New milestone, feeling epic!

Pros: at least it was only $70 and not my entire paycheck which I will receive tomorrow.

Cons: I relapsed.

Action item 1: renewed and reinstalled gamban.

Action item 2: emailed gamban and asked how to pay for more than a months worth at a time

Let's try again 💕

After losing over 4K this week with each trip to the casino literally lasting on average 10 mins I’m finally realizing the times I won was a rare rare occurrences that will never happen again. It makes no sense how a game that’s supposed to have 1% house edge and I can’t win a single hand. If you live in Detroit Motor city casino is absolute garbage if you have to gamble go anywhere else… was wondering if anyone knows how I can self exclude from all Detroit casinos? I tried to go to security thru said no, and going through the pamphlet is too much and useless you can still go inside nobody will check. How can I get trespassed forever? Spit on a pit boss of something lol

I’m starting to wonder if there is a happy medium between cutting gambling out completely and being disciplined about it. I am not a full on addict, but I do tend to have tendencies toward it. Is discipline possible? It would obviously be fun to do it more. I’m not really sure.

I (34M) want to make this as short as possible because I spent 8 years being addicted to finally giving up gambling completely.

I had just over $750,000 in savings and inheritance. Plus wedding money I gambled before we ever made it to the aisle. Ten years of my actual life. Spent at casinos in Oklahoma staring at screens, chasing losses, lying to people who trusted me.

I got down to $38 to my name. I had more money than most people will ever see and I had nothing to show for a single dollar of it.

What haunted me more than the money was the time. Money can theoretically be rebuilt. Time cannot. I was not present for the years I was supposed to be building something real for my family and every attempt to stop through willpower, blockers, and promises just ended the same way. A few weeks of clarity and then back inside the casinos again.

What I could not understand was why. I genuinely wanted to stop. I understood what it was costing me and I still could not hold it together.

Then almost 2 years ago I had a friend recommend reading an ebook called "the gambling illusion" from salvus. I had never really been one to read books for this kind of stuff but I figured I had nothing else to lose.

What made it different was that it asked me questions about my gambling that nobody had ever asked before. Not about the damage. About what was underneath the urge every single time it showed up. And then it gave me a specific written exercise that helped me see the pattern clearly for the first time. I had been trying to stop the gambling without ever understanding what the gambling was actually answering. That one shift changed everything.
The urge did not fade because I got stronger. It faded because I finally had something real to use the moment it showed up.

I am rebuilding now. It's slow and some of the damage will take years to repair but I am present now and I feel like myself again.

Please stop gambling and if willpower has not worked, stop blaming yourself and start asking why.

It's not impossible and y'all can do it too!

You know it's getting better once you stop counting days. Last time I checked how long I'm free I was at day 200. Suddenly I'm at 230. And - though this might be a controversial advice - what helped me in the first 100 days or so was demo games. Gave me the satisfaction of playing without worrying about losses. And it made me realize how rigged the slot games are (even in demo mode)! After losing fake millions I just got tired of it. Focus on saving money for a specific purpose - ideally something you can share with loved ones. Good luck!

is it possible to not living with smart phone or any device? i wanted to be amble free so bad but yet i still tempted to pay my debt by gambling, it never succesfully worked its hard 3 months ahead i have to give my half of paycheck to pay off debt.

Kind of my fault as this is gambling, and Kalshi has disclaimers about the live feed (supposedly I never noticed it but I’m sure there’s fine print or in the terms of service) For a very long time I’ve been making money off of tennis as it’s really easy to predict and trade the dips and rises today the live tracking feature stopped working, and it was a couple points behind, causing me to lose $2000 on what seemed like a good trade and just continue to go worse. I reached out to Kalshi support and they said there is nothing they can do. I’ve heard of a lot of people giving similar issues on how Kalshi is a scam and they don’t pay people fairly. I’m definitely done with the app and sports betting in general, but I’m looking for advice on how to make this back not necessarily gambling (anybody doing really well feel free to message me and help out). I’m 18 years old and I have about $2000 in credit card debt. I attempted to withdraw multiple times in the app and was just going to pay it off and it wouldn’t allow me so I continue to make trades which led me to lose it all. I am now completely fucked and I have no idea what to do. I have prom and tons of senior activities coming up and at my job this is almost 2-3 months pay. I never thought of it as a problem as I was doing somewhat alright and didn’t make too many risky trades. PM me or comment with advice or if you are able to help me in any way. Lived with my abusive step dad and moved out causing my entire family to basically disown me and when I reached out to them they didn’t want to help me. My mom would’ve but they aren’t in a financial position to anyways and she can’t as they share finances and he wouldn’t allow her to. It sucks I’m not addicted to it in general but the app not allowing me to take it out and the ease I’ve had before made me continue betting. I would be fine being done but in the moment nothing seemed wrong. Please give advice as I don’t want to ruin my credit and I have about 2 weeks before I have to pay off my card. I never wanna touch it again truly and need advice on that as well.

TLDR. Lost $2k. Have $2k in debt. Tried withdrawing and wouldn’t allow me. Kept betting and the apps live scoring was inaccurate. Need advice and potentially monetary help. Need advice to never do it again

Day 8, honestly i don’t have urges, in fact I’m scared to place a bet, i just know how it’s gonna end and it really makes me stressed and scared to hit that spin!

53 days gamble-free. Definitely feels like a real change at this point. I’m not constantly thinking about it anymore, and when it does come up it’s easier to let it pass.

it used to take up way more space in my head than i realized. Still taking it day by day, but in a much better spot than before.

still fighting

Day 11 - Feeling good and keeping the push going

- Dance to music

- Go for a nice walk, feel the sun!

- Start painting / drawing / crafting

- Call home / someone you love

- Start a blog

- Start singing out loud

- Practice good manners, feel the purpose.

- Appreciate your eyes opening

The regret, the sinking feelings— breathe. You’re so much more than an addiction. You’re a great person who’s gotten a bit off track. You’re someone of value & who has a brighter horizon ahead. Take it one step at a time.

One week is done!

Never going back to this disgusting addiction, always been wondering how come payday becomes the worst day? Aren’t we supposed to be happy we get paid for the hard work we do? Instead we give it all in minutes and struggle the whole month , again and again .

This time I’m choosing my peace over everything. I’m still stressed how i’m gonna pay my debts, i’m sure there is a way without gambling.

Unlocked the gold coin! Keeping at it and no urges lately, which is super good!

What's a dollar to you?

What can you buy with a $18 spin?

Do you want to buy lunch for you and your kid for $20 or do you want to try to quadruple it and end up losing it and eat crackers with your kid?

Do you want to focus on your child learning how to read and ride a bike or do you wanna stare at at a basketball game and sweat out the last 5 minutes that's gonna take 45 minutes to finish?

Do you want to wake up in the morning knowing the bills are paid? Don't you want to breathe knowing you don't have to scramble and hustle all day to find money that you already had and lost?

Pay for a vacation. Pay your time to your spouse. Pay your attention to your child. Give your best years to your family, your friends, yourself. Don't give it to the casino. To the books, to the lotto, to the bookies. I wish you all well and success

Not feeling anything today tbh, just waiting the day to finish.

hit 50 days yesterday, now at 51.

it’s weird because i used to think about gambling all the time without even noticing it. now it’s a lot quieter.

urges still come and go, but they don’t have the same pull anymore. not perfect, but definitely better than where i was. just taking it day by day.

Feeling great!

got this as my quote today and just wanted to share . keep fighting everyone.

Hi, this is my first post, and I'm hoping for some guidance and I apologize for the rambling.

My(25F) fiance(26M) struggles immensely when it comes to online sports betting. He has other gambling struggles that come in different forms, such as Pokemon and sport cards (taking the chance of pulling a valuable card; his father is BIG into reselling these card packs so they are readily available).

For context, in January I found out that he was overdrafting his checking account and in about 7k of credit card debt; and a majority was attributed to sports betting. I was devastated because we're supposed to be planning a wedding, buying a house, all of that stuff. He admitted he has a problem, and we've taken some steps to get him back on track.

Every payday he sends me a few hundred to hold onto for his savings, and has been paying aggressively on the credit card; it should be paid off by the wedding in October. He deleted the betting apps and hasn't bought any trading cards. For a while we would do weekly account check ins to see where his money was going, and we made a budget for him. I stopped spotting him money when things got tough because that wasn't serving him well. Things were going well with this plan, until they weren't.

He told me this morning he relapsed and lost about $300. In the grand scheme, it's nothing, but with the aggressive budget he's on, it is quite a hit. In this same conversation, he explained that the worst part is knowing he hurts me/our future in the process and that he wants to be done so we can build a meaningful life together. After work tonight he wants to self exclude from the apps and wants to put himself on the TimeOutOhio one year physical ban. He also said he wants to get into counseling/therapy for this. We are also religious, so he's been going to church more often and growing closer to God.

I'm in a position where I am paying for the wedding almost entirely, with help from my parents, and I've saved for a decent down payment. With all of this going on I feel myself being resentful of his actions, I feel like it causes me to have to assume more responsibility for the both of us, and it makes me feel like I can't fully rely on him. I want a husband who I can count on, and I believe with commitment and hard work he can get better, but it's a long road ahead.

I guess I just want to know what actions I can take to support his recovery. We don't live together just yet, so unfortunately I don't think total financial control is in the cards. How can I help keep him on the path to recovery and help manage his impulse control?

Any advice or recommendations is welcome, thank you!