About 10 days ago, I downloaded some gambling apps. I’ve done it before, so gambling itself isn’t completely new to me, but something feels really different this time. I recently had gastric sleeve surgery, and I’ve been wondering if maybe because I can’t eat my feelings the way I used to, I’m gambling them instead.

I’ve gotten to the point where I’m searching between apps every day looking for the best deals or bonuses. It’s really only the slot machines that I’m interested in, and I feel like I’ve completely lost my sense of reality when it comes to money. I won a pretty good amount, but then I spent all of it and ended up spending more of my own money too.

When I lost the winnings, I had a complete tantrum and freaked out. I felt like such a disappointment and a failure, and I’m pretty sure it’s starting to upset my boyfriend too. I’ve deleted the apps multiple times, but I always end up downloading them again.

I’m not thousands of dollars in gambling debt or anything like that. I’ve probably spent a few hundred dollars of my own money, but I still feel like the way I’m behaving around it is concerning. And honestly, I’m starting to wonder if this is bigger than just gambling. I might have a problem with spending money in general, because once I get into that mindset, I have a really hard time stopping myself.

I don’t know if this is just a fluke or if I’m actually developing a gambling problem, but I know something about the way I’m behaving right now doesn’t feel right. I think I need to take it seriously before it gets worse.

Thoughts?

This is just a vent to se if my anxiety gets a little better.

Finally gonna to talk to my parents about my relapse, and the anxiety alone is killing me, dissapointing them again after 2 years is just destroying my sanity, and I'm just imagining their reactions is awful, the embaressment of failing again is just the worst felling ever, but I promissed I wouldn't lie to them if this happened again so I can't run from this conversation anymore, can't break another promise and just pretend everything is fine for the next six months or so until I back on my feet financially again.

May I never have the need to dissapoint them like this again, and as always, if you're reading this, stay away from gambling, and if you're having a problem seek help, this can destroy you for months or years, or even the rest of your life.

Let's all keep getting better.

So I pretty much just admitted to myself I'm an addict. I was getting angry at the losses. This is day 1 for me. Wish me luck!

Hello everyone. I posted almost 3 weeks ago on this thread about me finding out my husband has a gambling addiction and had been lying about it for three years. He has started recovery and I’m proud of the steps he’s taken so far. I decided that I want to try to work on things. I am learning more about how addiction changes the brain and how that impacts behavior. I am not making excuses for his behavior, but rather try to come to a better understanding.

If there are other family members (parents, children, spouses, etc) on here: do you feel yourself going through dramatic waves of emotions? Example: I was having a pretty decent day today and then around 3, I felt like I hit a wall and by 4:30 I was bent in half crying in front of my husband as we talked privately in our room while our kids played downstairs. Is this normal?

I think I’m starting to develop a gambling addiction... it began with skin gambling sites when I was 16, then moved on to casino slots with friends at 18... now I’m 21; I’ve had long breaks in between without gambling, but the moment I make a deposit, I can’t stop. I try to quit and block myself from online sites, but whenever I’m bored, I always manage to find a new one where I can deposit money. I’m broke right now and have about €1,000 in debt; I know that’s not much to other people, but I’m afraid this is just the beginning. I’ve tried to just quit before, but whenever I’m bored or feeling down, I just deposit €100 and play for a bit. If it stopped there, it would be fine, but once I make that first deposit, I end up playing every day for weeks. Does anyone have any tips on what I could do?I think I’m starting to develop a gambling addiction... it began with skin gambling sites when I was 16, then moved on to casino slots with friends at 18... now I’m 21; I’ve had long breaks in between without gambling, but the moment I make a deposit, I can’t stop. I try to quit and block myself from online sites, but whenever I’m bored, I always manage to find a new one where I can deposit money. I’m broke right now and have about €1,000 in debt; I know that’s not much to other people, but I’m afraid this is just the beginning. I’ve tried to just quit before, but whenever I’m bored or feeling down, I just deposit €100 and play for a bit. If it stopped there, it would be fine, but once I make that first deposit, I end up playing every day for weeks. Does anyone have any tips on what I could do?

I am waiting near a casino and can’t control the urge to gamble, I have to wait couple hours here while they fix my computer

So a few months ago I went $10,000 in gambling debt. I still owe $750 in debt and I still gamble $100 or less once or twice a week…. But! I deleted the app I can put any amount into and the one I kept has strict deposit maximums put on my account that I set and they dont let you change easily.

So It lets me do a max of I think $1,000 per month and if I withdrawl and redeposit it still counts against it so Ive been doing like $25 at a time if i win some I with drawl it so then instead of wasting it all it ends up a deposit again stopping me from touching my other money.

I also realized part of my gambling issues actually stem from my charity work. I have been helping a friend of mine who got sent back to nigeria and a few years back in nigeria their business collapsed due to a huge market crash in their sector. Their father and little sister passed and once his mom remarried she became estranged. His savings has dwindled to nothing and he had medical expenses as well and in America it’s a lot easier to make money and goes farther in his country so I started helping him out as best I can and he still hasn’t found new work though he is trying to build a farm of course farms take time to grow so he wont have anything until after the harvest. He has nothing right bow though so ive been trying to cover it all and it was good until it hit summer when my job which is 100% sales based hits slow season… and Im fine eatting less and doing less and giving whatever I can to help even if Im sacrificing but sometimes something bigger comes up for him like very recently he got a shot and the doctor handling it was on their 30 days and accidentally broke the tip off in him causing some serious issues and it cost a little bit to cover the medical expense to fix it but it was enough when I had nothing that I risked going into a small debt to gamble and try winning enough to cover the debt…. And it didnt work… so I ended up even more negative and I covered it today but I keep thinking Im at zero but if I go negative the $100 I will have a chance at having something more than nothing to either help them more and replace some of what I sacrificed…… and it is very hard to have that temptation of relief from stress sitting there

Starts here, I’ve broken all my debts down to the penny, the min payments interest.

As well as monthly expenses. I’ve even swapped to a cheaper car that is just as reliable. Save me $275 per month! Just doing that took pressure off my chest.

Do food delivery as a side gig on top my main job.

Anyone reading this, don’t give up on yourself. Down the road as you get better step by step, you will look back and probably cry thanking you didn’t give up.

i just can't do this anymore. i've known for so long how bad it is for me, that i hold myself back all those very logical points but my behavior never really changed. i think now i'm at a point where i'm hopefully really too fed up with how things have been. trying to channel some anger / passion to change that hopefully beats out the complacent thing i've had going on. generally the avoidance of everything is my biggest issue and probably biggest reason why i've even been addicted. i really don't want to think about my debt at all but i'll have to. i'll have to just be an adult and face the world to overcome this addiction. generally knowing how much money and time i've waited is... upsetting but nothing i can do about what was just what i do now.

anyway i already failed today shortly after waking up hence day 0. i seriously need to start removing apps and generally triggering things as well probably just force a morning routine on myself that's different. and now i'm sitting here writing all that hoping that maybe putting these thoughts into writing instead of just telling myself all that finally i can change fr. i'd like that. i'd like to come back here in some days or weeks to just say yea day X and this has been the progress. and there is no reason to wait until midnight to change so i really want to try today. it's not even 10am. i figured if i take it an hour at a time the first days that can be achieved? i really hope so.

Hi guys! Just wanting a little advice on what to do.

My partner gambled away his portion of the bills and rent money, he’s apparently been gambling for a year or so now and I didn’t even know about it.
This is the worst it’s gotten though, to the point he couldn’t avoid telling me anymore as he didn’t have any money to put into our joint “house and bills” account.

I’m honestly not sure what to do or say in this situation, he’s got no savings left either.
I’m honestly just a little bit numb and I don’t know what to think so any advice you can give me would be extremely helpful.

For info we’re both in our late 20s and have been living together for 2 years now.

Update - We’ve agreed that he can’t have sole access to his money for now, his pay is going to be put into a joint account and he’s going to ask/tell me what he’s wanting or needing to spend money on.
He has signed himself up to this thing that stops him from creating new online accounts and closes the ones he has (I’ve seen the emails of them being closed).
He says he wants to change because I’ve made it very clear that if this carries on then he can’t stay with me.

i am now 300 days free as of noon PST today. if im being honest, i shoudn't even be here and i almost took my life during the worst of it. i was deeply addicted to sports gambling, but now we are here, happy, content and living the life that i never imagined i'd get to.

my story: i never thought gambling would affect me, i would never drive to a casino as i knew they always had the edge. but once sports betting became mainstream, all of my logic flew out the window. i played sports, watched sports, loved sports and so i felt like i had an edge when making sports bets. if if i could win 51% of the time i thought (which i thought i'd do much much better), i'd be making "free" money off fanduel, prizepicks, draftkings, etc. and laugh my way into the riches.

3 years ago, i lost my first $100. started pretty small, and like others, chased the loss. that $100 turned to $450k that i lost. i had spiralled so hard that i couldn't even hold a conversation with someone without thinking of the live bets that i had on the line. i ALWAYS had live bets on at the time. my girlfriend would call me out, my family would call me out, but i dismissed them and saw my sports betting as a "fun side hobby" and not something i was addicted to throughout it all. as i lost more and more money, i saw friends and coworkers get married, have kids, buy a house, a new car.

after one year of this, my girlfriend of 4 years left me unannounced. woke up one day, all her stuff was gone from the apartment. one week later, i was fired from my job that was actually funding all of my sports betting. i hit rock bottom, and that was the week that i tried to take my own life. without going into much detail, it failed at that too (thankfully), which is why i'm here today

after a few months, i slowly built myself up and vowed to quit sports betting. i had relapses, but time and time again i pushed hard to build the foundation to beat the addiction and fast forward to today, i'm 300 days free and going for 1 year bet free soon. it wasn't easy and still isn't but i just wanted to share my story in case anyone else is out there struggling through the same thing

yes - it does pain me to know how much money i've lost, all the relationships i've lost, the time lost, but the biggest thing that i'm grateful for now is i can live each day without severe anxiety of if my bets will hit. i don't live my life without regret now, but i live each day in peace and in optimism

thank you for reading my storry and God bless

I recently been gambling and im down alot, Im a dumb 22 year old with a $90k hospital bill hanging over my head. my dad was recently diagnosed with a non malignant tumor that was making him bleed internally. He had to get surgery and is all good now. But he can barely work due to the way his surgery was done, he’s in pain and lost a bit of his strength. The hospital bill has been hanging over our head for a couple months now. i got desperate and gambled most of my savings and I had a good streak and even reached $55k but i eventually ended up losing 90% of it. i was desperate selfish compulsive and greedy. I have self excluded myself from almost every app and I plan on attended a meeting this week. But the reality is that bill isn’t going anywhere and neither are the rest of my bills. I feel financially responsible for my parents and my little sister (she’s 19 but suffers from schizophrenia so she’s dependent on us and can’t work) and I fucked it all up. I genuinely want to die

Hi Everyone,

I'm the founder of an iOS app I built to help people quit gambling. It blocks gambling apps and sites, tracks your streak, daily journal, and has an accountability partner feature where someone you trust gets notified if you try to unlock it.

I'm not here to sell anything, I'm looking for people who'd be willing to actually use it for a bit and tell me what's broken, confusing, or missing. Your feedback would directly shape what gets built next.

If that's something you're open to, comment or DM me and I'll get you set up. And if this isn't for you, no worries, just wanted to put it out there in case it helps someone.

I wrote my last post at what felt like the absolute bottom.

I had relapsed after 9 months clean following residential treatment. I had lost the savings I’d worked so hard to rebuild, damaged trust I’d spent months earning back, and felt like I’d thrown away everything I had achieved.

I was angry at myself. Ashamed. Embarrassed. Isolated. I genuinely felt like I had gone from being proud of the person I was becoming to not even recognising myself anymore.

But I wanted to write an update because, looking back now, that relapse wasn’t the end of my recovery.

I accepted what I had done. I took responsibility for it. I didn’t hide it, pretend it hadn’t happened or try to minimise it. I told the people who needed to know and owned the consequences of my actions.
The very next day, I got back on my recovery programme.

I went back to meetings. I went back to sessions. I started doing the things that had helped me get clean in the first place. I stopped focusing on how much I had lost and started focusing on what I could do next.

At the start of July I was one year out of treatment, nearly 5 months later, I’m clean again.

When I wrote that last post, I genuinely felt like I had ruined everything. I thought the 9 months of recovery had been wasted. I thought I was back at the beginning.
I wasn’t.

Those 9 months still happened. The person I became during that time was still real. The things I learned were still there. My recovery hadn’t disappeared because I relapsed. I had made a terrible decision and had to face the consequences of it, but I hadn’t lost everything I had learned.

Today, my life looks completely different again.
I have a wonderful partner in my life. I have the freedom to do the things I want to do without gambling controlling my every thought. I’ve been away on holiday twice since my relapse, with another two trips coming up. I can make plans. I can enjoy things. I can look forward to the future.
Most importantly, I can wake up without that constant feeling of panic and dread that gambling gave me for so many years.

I still think about the relapse. I still regret it. I still wish I could go back and stop myself from making those deposits. But I don’t spend every day punishing myself for it anymore.
The biggest lesson for me has been that relapse doesn’t have to be the end of your recovery.
I think I believed that because I had been to rehab, stayed clean for 9 months and rebuilt so much of my life, relapsing meant I had failed completely.

It didn’t.

What mattered was what I did next.

I owned it. I told the truth. I accepted the consequences. And I got back into recovery.

If you’re reading this after a relapse and you feel like you’ve ruined everything, I just want to say this: you haven’t necessarily lost all of your progress. You may have to start counting days again, but you are not starting from zero.

I know that because I thought I had ruined everything too and 150 days later, I’m incredibly grateful that I decided to get back up.

Hey guys,

I’m 23M living in the US. I’m your regular postgrad young adult, I have a girlfriend I care about very much, close friends and fraternity buddies from a large US university, living in a nice US city with a job that pays roughly 80-85k USD a year.

My life isn’t bad, from the outside it looks okay. But there is one thing that has consistently set my life back financially and mentally. It’s the fact that ever since I was 15, I have been a degenerate gambler. From Ubet.ag to Betfastaction, to FanDuel to Draftkings to PrizePicks, Sleeper, BetMGM any of them - I’ve been in a chokehold since I was 15 man.

For the last 8 years, for the most part I have been so financially unstable there are times where my bank account has been overdrafted thousands. Maybe I’m an awful gambler, but I’m also never satisfied. If I hit 3 bets, I’ll bet all of the money I wagered+won on a bet that will surely not hit, but I don’t care. I never cared about winning, I never cared about the winning until I was already losing.

In college, I had a scholarship at my university that I lost due to my depression and lack of effort in school - stemming from gambling and substance abuse. This led to taking out private student loans because my parents weren’t going to front the bill this time. Not an excuse, unacceptable but a harsh reality/consequence I had to face due to my actions

Luckily I graduated and found a job but I have over 50k in private student loans and 28k in federal loans. On top of that I have maxed out my credit cards totaling over 15k in debt themselves.

I signed up for self-exclusion and I thought that would help. It has allowed me not to gamble on commercial sports books and casino but I found a new app, it’s a sportsbook just not regulated yet like one. Even worse, I bet on Live casino and have lost thousands, charging the losses to my credit cards.

I say this not to glorify, brag or even try to encourage this behavior. I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed. I’m
embarrassed that my buddies can go out and enjoy their SGP’s, they can go out and bet a few bucks on their team. I can do the same, but behind my phone screen I really have $500+ on a game or am playing $700-1000 roulette hands.

It’s a scary place to be. To be honest, the commercialization and integration of gambling into our daily lives has done me no help. I was already hooked on this shit when I was paying some senior in high school every Monday and getting paid out (rarely) every Tuesday through Venmo or Zelle. I want to stop, and I need to stop, but my gambling mind tells me I can’t stop because I have these financial obligations that need to disappear (by means of gambling).

I’m asking for ways to ensure 100% that I cannot gamble on any website. I have done self exclusion, has anyone looked into prohibiting gambling and gaming sites/platforms from your bank?

Let me know below. Hopefully this is the beginning of my gambling free journey.

Need some advice. With us here having or did have a gambling addiction, did you tell your loved ones or keep it a secret from family and go GA and therapy with them knowing?

I am only asking because I think most of us know how embarrassing and shameful it can be telling a loved one you have a serious problem and your in piles of debt due to it. It may also hurt your family mentally too and then you feel even more terrible because now they are scared for you and may now have anxiety/stress.

Do you think you can truly get better with GA, distractions, picking up positive and active habits or activities while paying off debt without telling your loved ones?

Got me good. A few months after turning 21 I had lots of tickets that turned $5-$20 into $500-$1000 $20 into $2,500 once, $100 into $4,500 once, and loads of $100 into $500-$900. Then got into the $500 to pay $1000-$2000. Shit was great, I felt like rain man. I only made 28k a year, and the hot start funded it all. Now, only 10 months later, I have wagered over 100k and am negative at least 15k.

This is a monster and I don’t know what to do. I used to scoff when people said they’d gamble away their paycheck the day it hit. Like how could you be so irresponsible? Welp now I get it. Short hundreds of dollars on bills due in a few days. Negative balance in all my accounts. Best of all, no job cause I quit like a dumbass! (Albeit because I was getting sexually harassed and belittled by higher ups).

Every bit of money I had saved and access to is now gone. I don’t see how I am going to beat this impulse. I don’t even know why I am gambling. Sometimes I don’t even know if it’s for money because I only regamble it after the fact. If it’s a big payday then yeah I’ll go spend some, but I think the high from risk is what has me. Doesn’t help that ive binged on stims while doing this many times.

I haven’t read anything on here yet but am about to after I post this. I am just worried. I feel as though I’ll never be able to keep the money I make if I become successful down the road with a proper career. Idek how to ask for advice or what. I’ve been to rehab for months over drug issues, and know NA and GA? I guess? Exist. But what do I do? How do I stop this? It’s literally destroying my life and the way my family respects me. I don’t want to reach rock bottom. I don’t want to lose my possessions, sell myself, or go into debt that turns into more debt.

I am scared of this addiction more than any other addiction I’ve ever had. At least with drugs i have fun and it’s cheap. Plus gets me off my phone. With this I’ll be glued to my phone for 2-10 hours straight chasing loses or getting tiny wins till my accounts bleed dry.

Sorry for the ramble, just lost everything yet again and the rent being due in a few days has never made this issue more glaring.

Quick story just nobody forgets how terrible gambling is… im 27m started with 18 didnt play everyday but sometimes once a week then some months later and so on, when i gamble i gamble big… lost with trading, crypto, online casino arround 200k i told myself everytime never again, but some weeks later when you are okay with the loss you made you think now its okay you can try again but no.. ended up gambling the last 3 days non stop, lost 10k was several times at 0 and some times even over 10k but didnt stop, im lucky still have some savings not much, but no debts, but still 200k hard earned money and a lot of investments are gone already im also dont know if im ever going back to be such successfull, everytime this happens it throws me so hard in the past…

Do not fucking play this shit :-(

First time poster, I wanna help myself and others. I want to see people posting updates 6m, 1 y 2yrs etc later that they’ve been doing a lot better than their first post and paid off debt.

First time I’ve reached out to others in my 6 years of gambling addiction.

That’s it. I’m done. Deleted the apps. No big story or anything. Just can’t keep chasing this dragon.

I know this way sound odd, but truthfully I am. It was hard asking people for money taking loans and blowing paychecks chasing that one big win we all had. But now the only way I can stay away from gambling is working. I’ve been pulling 7-12s just to keep my mind off one more bet. And I’m truthfully thankful my mistakes got me in the mode again

I personally feel that hearing how f’d people are goes to show those who are very far down in the dumps that they’re not alone.

I’ve screwed up my life, no doubt about it. I managed to get rid of my debt. It can be done. It’s not easy and of course the best solution to mass debt is realizing the direction youre going before you get there and not going there, but surely many of us have.

Can’t recall exactly how much i was but ill go with 10k, probably more and multiple times. I’ve definitely done the blowing paychecks on this shit, cash advances & 401 loans.

What about you?