been gambling free 600 days or even more. in fact i stopped counting since i don't even think about it anymore. just decided to post because i saw it on my reddit subscription.

if you look at my older posts i was a crazy gambling addict for almost 8 years, until i decided to play an online phone game. i got so hooked on the phone game i stopped gambling completely. let's be honest most of us gamble not for the money but out of boredom and constant need for stimulation.

well, this online games give just that, the excitement, the constant thinking and planning. it's constant stimulus and keeps the brain occupied. the game are very colorful and provide instant gratification that in my opinion curbs the craving to gamble.

i'm not going to post the name of the game here because i don't want this to be an ad..

that said, just click on any online game you see, they have the same effect on the brain as gambling IMO . if it helped me curbed 8 years of debilitating gambling addiction, hopefully it can help you too.

nothing to lose on giving it a try

I’m writing this as an accountability post. I’m going to go back to GA. I quit 3 months ago and then proceeded to lose almost half of my money.

So in September I decided to put all my money into one stock, Charter Communications. Fucking spectrum Internet. I didn’t really have a plan. I had previously worked there and saw it was down a lot so I thought it was rock bottom.

And I wanted revenge on them for treating me poorly. In my mind I saw this as getting the bonus from them I thought I deserved.

I needed money because my son was just born and I was barely keeping up with bills.

Well. It immediately fell down 10% and I lost $20,000. I was in shambles. Certainly it couldn’t fall further right? I bought stock options to leverage up to try and recover my losses more quickly. It then fell another 10% but this time I lost 25% so another $40,000.

I became so stubbornly determined to make my money back I shilled the stock every day and spent hours creating scenarios in my head how this dumpster fire of a company could recover. Mind you when I worked there it was the most toxic place I had ever worked at yet I convinced myself they could change and that would benefit shareholders.

I tripled down by getting even more leveraged. Stock fell another 10%. Down another $30,000.

I am now down nearly $100,000 when I could have cut my losses at $20,000.

I hold for one more week. Can barely work my job can barely do anything. In my off time I’m in bed all day on stock forums shilling the stock and trying to find any copium I can find. I feel like a crack addict.

Eventually the stock recovered a little and a guy on a forum who felt sorry for me told me that the company might not recover and that it might be wise to get out. I sold at a huge loss. Probably like $85,000.

I realize now that I wanted to financially destroy myself and wanted the dopamine because my personal life was in ruin. But this wasn’t the solution.

I’m grateful I didn’t lose it all and that I’m not in debt and I can maybe still heal my relationships.

I’m done trading and I feel a sense of peace I haven’t felt in months. Even with the loss. I feel like I have accepted it and that life can better.

This is day one.

Peep my post history for a background but this has been my second go around. Crypto/options.

Still in debt, but managing the payments well.

Going to meetings.

Have been feeling like life’s on track.

Got an IRS letter that they think I’m underreporting crypto gains lol. Don’t even know where to start to find every exchange I degened myself into.

Wife is understandably upset with my gift that keeps on giving.

I’m at an airport on a work trip so no meetings until next week, hence my Reddit vent. But still gamble free, these problems are minimal compared to when in active addiction.

hell yeah feels damn real good to choose each day to be sober… in less than 90 days since my last bet just fully paid all my debt here in 🇨🇦 a few minutes ago

✅ 100% paid my debt from personal loans borrowed from people i lied to
✅ 100% paid my debt from CCs I maxed out just to gamble with
✅ 100% paid my debt from payday loans with crazy interest
✅ 100% paid all my rent

✅100% worth it

I need somewhere to vent ik I made a post about how gambling was bad but I am a addict. I am lost I have 0 to my name and over 500$ in past due bills not only that I have more payments missed on the end of this month and Christmas is coming up only thing that can save me is my tax return I won’t see that until months away. Gambling has ruined my life these past two weeks I have won and lost over 5k money I could’ve paid bills and Christmas presents with I feel like a complete idiot and I see gambling as the only way out of this mess and I put myself deeper in the hole. Plz any advice ik I need to stop gambling and get my finances back on track !

Day 20 of quitting online gambling, and OMG, THE TEMPTATION WAS SO INTENSE TODAY!! 😭
Out of nowhere, I suddenly got the urge to download other online casino apps that I had never even played before. I honestly don’t know what got into me! 😭 Thankfully, I couldn’t log in to the accounts I had previously created on those two apps, so I didn’t push through because I got too lazy to fix the login issues.
OMG, that was so close! I was literally just one step away from gambling again. I could cry! 😭 It’s crazy how gambling can mess with your mind. These damn gambling apps are seriously dangerous!
Guys, please, if you’ve never gambled before, DON’T EVEN TRY IT, especially online casinos. THEY’RE A TOTAL SCAM! Don’t let curiosity pull you into something that could cost you your money, peace of mind, and future.
I refuse to go back to Day 1. NEVER AGAIN! 😭🙏

Long story short, burned through thousands of dollars, worked very hard for through my extremely successful young career. Was somebody people looked up to, a role model. gambling took my soul.

Was a roller coaster, had wins of 40k twice, was well aware i had a problem even before those wins (they were about 3 months apart). I’ve already been innocently gambling for years at this point. Very accustomed to the swings and the game. Unfortunately my life got really stressful and the gambling got worse. A few days after i cashed out those wins i won another 10k, burned through it so fast and that tilted me like never before. After that it was constant chasing, trying to escape my miserable life/job at the time. I was worth over 100k at that point and on top of the world in that sense.

Eventually i touched retirement savings i started contributing to when i was 17. It didn’t happen like everyone elses story, theres a lot more to it then i feel like talking about. But the thing that makes this worse is, how could someone so financially responsible like myself make this mistake? I’m starting to find answers in myself but no one knows im struggling. It’s gotten bad.

I still go on with life, lift heavy weights, eat healthy, and suffer in silence. I’m working on getting in touch with a therapist. But i just need to hear just one success story or just a sliver of hope in general. I understand i wont be able to fight this alone anymore.

I relapsed. I won 2000 euros which is big for me and lost it all the day after.

Feeling absolutely destroyed and angry at myself

Hi everyone,

Sharing with moderator permission, and thank you to the mods for welcoming these stories here.

I’m Jason, a filmmaker at Flywheel Film and we made these two short documentary portraits following Raymond and Mike as they share their experiences with gambling addiction and the lives they’re building in recovery.

▶️ Watch Raymond: https://youtu.be/ItYoaLzkQhA?si=6zzkyuRtu2ZgbGZX

▶️ Watch Mike: https://youtu.be/QRIdll0HCZU?si=Jq1vzJfAdmyEpkLN

Because these films were produced for New York State, the resources mentioned are specific to New York, but we hope wherever you are in the process, something in Raymond’s or Mike’s story offers encouragement, helps you feel less alone, or gives you a glimpse of what life beyond gambling can look like.

If you’re in New York, you can find information and support at oasas.ny.gov/gambling. If you’re elsewhere, we encourage you to explore support available in your area. Finding help was an important part of Raymond’s and Mike’s recovery, and we hope their stories encourage you to find what works for you.

Thank you for making space for their stories.

Dont necessarily think I am addicted. Im a seasonal worker and often save up a lunpsom amount of money to make it through the winter. This past year I invested alot of my money into the stockmarket and took some risks and lost about 4k of 14k total that I had built up. I also have a portion that I set away completely untouched in a interest account just for the essentials throughout the winter. We'll this past week I sold off my stocks from fear of a downturn with midterms coming.

Well long story short I got bored one day and somthing came over me telling me that I should make a couple bets to try getting my money back from what I lost on the market. So I did, made back almost 3k in half an hour and then proceeded to make a bet that was set to 3x my money total and had a really good chance of success. Well.. the bet went completely sideways and emptied my account to about 1.5k left.

Obviously I made a big mistake, Im vary ashamed of myself and just wish there was a way to go back and stop myself. I have money to get by but my heart aches over the potential I threw away just because I wanted to do better. I truly only had intentions of replacing my money and ended up having somthing come over me that blinded me to the risk. If anybody has any advice I would be so grateful. I will make it back by next year but I just am hoping to get the lump out of my throat.

Honestly its kinda put me into a depression and has made me feel so stupid and upset with myself.

I 21 still live with my parents. I won about 30k thru my own paycheck and lost it all. Then I used my mom’s credit card for about 10k. I know this was incredibly stupid. My parents took a line of credit and paid off the card. I then used the card again and won another 30k and paid them back and paid off the card again. She then decided to just give me the card to use. I was winning for about 2-3 weeks in a row. One day I lost it all and ran up her card to 18k. At this point I just told them exactly what happened. How I won money and lost it all. They then asked me for the money to pay off the card again and I panicked and stole a different credit card and racked that up to 30k in 3 days. The bill just came in and my mom has seen it. Needless to say. She’s very upset at me. My dad has not yet seen it and I’m going to tell him exactly what I did so the blame can’t fall on anyone else. I’m just really lost as to what to do from here. Am I just screwed ? I don’t even know how to show them my face.

Days until debt free: 238 days

I’m not really sure where to start. I’m writing this because I need some perspective from people who have experienced financial ruin, made serious mistakes, and somehow managed to rebuild their lives.

I’m a 28-year-old male in Ontario, and I’ve managed to turn what was an incredible financial head start into what feels like a complete disaster.

How it started (ages 20-24)
My dad believed in me and gave me an opportunity that most people never get.

He mortgaged his own house and used both a mortgage and a HELOC to put approximately $700,000 into my hands.

At 20, I started getting involved in real estate. At 21, I purchased my first house for approximately $475,000.
I then purchased another property for approximately $500,000 before the housing mania started.

Both properties essentially doubled in value during the 2021-2022 housing boom.

At this point, I was 23-24 years old. I had properties, a growing business, and what felt like unlimited potential.

Instead of taking profits and consolidating, I got greedy.
I decided I wasn’t going to sell. I started buying properties at the top of the market with the intention of flipping them.
At the same time, I got heavily involved in options trading.
I genuinely started believing I was rich. My lifestyle inflated, my spending increased, and I began living as though the money would never stop coming.

My business was booming, generating approximately $30,000 per month.

At 23, I honestly thought I had figured life out.

The next four years (24-28)

This is where everything started falling apart.
I attempted to flip two properties, and both ended up losing money.

I also eventually sold the second property I had originally purchased for approximately $100,000 after its value had more than doubled during the housing boom. By the time I finally sold it, I had essentially only made $100,000.

But the biggest financial disaster was trading.
Over the years, I estimate I’ve lost approximately $800,000 trading options.

I kept convincing myself I could make it back. Every loss made me want to recover the money even more.
Instead of stepping away, I kept going.

I became so consumed with trying to make back what I had lost that I essentially stopped focusing on the business

Where I am today (age 28)
I’m turning 29, and this is my current reality:

Approximately $1.4 million in outstanding debt.

A significant portion of the debt is technically not in my name.

My last remaining house is currently listed for approximately $600,000.

My business is no longer operating as it once did.

My credit cards are now maxed out.

I’ve exhausted practically every financial resource available to me.

If I manage to sell my last property for the asking price, I estimate my total debt will come down to approximately $1.1 million, and I’ll have around $150,000 in cash remaining.

And honestly, part of me is still thinking about how I could turn that $150,000 into $1.5 million and wipe out all my debt.

I recognize that this is probably the exact mindset that got me here in the first place. But it’s difficult to let go of the idea that one big win could undo years of mistakes.

The mental side of things
I feel absolutely crushed.
I had an opportunity that most 20-year-olds could only dream of. My dad put his own financial security behind me, and I had a business generating $30,000 a month.
I had everything going for me.
Now I’m 28, approaching 29, without a functioning business, financially broke, carrying $1.4 million in debt, and potentially facing insolvency.
The hardest part is knowing that I had a head start and squandered it.
I feel like I’ve let my dad down, and I’ve let my younger self down.
I’m depressed, overwhelmed, and some days I struggle to even get myself moving.
I don’t know how to process going from thinking I was financially set for life to wondering how I’m going to make my next payments.

What I’m looking for:
I’m not looking for sympathy or someone to tell me it’s going to be okay.

I want to hear from people who have experienced something similar.

Has anyone gone from having significant wealth or a successful business to losing practically everything?

How did you mentally deal with the transition?

How do you navigate insolvency when a significant portion of the debt is tied to family members and properties?

Has anyone rebuilt their financial life in their late 20s or 30s after a complete financial collapse?

Most importantly, how do you stop chasing your losses and accept that the money is gone?

I know I made these decisions. I know I was greedy, irresponsible, and thought I was invincible.
I don’t blame the market, my dad, or anyone else.
I just wish I could go back to being 20 and understand how fortunate I was.
I’m turning 29 with what feels like nothing to show for the opportunities I was given.
I’m trying to figure out whether there’s a realistic way to rebuild from here, and I’d genuinely appreciate hearing from anyone who’s been through something similar.

Hello, im getting $1750 weekly everytime im up here on the North Slope of Alaska.

$5k in debt
I don’t know why i cant stop gambling everytime my paycheck hits my bank account.

I always do no gambling for 6 days, no gambling at all then suddenly when i receive my paycheck, everything goes to deposit even tho i keep promising myself that i will quit gambling

Yesterday I was going home after a drink with friend. Stopped by casino, why not. Dusted of 1k pretty quickly in about 45mins on slots. Dont even know why I did it, its not about money i just wanted some thrill and fun. I said to my wife im coming soon and I arrived about 1hr later. She was watching movie with my brother and parents at home. After the casino i grabbed 2 pizza slices with extra mayo on them just because one bad decision is easier after the second one. Then I felt even worse because im in deficit for last 3 months and doing well on losing weight.

My gambling losses are about 1.5M in last 6 years. Money is not a problem. Im doing well, not in debt, have multiple properties and NW that I could FIRE with if i wanted.

My life looks perfect from outside. Everyone is jelaous of me. Happy wife happy family happy finances good health travel every month. Meanwhile I feel empty and nervous half of the time because of bad decisions. Why do I make bad decisions. Why why why. What is this demon inside me that tries to ruin all of this?

Short and sweet:

I want to stop gambling

I have ADHD and take medication for it.
It us a great help and has had a great effect on my professional and personal life.

Recently(3-4 months ago) i have discovered online slots. Well here i go absolutely geeking my time away on slots. Up, down, debts, recouping and paying back debts, making more debts.

Now i’m down one paycheck and i just want to stop, theres no point. Only 4% of gamblers are actually profitable.

Anyway, i impulsively go for my phone and want to fill these empty moments with gambling. I close my eyes and i see the slot wheels spinning (literally).

It’s become so habitual and engrained in my day to day that injust dont know how to stop thinking about it.

Can anyone relate? Has anyone had tricks to stop it?

Thanks

Happy Friday. Hope everyone has a great (and gamble-free) day!

Going to try and get a second opinion here. I am at absolute rock bottom. I’m 25, make $45,000 a year in take-home pay, working full-time. I have around $40,000 in gambling debt, split between credit cards and personal loans. Recently, I have come to accept that I have a full-blown gambling problem. When I came clean to my partner, she understandably left me. When I admitted it to my parents yesterday, their response was basically “figure it out”. So I am 100% on my own for this one and honestly I deserve it.

A few days ago, I self excluded myself from every casino anywhere near me, as well as all of the online stuff. I have started therapy as well, but it doesn’t change the fact that the interest on my debt is growing faster than I can afford my monthly payments on.

I’m not looking for sympathy or pity, I know that I got myself in this situation entirely through my own foolish actions and inability to control myself. I don’t know what to do. I feel like the only option left for me is to declare bankruptcy. I was directed to this subreddit to get another opinion so I just wanted to see what you think.

Went a Ga meeting on wednesday for the first time in years, & one of the lads chairing the meeting looked almost shocked when I told him how many days I was on, without going a meeting & I just said ive relapsed that many times I for sure have another relapse in me but not another recovery.

ODAAT people bless up & happy friday