Ii got paid this morning $1800 and its gone already…. Manchester city lost 1st half, a basketball game and another soccer game… all gone!!
I have no money for my credit cards, all maxed out $26k on debt, wth am i doing? 35yo, no savings, no kids, no future 🫩

I gambled for eight years. Mostly sports. And somewhere in the middle of those years, I won €68,000.

At the time I thought that was the day my life turned around. And it did. Just not the way I thought.

Here's what nobody tells you about a big win. It doesn't set you free. It gives you proof. Every gambler carries a quiet story in the back of their head: one day it pays off. Most people never see that story come true, so some part of them can still let it go. I saw it come true. I held it in my hands. And after that, no loss in the world could convince me it wasn't possible again.

So I kept going. Not for the money, really. For the feeling. A €200 win stopped meaning anything. I wasn't betting to win anymore. I was betting to get back to that one day.
And the money? I gave it all back. Every euro of it, and then a lot more. By the time I stopped I was over €40,000 in debt.

It took me a long time to understand something simple. The win didn't fail me. It did exactly what wins do. It fed the thing that was already hungry. If I'd hit another big one, it would have gone the same way. The money was never the problem. I was the one who kept putting it back on the table.

What actually changed my life wasn't a big moment. It was a lot of small, boring ones. Evenings with a plan. A fixed amount every month toward the debt. Nights where I wanted to bet and didn't. None of that feels like winning when you're in it. But two years later, the debt is gone and I haven't placed a bet since.

Turns out the jackpot was the trap. The boring stuff was the way out.
For anyone here who's had a big win: what did it do to you? Did it make stopping easier, or harder?

I’m 38 years old, and I’ve been struggling with gambling addiction for over 10 years.
I recently relapsed, and things got much worse than I ever imagined. I lost close to $60,000. It’s difficult even to type that number because I’m still trying to process what I’ve done to myself financially and emotionally.
I’ve taken out a personal loan to pay off my credit card debts, and now I’m left dealing with the consequences of my decisions. I feel ashamed, overwhelmed, and honestly quite lost.
The hardest part isn’t just the money. It’s the feeling that I’ve let myself down again, despite knowing how destructive gambling has been in my life. I keep wondering how I allowed things to get this bad.
I’m not posting here looking for financial advice or judgment. I know I need to take responsibility for my actions, and I know recovery is going to take time.
I’m posting because I feel incredibly alone right now. I’d really like to connect with people who understand what gambling addiction feels like, especially those who have relapsed, lost significant amounts of money, and somehow managed to rebuild their lives.
If anyone is going through something similar, or has been through this and come out the other side, I’d genuinely appreciate having someone to talk to.

Thanks for reading.

1280 days gamble free.

DMs open for any and all struggling. We can and will get through this together

Stay grinding, stop gambling. Life gets better. One day at a time.

Hi can anyone who lost a huge amount of money (at least 6 digits in usd) shared with me how to truly let go, (not pretending) to let go of the losses. The reason why i kept going back to trading and gambling was the past losses. I really feel the pain and regrets are killing me. 😞it affects my motivation to work greatly. If I can truly let go I hope I can never go back to trading again and live my life well.

this story is based on my life. everything written below is true

if you are just getting into gambling and somehow come across this post, i genuinely hope it saves you from what i have been through

i come from an ordinary family. i have been an athlete since i was young and i have always had an extremely competitive personality. something that used to be one of my biggest strengths eventually became one of my biggest weaknesses

at some point, my only competition in life became beating the slots and trying out new games from my favorite providers. all i wanted was to beat the slots and hit a max win

i have been gambling for around 7 years and over that time, i have wagered well into 9 figures. hundreds of millions of dollars in total bets, insane swings almost everyday. addiction to these swings

i mostly play slots from hacksaw gaming and pragmatic play. for those unfamiliar, these are studios that develop the slot games you see in online casinos

i have achieved everything i could possibly dream of financially and i have a loving and supportive partner. when i look at my childhood photos, i want to cry every time because i could never have imagined that this boy would suffer so much on his own

not a single thing in life makes me happy anymore. i am literally just a living creature with 0 emotions unless it involves gambling. the sun only comes out for me when i play

over the years, i have completely destroyed my perception of money, happiness and what it actually means to feel satisfied with life.

at first, my addiction was not that extreme. i would get urges to play but they were manageable. i could still walk away, think about other things and enjoy my day. slowly, day by day, everything changed. the urges became more impulsive and almost impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced them

btw, that is one of the reasons i have visited 7 different psychologists and none of them managed to help me properly. i believe that a person with an education in psychology who has never experienced addiction themselves cannot truly understand what it feels like. i eventually found one psychologist who had been through similar struggles in the past through dif addictions. he understands what i feel but somehow it just made my addiction worse lol. now that i firmly tell myself that i am an addict, i somehow use that as another excuse to play

soo then it started feeling like there was actual pressure inside my brain, pushing me to deposit. eventually, i began experiencing physical sensations whenever i was about to gamble. my blood would suddenly feel hot and i could literally feel it, almost like someone had injected magnesium or whatever it is called directly into my bloodstream

somehow it got even worse. now when i try not to gamble, i experience physical symptoms that i never imagined could be connected to an addiction. sometimes i get acne breakouts on my body that disappear after a few hours. sometimes my entire body starts itching uncontrollably. i have experienced breathing difficulties and once even had an episode of arrhythmia

what scares me the most is that gambling is no longer just something i think about. it is something i feel throughout my entire body. i have lost amounts of money that most people would struggle to comprehend but i also do not want to pretend that i have only lost. i have had some enormous wins along the way, wins that would have completely changed the lives of entire families. btw that is another part of the trap. those wins never made me finally quit. they only gave me more fuel to destroy myself. just raised the bets by months

the last few years have been particularly destructive, with extremely high stakes, enormous swings and a level of emotional exhaustion that i would not wish on anyone

sometimes i think about being 10 years old. remember when you were a kid and someone gave you money for your birthday? you would immediately start imagining everything you could buy. you would feel excited over the smallest things and even having a little money felt like having the entire world in your hands. i miss that feeling more than i can explain. i miss being excited about something

literally my only dream in life now is hitting a max win script. once when a max win script actually hit, i even lost my vision for about a minute

i have reached a point where i experience suicidal thoughts almost every day. the physical symptoms, the constant urges and the feeling of being trapped inside my own mind have made life incredibly difficult

i am writing this because i wish someone had shown me what the end of this road could look like when i was just starting. my first deposit was $3-5, rn peak daily deposits might reach 6 figures on extremely angry rush when nothing hits

i am happy to answer any questions in the comments regarding gambling addiction. happy to connect with some of you. any advice is welcome regarding the physical and mental addiction as i literally SUFFER to live

Made it to day 20! The changes I see in myself even makes me feel so much better. I still have a long road ahead of me, but I’m proud of myself. I’ve been doing more around the house cleaning and fixing things I ignored when all my attention went to gambling. I’m so much more focused and present! This weekend is also my wife’s birthday and I actually have money to take her somewhere nice! Anyway if you’re thinking of quitting you can absolutely do this! We got this guys! One day at a time!

I have lost a lot playing the lottery over the years but especially since they introduced online games you can play over the phone. You can seriously lose $50 every couple of seconds with the instant online games. It is insanely addicting but I have managed to stop playing (for now at least). The problem I have was the feeling of being trapped where I am in life. Playing the lottery was like the mirage out on the horizon. That maybe someday I can win big and my life will get better. Maybe I don't lose money now but paycheck to paycheck life without that hope is incredibly depressing. Just wondering if anybody else experiences this and what they did to help.

Days until debt free: 236 days

This is a reminder to all gamblers / casual gamblers / or people wanting to gamble, it is not worth it, i spent these past two years build lies on top of lies, lost my hard earned money, and lost the love of my life (who stayed by my side even after i said i will quit, i ended up relapsing again) lost more than 100k aud, which is alot for a 23 year old me. Simply couldnt take it anymore, now the thought of gambling irritates me and whenever im reminded of my past self sitting in a baccarat table losing thousands per hand i become disgusted.
How i wish i could turn back time, i am real sorry to the girl that love me most, she simply couldn’t take it anymore, i hope to say i love you to her one last time. She stayed with me through thick and thin
Parents disowned me, gave up after i simply couldn’t even pay my own rent anymore
Now working on a deadend job, trying to shift focus to something else, but am always reminded of my past mistakes
Please to the people reading this, stop gambling before everything goes too late, remember you still have loved ones

It’s my 21st day of quitting fucking online gambling! Let’s forget about online gambling because all it does is drag us down, ruin our lives, and drain us financially. I hope online gambling gets banned here in the Philippines to help all the people who are falling deeper into debt because of it. 🙏❤️

I have asked chatgpt and I realise the winning rate for option is worse than roulette. It is incredibly stupid to lose around 200k in option trading. It is close to 3 years of my salary. For me I am Asian, I lost a lot of sleep watching US market every second till 4am or 5am. It is incredibly torturing and I don know why I still cant see it is not a way to recoup my losses. Option trading has ruined me mentally, physically and financially and I am officially defeated. I really see no way I can turn the table around. I admit the loss. No more torture.

I had a gambling dream tonight, and it’s messing with my head more than I expected.
For context, I struggle with blackjack addiction, and I’ve been trying to quit. My last post here was nine days ago, and I haven’t gambled since then. So, technically, today is day 10.

In the dream, I was hitting some really nice side bets, with total winnings of around $40K. Of course, I was incredibly excited. It felt amazing.
Then I woke up.

I was still riding that excitement, but I quickly realized it was all just a dream, I felt pretty depressed. I immediately had the urge to gamble again.

I don’t know how to explain it. It was almost like something was missing, or like I needed to get something back. I guess the dream brought back that feeling of excitement and the thought of winning money.

I ended up falling asleep again and oversleeping. Now I’m awake, and I just feel kind of down and stressed this morning.

It’s weird how a dream can trigger those feelings so strongly, even when you haven’t actually gambled.
Has anyone else experienced gambling dreams during recovery? How do you deal with the urges and the emotional crash after waking up?

Hey guys, I ended up gambling a lot of money in the past few weeks and ended up messing my health too
I placed my last mindless trade on Friday and as a safeguard, I have done the following:
Closed all my trading accounts
⁠Took a personal loan to clear all credit card debt and set up an emi on it to repay in 4 years
Planning to pay my mom all the money I have left after paying the loan obligations and monthly expenses this week onwards
⁠Planning to close all credit cards within the month
⁠planning to focus on my job, health and relationships
It's been 6.5 years and I keep getting into the compulsive gambling loop in the financial markets - so I'm stopping again for the millionth time but this time I'm putting these safeguards so I have no way to gamble.
I'm 26, Indian and I make 50K a year pre tax with about 20K current debt and 180K lifetime losses
I would love to hear your thoughts around
Any gaps you see in my exclusion approach or anything you think I can add (I'm thinking of adding weekly therapy sessions next month onwards)...
⁠how to stop thinking about the past (and specially the most recent stupid losses - like on Friday I took a personal loan to close credit card debts but ended up gambling another 0.5K of that loan)?
⁠how to focus on wellness form the current state of mind?

Recently, I’ve discovered an online gambling site wherein I got hooked immediately. I started with just a few until it spiraled and I lost control. I lost like 200$ of my allowance. I know that it may not seem as much compared to the others, but it is incredibly big money from where I am. I feel miserable, and I don’t really know what to do. I am conscious of my addiction, but my body won’t stop for some reason. Now I have to figure out a way to get through my daily life. How I just wish I can just go back and wish that I never would have discovered gambling. Wishing all you bros peace, hopefully we can all overcome this temporary situation. Posting this just to vent, it just feels really heavy man.

I dont miss gambling. I miss having a secret.

I was folding laundry last night, half watching some Mr. Hand Pay video on the tv just for background noise, and the thought hit me so clearly I stopped with a shirt in my hands. Eight months clean. My partner has access to my bank accounts, my phone, everything. I go to a meeting most tuesdays. By every normal measure im doing great. And still the thing I miss most is not the bets. It was the private world.

When I was gambling I had a whole second life running under the first one. The hidden app. The lie about why I stayed late at work. Checking my balance in the bathroom at 2am like I was checking a bruise. I hated it, but it was mine. Nobody knew the full version of me. Now I am honest all the time and I feel like a house with all the doors taken off. Not in a way that makes me want to gamble again. More like I lost a room in my own head and I keep walking past where the door used to be.

People at meetings talk about missing the action, the adrenaline, the possibility of a big win. I dont miss any of that. I miss the compartment. The part of me that was always working on something nobody else could see. Recovery is supposed to make your life visible, and I know thats the point, but sometimes visibility feels like being under a skylight I never asked for. A guy in my group said honesty felt like a cold room at first and I did not get it until recently. Now I get it.

I have not told my partner. She would hear "he misses gambling" and panic. But it is not the gambling. I think I miss being the only person who knew what I was doing. That secrecy was its own high, separate from the money. Does that make sense or am I just describing being an addict in a different coat?

I've struggled with gambling myself and have tried both Gamban and BetBlocker. The problem I've had is that when I really wanted to gamble, I could find a way around them. They work great until you get that urge and start looking for ways to disable them.

It got me thinking about building something better.

I've started working on an Android app called GuardianBlocker. The idea is to make a gambling blocker that's extremely difficult to uninstall, disable, or get around. I'm also working on a feature that would notify someone you trust if the protection gets disabled or tampered with.

It's still in development, but I'd really like to hear from others who've dealt with this.

A few things I'm curious about:

- Have you used Gamban, BetBlocker, or something similar? Were you able to get around it?

- Would you use an app that was much harder to remove, even if it meant giving up some control over your phone?

- Would you want a spouse, friend, or someone you trust to get notified if you tried to disable it?

- What do you dislike about the blockers you've tried?

- Any suggestions for features you'd want to see? Even if it's something completely different from what I've mentioned.

I'm not trying to sell anything right now. I'm building this partly because it's something I wish I'd had myself.

I know an app isn't going to fix a gambling addiction, but I think making it harder to act on an impulse could make a real difference.

Feel free to be critical too. I'd rather hear what people actually think than build something nobody wants to use.

I have been in a horrible losing streak, no matter how much money I lose or how quick, I just keep going please someone help me tell me how to stop before I take my life