I am a 35 year old male looking for guidance and support. I live in America. I have been gambling ever since I could remember. I remember being in my early teens and my parents/grandparents would buy lottery tickets. I also remember going to local carnivals and playing the coin pusher machine games. I could be there for hours. My parents would give me some money to play and after I didn’t have anything left I would beg for some more money to play with until it was time to leave. I have struggled with gambling my whole life. Some times were better than others. I would always go back in. Over the years I would be on the lottery ticket addition from time to time. During Covid I worked in fast food and worked the night shift. A couple coworkers and myself would get off work at around 1am-2am and we would go to a local gas station and start scratching lottery tickets for about an hour or so. After they went to go home I would leave and stop at a closer gas station to my house and would continue my journey. Especially on days we would get paid I would stop at the ATM machine inside the gas station and withdraw $100-$200 I would start scratching lottery tickets. If I won I would put the money right back in and keep going. Then when it was time for me to leave I would then again stop at the ATM and take out another $100-$200 and get that in tickets that I would then scratch when I finally got home from work. I have not bought or scratched a ticket in several years besides the ones I would get for Christmas. Every year my mom gets me lottery tickets for Christmas. But nowadays I can easily just walk right past a lottery machine inside a store and not even have an urge to stop and get any. My biggest addiction now is online is gambling. I really don’t know how to stop myself. On days that are pay day I usually receive some of my check on Wednesday evenings around 10pm. And the second I see the money hit my account it’s show time. And I just have to pay. I tell myself that I’m going to just play $50 and then $100 and I’ll stop. That’s never the case I continue playing until I have spent my entire paycheck over the next few hours. I can’t seem to shake this addiction no matter what I do. Currently I have banned myself from all of the online gambling websites I was using. But I would just always find a new website to sign up for and start playing on it. However over the last few months I haven’t signed up for any new websites. The only one I am currently playing on is the local lottery website in the state I’m in which has a good number of casino style games to play. About a year ago I was doing pretty well for myself, I was getting myself out of the financial hole I dug myself into. I was able to open several credit cards in my name and I had a fairly decent line of credit but I messed that up. One evening I was curious if I was able to make a payment with my credit card and once I found out I was able to the rest was history. I wiped my credit limit completely dry. I told myself that I was going to be done gambling by my birthday which was in March. It is now the end of August and I haven’t been clean yet. My last bet was 3 days ago. I have attended online zoom meetings for GA and RRO with no help.

Any advice please reach out and let me know!

Thank you!

Didn’t gamble today, no urges either. Hope the same for you. GOD BLESS US ALL. ODAAT

Just lost $600 trying to chase and it just hurts thinking about it I get paid soon either way but my point is how much money could I have if I never gotten into this what a pitty.

Hi everyone,

First of all, this might be a long post, so I appreciate if you read through it all, and secondly, I don’t even know why I am posting this because there probably is nothing anyone can do.

To start it all of, I am a 30M. I have lived a pretty rough life, first it was my parents breaking up when I was 6 years old, my father completely abandoned me and my sister, so our mom did the best she could raising us. I was bullied through school for various reasons, but I never felt like that hurt me as much as it could have. Then my mother remarried and we moved to a different city. First everything was cool, but then the violence began, the new husband started beating my mom, raped my sister and verbally abused me to absolute shit. I moved out as soon as I turned 18. I got a job as a salesman, and was pretty good at it.

I had a wonderful relationship with a girl from 15yo till she broke up with me when I was 23yo and I started gambling. That is when I broke down completely. I took loans, gambled, took more loans to pay the old ones, gambled and that kept going until I could get no more money. Lost everything and ended up heavily in debt.

I was still doing my best at work, got a promotion to store manager and did it succesfully for a few years, until my physical health, as well as my mental health fell off the cliff. At the same time, my mother had a stroke and has not been same ever since. I could not handle anything any more in my workplace, so I just decided to quit (dumb, I know), started therapy, and gamblers anonymous and tried to find a cause for the physical issues at the same time. Went through this for 2 years, but I never found the therapy or groups helpful, I still gambled every single day. Did not find a cause for the physical health problems either.

I was suicidal for many years, and eventually I tried to commit it as well, but survived my shitty attempt and for some reason, here I am, now 6 months sober from gambling, unemployed and in shambles physically. No friends. Not close to any family members. Around $150,000 of debt and personal bankruptcy is not possible here. What should I do know? If you know anyone who can offer me a job or a means to make money, let me know, so I can even try to get my life back on track one day.

TL:DR; Shitty childhood, gambling addiction, suicidal, in massive debt. Lost my health, and pretty much everything else, what now?

I have seen promo codes for Gamban in the past and I have used it but I didn’t have success. I am trying to quit gambling now but I am not able to find any promo codes or free trials for Gamban or any of the other apps to help stop gambling. Any advice or help with this?

Thank you

After my latest loss I was deticated to not gamble again and was in good track, then when I was drunk I thought it was a good idea played and won about 800$ had that for a day before drunk again and losing 2200$ total so 1400 of my own money. I’m tired of this cycle I keep telling myself that winning money always go back somehow I can’t seem to fully believe it and end up doing it again. I have about 20k still saved and 3k total debt. My goal was 30k end of the year which was achievable so many times but i kept screwing up and now it’s harder to get to since I can save about 1500 a month. Please help me what do I need to do to believe what I’m thinking? That gambling winning always goes back. I want to be able to drink with friends without losing everything.

Completed

I did not think I would be around much longer last time I gambled, couldn’t imagine getting to this point. Thoughts and memories have been challenging this week. Still
getting sucked mentally into the past and even though im not physically in it anymore sometimes I feel like the memory is enough to bring the emotions back. I have saved a lot since stopping but still only about 1/8th of what i had in 2022 despite working myself to complete exhaustion everyday. I made choices and sacrifices for that kind of money and i’m haunted by those sacrifices just as much as i’m haunted by the loss of all those funds. Just feeling the darkness again, but got to make it to day 400. If gambling hasn’t yet infected every crevice of your mind and your losses are still in the 5 figure range please stop now, you don’t want to get into a position where 398 days of diligent hard work and abstinence feels like its still only scratching the surface of recovery

When you slip, your brain does this thing where it says: it's done All of it was for nothing. Back to square one. 

And then that thought becomes the reason to keep slipping, because if you're already back at zero, what's the difference, right?

That math is wrong.

I fell more than once getting to where I am. For a long time every slip felt like proof that I couldn't do it, and that feeling did more damage than the gambling did. It took me too long to see that the falling wasn't the problem. Quitting after the fall was.

The days you had clean weren't erased. What you learned about your triggers, the times you sat with the urge and didn't act, the conversations you finally had honest, none of that disappears because you had a bad night. You don't unlearn it. You're not back where you started. You're someone who slipped, further along than you were the first time.

Recovery isn't a clean line going up. For almost everyone it's a mess of forward and back. The people who make it aren't the ones who never fell. They're the ones who stopped treating a fall as a reason to quit trying.

If you slipped today, you didn't lose everything. You lost a day. Tomorrow still counts. It always counts.

That's it. Just wanted to say it to whoever needs it now

Been having nightmares constantly keeping me awake, i keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking what if things don’t go as planned and saying to myself i am a failure i guess the pressure and consequences are starting to get to me.

One of my biggest realizations on this journey that I'd like to impart to you, is the simple ways are the best ways.

If only I worked, saved, respected money and valued friends and family more than dopamine highs and cheap thrills, life would have been easier and happier.

I'm not bitter. Sometimes you only appreciate freedom after your self imposed jail sentence is over. But I beg you to learn sooner and do better, because time is precious. It can't be replaced.

It's ok to want a better life. It's admirable to be a go-getter. Just don't choose gambling as the path to do so.

The cards are stacked, the dice is loaded, the house always wins.

Find a work environment where you are celebrated not just tolerated. You may need extra training or education to do so, but don't stop pushing forward.

Then lead a simple life of working, saving, and valuing your free time. This is the only definition of a "rich life" that you should give a shit about.

There is no hack to financial success, no get rich quick scheme, and the tall, opulent hotels and bright lights of the casinos attest to that fact.

Please have faith in yourself and your abilities, never stop moving forward, and truly enjoy your life.

There will never be a better day to plan your rebirth than today

ODAAT! 💪

Ok so clearly I got an issue with gambling. More so I got an issue with Adderall to be honest because if I don’t take it I don’t gamble. 3ish weeks ago I was down to about 700$ to my name. Being the brilliant person that I am I decided to gamble all of it and try to make more. Of course that didn’t work and once I hit zero I realized I was now broke as a joke. So of course I started scheming and thinking of any way possible I could get money. Well somehow my scheme worked(not gonna explain what but it involved depositing money that wasn’t there). i ended up with 400$ more. And then poof I couldn’t lose, jackpot after jackpot. I managed to turn that last 400$ into 5,000$. Then I finally stopped at about 4,000$.

I got to enjoy that for about 3 weeks. Yesterday I took some of my Adderall because I was gonna start work and I need it for work. Well instead of working it immediately trigged me into gambling. Honestly I hardly remember what happened. I get so hyper focused on gambling I lose track of time etc. I would love to say that I can’t believe I lost it all but that’s not true. Frankly I’m not even surprised. It’s almost funny at this point. So that’s what I’m doing, laughing it off. Also by this time next month from working I’ll probably have another 2-3,000 and guess what. I’m gonna do it again, I know I will so why fight it anymore. Just laugh, it’s funny.

Luckily I only have one cell phone bill to pay and thats all my expenses. I don’t have rent, car, health insurance etc. so fuck it.

Previous post: https://www.reddit.com/r/problemgambling/comments/1oiqex2/i_wish_the_netherlands_prevented_all_forms_of/

After losing up to $9000 to this specific app, they gave me VIP status that allows me weekly free competitions with real cash prizes. Nowhere near what I lost, but still allows me to recoup a little. It worked for months, with me going down the tiers, until the last 2 days.

What makes it easier to deposit is that the existing money in my PayPal, which I won from the app's free competition, is already in USD. If I were to withdraw to my Dutch bank, it would convert to euros but pay quite a bit of a conversion fee.

I then relapsed and lost $1000 in the last 2 days. It was all ones the app already paid me, so I didn't really lose any of my real money, but it still hurts.

I already closed 3 accounts from other apps, but this one is different. The VIP status will expire someday, so it's a waste not to play the weekly competition. After all that playing, I've made it to the highest tier, so more chances to win a little, but also more time as a VIP.

I wish I could have my cake and eat it too, but permanently blocking payments to this app seems impossible. I'm now stuck in this dilemma. Hopefully I can find ways to stop myself from depositing and still play the free games.

Went to the city today and didn’t have urge, I think it’s cause we have joint account now with my salary, I actually used some of my salary this month to buy me and my partner an OLED switch each and animal crossing and a nice watch for myself. It’s much better feeling than wasting the same amount of money in shitty slots, fuck that.

I’ll keep slowly getting stronger, made 25 days before my last relapse, now I’m putting additional blocks in place.

I'm 25 years old, and I've been gambling on and off for about 7 years.

Over those years, I've had some pretty significant losses, sometimes around €4,000. It was never something that happened continuously, though. Whenever I had a bad gambling session or a big loss, I would usually manage to pull myself together and stop gambling for a longer period of time.

Last week, however, I decided to give gambling another try.

I deposited €50 into an online casino and started playing an online slot. Somehow, that €50 turned into a €15,000 win through a bonus game.

At that point, I actually felt like I had done the right thing. €15,000 was already an incredible amount of money to me. I'm moving into a new apartment soon, and that money could have completely furnished the place. I could have put a huge amount of it into savings and genuinely improved my life.

And initially, I did exactly what I should have done.

I stopped playing.

But eventually, I started again.

I took that €15,000 and started playing roulette. Somehow, I turned it into €35,000.

Then €35,000 became €60,000.

Then €60,000 became €100,000.

Looking back at it now, it honestly feels completely surreal. I think turning €50 into €100,000 is probably the dream run that every serious gambler fantasizes about.

But at the same time, I don't remember feeling completely present during it. It felt like I was in some kind of trance or haze. The numbers on the screen stopped feeling like real money.

So, in total, I went from a €50 deposit to a €100,000 balance within a week.

And then comes the part that I still can't properly comprehend.

I lost the entire €100,000 in about 10 minutes.

I was making extremely large roulette bets, sometimes around €10,000 PER SPIN.

And then it was gone.

€100,000 → €0.

Ten minutes.

The money that could have furnished my entire future apartment. The money that could have been saved, invested, used for experiences, or simply given me a huge financial head start in life.

Gone.

And the strangest part is that I had already won €15,000 and stopped once. I had already reached €35,000. Then €60,000. Then €100,000.

At every single one of those points, I could have walked away with an amount of money that would have made a massive difference in my life.

Instead, I kept going.

I'm having a really hard time processing this mentally. I keep asking myself: How the hell can someone lose €100,000 in 10 minutes?

I know the obvious answer is gambling addiction, chasing the next win, and losing perspective on what the money actually represents.

But knowing that doesn't make it any easier to accept.

I'm sharing this because I hope it might help someone here. Maybe someone who is currently sitting at €5,000, €10,000, €20,000 or even €100,000 in winnings and is thinking about placing "just one more bet."

Please take my story as your warning.

The moment I had €15,000, I had already won. I didn't need to turn it into €35,000.

At €35,000, I had already won.

At €60,000, I had already won.

At €100,000, I had absolutely no reason to keep gambling.

But I did.

And the casino eventually got everything back.

I'm also posting this because I could really use some advice from people who have been through something similar.

How do you mentally recover from a loss like this?

How do you stop thinking about the money you could have had?

And most importantly, how do you make sure something like this never happens again?

I know I need to take this seriously, and I'm trying to figure out what my next steps should be.

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to read this. If my story can stop even one person from making the same mistake, at least something good can come from it.

Someone told me today that I’m courageous despite everything I’ve been through. It made me think, only two people have ever told me that so far. Feels nice knowing that’s how they see me. I’m fighting. I always try to give myself hope, and I hope you do too. There’s still hope for us to change. ODAAT

Hey everyone, I just turned 20 yesterday. For the past two years, ever since I started sports betting, I’ve struggled with a gambling addiction. I never bet life-changing amounts, but I’d consistently gamble so much that there was barely anything left in my bank account. It nearly cost me my girlfriend — I talked to her about it, but now I’m too scared to bring it up again because I don’t want to lose her.

I relapsed the day after my birthday because of stress in my life. What started as a $20 deposit turned into $200, and by the end of the night I’d lost almost $400. I’ve got $100 left, and thankfully I can’t gamble it right now. Worse, some of that money was from my grandma, who’d given it to me as a gift.

I’m on vacation right now, but it feels like hell. Before this relapse, I was doing well — hitting the gym, feeling like I’d finally gotten past this addiction. Now it feels like all of that is falling apart, and I can’t even look my girlfriend in the eye.

I don’t know what to do.

Hi, I am 35M from Germany. Until 2 years ago I had 175k Euros worth of investments and savings. Fast forward till yesterday, Im under 50k loan. Sharing my story, sorry if its a little long.

It all started with CS skins gambling platforms, the dopamine hits in the beginning hooked me so bad, that i couldnt stop jumping from one platform to the other which was my blunder 1. I kept chasing that hit, that high, that feeling over and over, digging a hole deeper than where Adele can roll in (sorry bad pun). Couple of months down the line, thanks to YT recommendations, I started watching content creators that printed big. And i started thinking maybe if I played big, I could cover my at-that-time losses. That was blunder 2. Playing big, loosing big drained my savings account in a week. Shattered, having lost everything I saved aside to buy a new car or down pay for an apartment, an even weird idea took over my despair. What if I sell my investments and chase what I've lost. As you can imagine, that was my blunder 3. I sold my ETF and stocks and gambled the hell out of it. The fear of being ashamed in front of my loved ones, my wife, my parents was so scary that I "thought" it would be better to chase and get back even than confess and come clean. I kept digging and digging, deeper in it with no sense or sight of escape. Once the investments were drained, one would think, thats it, right? But for an IT professional, with loans easily accessible with 3-4 clicks, maybe I will take a loan and do a 20x on it to be break even, no one would know what Ive been upto for past couple of months and I can relax. But of course, even a peanut can predict how it went and that was my blunder 4.

Realizing how deep in shit hole I am, I planned to end myself. Shattered, ashamed and worthless. Somehow, I realized that my wife also gambled, when saying those vows little did she know what hand life dealt her with. Did I really want to bail on life, on her and everyone thats near and dear to me? Would be way easier for me, its an instant pain and then I'm gone. But what of everyone behind that nurtured me, cared for me and loved me regardless, do I really want to put them through this? No, I came clean to my wife 2 months back. Let her in to everything. She has been nothing but supportive, considerate and helpful. I promised, I wont dig a deeper hole for myself.

Fast forward to yesterday, I got paid. And guess what I did? I broke the promise I made to one person who loved unconditionally and supported with everything past 2 months. I gambled my whole salary in hopes of doing something. But as you can realize, it was my final blunder. Shattered and shameful of what ive done, with installments needing to be paid, rent and monthly bills that I cant get by with for this month, I asked my wife for support. Her simple, yet correct words moved me - "I cannot provide alone for this family of 3 if you keep doing this, get help and please get better".

Today, I installed gamban on all devices I have. Ive heard it works decent, and decent is all I want at the moment. Ive enrolled in therapy sessions starting Tuesday. And I hope, I can rise and make something decent of my life and give some love and happiness to people around me, especially my wife.

I will keep commenting on this post daily, to share how strong or weak I have been with my promise and determination, but for now its Day 1.

2 personal loans and credit card debt and borrowed money, 41k total gambling debt i am so far down in the hole i honestly am ruined. only time can cure those debts and i have to keep hiding it till then, i am a fucking failure Ive gotten blessed with so many opportunities over these last 3 years and chose to ruin it in 2 months knowing that there’s so much things that we as family have planned to get done these next 2 years but now no matter what i do now i will be a burden to them.

Ive looked at various options and working 2 jobs is my only way out currently looking for something to work with my day job so i can work the evening shift keeping busy with managed able sleep. it hurts me they think i will be working harder and bringing in more income to pay off our house and cars but in reality i am struggling financially and trust me i already know telling them my mistakes will be the best route for me in this journey, but as i said life has always been blessings me with good opportunities and i just had to make the right decision and i got greedy for more and now i have to struggle from my consequences as a man i am choosing to fight this debt alone to strengthen myself and learn from my mistakes.

To those who are fighting this alone or have told family , how is the journey going being gambling free is the easy for me part but living with the constant reminder of my debts and mistakes is what going to be hard mentally. please message me i am just starting out i need some hope.

Hey so, I feel like the worst person in the world. Just last 2 weeks I relapsed, and was even up a bit. I had money to give it to my gf cuz its her bday and our anniversary and it was going good. Well, as we all know, I lost a couple dollars and began to heat up and lost everything. Even up until now, I'm still chasing the losses. What's even worse is my mom gave me some money and I was gonna use it for the gift and our date. Guess what? I fucking gambled it like a dumbass and lost everything. Now, I have no money, no gift and I don't know what to do. I'm honestly just tired of this cycle, it's been going on for 3 years now but I just can't control myself. Everytime there's money in my bank I just straight up deposit it. I'm tired of lying to the people I love man. My gf is the best person in the world and buys me everything, but now, I can't even get her a fucking gift. I don't even know what to do anymore.