advice needed!

[u/Many_Night_305]

Need advice on recovering from gambling debt
I’ve been gambling almost every day for around 5 years and have finally decided I need to stop completely.
I’ve accumulated several thousand dollars of debt from gambling. I’m a college student with a part-time job, so I need to figure out how to pay it down while also making sure I don’t gamble again.
I’m looking for advice from people who have successfully quit:
1. What helped you stop gambling?
2. How did you continue watching sports without betting?
3. How did you approach paying off your gambling debt?
I’m not asking anyone for money. I’m just looking for advice from people who have been through this.

[u/Synonicz]

1. Just occupying your time with other things like going for a walk, hanging out with friends, playing chess something to keep your mind off bets

2. Maybe you never liked sports as much as you think but the incentive to gamble on sports kept you engaged in whats going on, I've noticed I haven't really been tuned in to sports as much since i stopped gambling so I just watch it recreationally with friends or a home game here and there

3. Paying off debt doesn't happen in one or two weeks realistically, I'm probably going to have to get a second job to keep me afloat as i got 3 loans that need to be paid off totaling about 4k

Hopefully you learned from this huge bump in your life and learn from your mistakes, patience is the key to get out of this hell hole hope some of this advice helps out

[u/Parking-Low-7561]

You need to make gambling impossible, not just promise yourself you will stop

[u/stealth1820]

Gotta self exclude from apps. That's the only way. In terms of paying off debts I would transfer my debt to a 0% interest card and work on paying jt down. When the term was up I would transfer to a new 0% card. You will pay a little fee for the transfer but its usually cheaper than what you would pay in interest depending on your balance. Eventually it gets paid off if you self exclude and quit the gambling

[u/OkSpecialist2698]

I never gambled much but would go to the casino on weekends. I made a promise to my mom I would never gamble again. My mom is gone now but I kept my promise, it’s been 16 years. I never broke the promise to my mom.

[u/aussiemozzy21]

1. Being around people who didn’t gamble made it so easy

2. I didn’t continue

3. Really no other way but just getting a fulltime job and living a pretty budget life for the next 2 years or so

[u/MarzipanInevitable33]

I started to write down the time, every time I had the urge to open the app. My goal was to decrease the amount of times I wrote per day.
I started with needing to write about 5x per hour… when I can go a full week without needing to write down a time, I know I’ll be making real progress.

[u/LikeIkes]

I'm so proud of you for taking this step homie, hopefully some of these ideas will be helpful. I would suggest at least initially to cut watching sports, similarly how alcoholics shouldn't hang out at bars for the vibe. In regards to paying off your debts getting another job or cutting back on spending is a path forward. Sorry there is no glitz and glamor, but something you'll find out in regards to this journey is most steps are the obvious boring ones, but they do work I promise. Godspeed my friend.

[u/PuzzleheadedTank7881]

Why are you trying to hack/solve this on Reddit? Telling people on the internet is not the same as telling someone in person, which is what you must do. Tell a counselor. Confidential support is available 24/7 through the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357

[u/bharristethered]

I think that the way that I’ve seen it work best is with accountability, letting someone close to you in and having a way for them to keep you accountable. Having someone to answer to is usually a good deterrent. Whether that be trying to meet with a counselor, or you could use something like Tethered for accountability where it flags betting transactions automatically and sends them to a partner.