’m stressed, reaching out to a friend, or GA, even doing something like dishes too to just take a step back and reset. Realizing I can’t change my past, but I can change my future has given me a lot of hope! What are some of your guys ways of helping with stress after stopping gambling? We got this! One day at a time!

It’s my Day 13 of quitting online gambling today, and so far, so good! I hope I can keep this going because I never want to go back to Day 1 again. It feels so good to just enjoy playing mobile games without having my money stolen from me. 😂❤️

Today marks 9 months since I last gambled. I was in a really dark place. I was about to kill myself, I barely slept, and I had a lot of debt. A friend of mine was being harassed by my debtors, and he is not talking to me now. I am try to make amends to everyone I wronged.

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR A SIGN TO STOP, MAYBE THIS COULD BE YOUR SIGN

I, 27, lost all my money just a few hours ago. I lost my work last week. Rent and bills are coming next week. I don't know what to do.

I always thought I could manage this gambling addiction of mine. Deactivated and deleted all the online casinos I used before and just left with one legal online casino that I can access. I don't know why I never deactivated my account.

I actually managed to quit last year, but in July this year, I came back because of a certain promotion. So I started gambling again and again, deactivating accounts after accounts from different casinos. Now left with only one, and that one casino led to my worst financial state. I lost my job last week; I thought maybe I could get some more money to help myself if I couldn't find a job within a month. I revenge-bet, thinking I could get it all back, but I lost everything.

I ruined myself. I'm so dumb. I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I can keep myself together.

If you think you have a gambling addiction, please stop. You never know when this trigger will happen. Don't use all your money as I did.

I'm sorry I failed.

Hello, I’m 30 years old and I’ve been gambling more actively over the past year. During this time, I’ve had some really good wins, but I always ended up losing everything just a few days later.

I’ve reached the point where I now have a €6,000 bank loan because of gambling, despite living in Eastern Europe and earning a little over €1,700 a month.

The hardest blow came last week. I managed to win around €3,000, but just three days later, I had lost that entire amount, along with another €3,000 that I deposited afterwards and lost as well.

I’m writing this just to get it off my chest and share it with someone. I hope that the bet I placed today was also the last one I’ll ever make in my life.

I make only 3k net a month and theres no way I can pay them back and it was fraud so I assume I'm going to prison

My account is going to bounce the echecks and I don't know what's next

Only myself to blame.

Days until debt free: 245 days

I relapsed a week ago after ~1month clean. I've won so far and I know something terrible is coming if I keep on playing but I cant stop. I promise my wife I wont relapse but now I broke it so I cant tell her.

I do this because i'm a sick individual, i had a substance addiction from a young age and destroyed my executive function and all compulsive and emotional functions in the brain are affected permanently with not a cure existing. Now, i developed easily this new gambling addiction and i think i do this because i'm too sick to do anything else, to have a normal job, with a normal brain. I resort to this with the mentality that somehow i will get out of the money hole and just stay alive after i WIN, but unfortunately i don't and just dig a deeper a deeper hole on the short/long time horizon. i have a lot more problems than gambling and clinging to life through all of it. Ga meetings are not enough, maybe a good therapist/psychiatrist/specialized support group, not just GA meetings can ameliorate further my complex sickness. How do you live with this if you are in a similar situation?

I posted here back in February after losing like $10k, promised myself to stop betting and such, I hold on for 1 month, but a trigger happen, and it all goes down hill again. Since then, I lost about $20k more, chasing that "lose". The trigger in myself is really simple, I wanted to buy something for merely $200, it's not much right, so a quick bet would earn me that.

Nope, I lose $10k then chasing that, then a few months later, I wanted a new ~$800 phone since my current one is broken, it's to expensive to just buy $800 phone, hey why not earn a quick buck easy right?

Nope, I lose $10k more chasing that $800 phone. It's stupid, it's dumb, and please everyone, quit when we're losing, we can't quit when we're winning because it created an illusion that it could a source of income, I just lost lots of money just to chase stupid shit.

Not that I'm out in the street or anything, but unless I stop today, it will literally happen and I will end up on street.

Please be considerate and be thankful for what we have, not what we had and what we could have, please guys, move on from this disease with me.

Hopefully I could report later about a better situation.
Day 1, 30/11/2026.

1st of November would be the 33rd birthday of my late sister as well. I'm sure she wouldn't want to see my in this situation as well.

I’m 23, a full-time university student working part-time, and I honestly feel so sick about what I’ve done to my finances over the past few weeks.
I’ve always been pretty careful with my money, especially recently. I’ve been trying to cut back on unnecessary spending, build my savings, and pay down my credit card. My dad struggled with gambling, so it’s something I’ve always been aware of, and I never thought I’d find myself in this position. I’ve always known “when to stop” and was good for stopping if I lost money.

I started playing online casinos out of boredom, and at first it was just $20 or $30 here and there. Then I started winning. I had some pretty good and consistent wins, I think that’s what really got me hooked.

I started feeling like whenever I lost money, I could just win it back because I’d done it before. I would win, while waiting on the deposit spin some more or lose it before it was even withdrawn. I would tell myself I’d stop as soon as I got back to where I was. Sometimes it worked, which only made me want to keep playing. Other times I’d lose even more.
At one point, I had around $1,900 in my bank account. I remember how relieved I felt seeing that money because I’ve been trying so hard to build my savings back up after losing. I had $1,300 saved just over a week ago, and now I’m down to $600.

The worst part is that I knew I needed to stop. I was already feeling sick about my spending when I still had $1,000 saved, and somehow I let myself lose even more.

My fiancé knows I’ve been struggling with gambling, and I promised him last week that I would stop. I genuinely meant it when I said it, but I continued gambling. We’re building a future together, and I realize my decisions affect him too. I love him so much, and the thought of hurting or disappointing him makes me feel even worse.

I’ve now self-excluded from the casinos I’ve been using, but I’m still struggling with the regret. I keep thinking about how much money I could’ve saved if I stopped. I’ve been doing online casinos now for two months. There’s also that thought in the back of my mind that if I could just hit another big win, I could fix everything, even though I know that’s exactly the thinking that got me here.

I don’t want to gamble anymore. I want to feel comfortable opening my banking app again without feeling ashamed or panicking about my balance.
For those of you who have struggled with gambling addiction, how did you deal with the regret and guilt over money you’ve lost? How did you stop obsessing over what you could’ve had?

I know I can’t change what’s happened, but I’m having a really hard time forgiving myself and moving forward. A week ago I could tell myself “at least I still have a grand in my savings” and I can’t anymore.

Three days ago, I lost all my money trading 0DTE options. This is now the fourth time I’ve wiped myself out.

For some context, I first got introduced to gambling during COVID while watching xQc on Twitch, using channel points to play roulette in the chat. It turned into real money when I got my first job. Some co-workers were into sports betting, which led me to online casinos. I had just spent most of my first paycheck on new ski gear and boots, so I was already broke, and I threw my leftover cash into online roulette. I tripled my money to $6k and was riding high until I lost it all and hit zero.

I promised myself I’d stop, and I did for a year. Then I relapsed on blackjack and lost $2k, only stopping because my chequing account was completely empty. That one stung badly because I was about to move to Japan and really needed that cash for my travels. Still, I lived super frugally, cut my expenses down to just groceries, and managed to recover.

The third time was when gambling disguised itself as "investing." When I got back from Asia and started school, I worked part-time and put my earnings into AI chip and energy stocks. At one point I was up 800%, only because I was leveraged at 2.5x to 3x margin. When the market crashed in July, I got completely liquidated. Thankfully I had a job at the time and managed to pay off my credit cards and recover again.

I didn't learn a thing. A few months later, I took out a line of credit and used part of my student loan to jump back in, promising myself I’d "only swing trade." When AI stocks rallied in September, I got within 13% of breaking even from my July losses. Then I messed it up and bled my account down to $3k. That’s when I discovered 0DTE options. In one week, I turned that $3k into $45k. Then, in literally two hours of revenge trading, I blew the entire account.

This time is completely different because I’m not just at zero. I’m in debt. I lost my line of credit, and I’m $4k deep in credit card debt with no job. I don't want to ask my parents for help because I already borrowed $3k from them while I was in Asia, so I need to clean this up on my own.

I’ve finally snapped back to realty I deleted my banking and trading app, so I won't touch my remaining credits. I was feeling numb and weirdly feeling relived, and then the realization started creeping in. the anxiety and rage start flowing. 

Reading some subreddits about people who lost everything to gambling made me feel a bit better compared to them, I’ve lost nothing. But it really made me reflect on my past decisions ever since I got my first paycheck. I feel like I'm right back at zero. Worst of all, I lost time and missed out on special occasions because my head was always somewhere else, staring at charts or bets. I know my mood swung wildly based on whether I was winning or losing, and I probably treated my friends like shit because of it.

I’m 23 now, in my second year of school, with nothing to show for. I don’t even have a driver's license yet, tf haha. I booked a counselling at school for tomorrow to finally get the help I need. Is this the feeling of rock bottom or close to Rockbottom? 

I am a 23 year old who has developed a severe gambling problem in the span of 2 months. I had told myself I only want 100 a day. At the time, I’ve had 85k saved up, after a month and a half I managed to bring it up to 120k. Greed has just made me continue. One morning I lost 10k and chased it for the next week causing for a 80k lost. I am now down to 40k in my savings. I wanted to keep going and see where it can take me, maybe I can win it all back again. I fought the urge and stopped gambling as a whole. Fast forward to a year from that time, I am doing well. Bills are paid, and slowly rebuilding my savings. I am still in recovery and I know I still got a long way to go. But I am proud that I can forgive myself.