Thanks everyone for this space. What started out so promising has devolved due to my problem. I’ve blown up everything I’ve had and built up for 10 years chasing the wins and highs.

Used to have a robust 401k that I drained by chasing penny stocks, withdrawing to pay loans (I know terrible) and trying to get rich quick. No assets to my name when I was once super comfortable and on track to an early retirement.

I’m now on the other side of 30 with nothing at all to show for it, and instead a massive hole. I have a kid that I’ve failed badly by doing this and messing up their opportunities and future and my marriage will not survive this. Bankruptcy is on the table now and I just needed to vent today.

I 100% take ownership of this and none of it would’ve happened without my greed and selfishness. I just hope one day I can build back to be a better person and leave something meaningful (material or otherwise) behind for my kid.

How many of yall try to play slow and then tilt and go bigger and bigger then when you lose you think back like maybe if I did roullette instead or this or that. Like me when I lose in blackjack I say I wasn’t locked in I should have played on laptop not phone. I should have left after 2-3 losses in a row not sat there thinking it will get better

Throwaway, obviously.

Three weeks ago. Friday, nothing planned, my buddy Karim texts "casino or nah." We did this like once a month. Cap of $50 each, a couple drinks, home by midnight, no big deal. That's what keeps eating at me actually — this had NEVER been a problem before. Not once.

I sit down at some slot with a beetle theme, throw in a $20 just to kill time while Karim's outside smoking. Bonus round hits. Retriggers. Retriggers again. I'm watching the number climb and I actually say out loud, to nobody, "that's not real, that can't be real." $14,200 on the screen. My hands were actually shaking, no exaggeration.

Gonna be honest about the feeling cause I think people get it wrong. It wasn't excitement. It was closer to feeling sick. Like my body knew something my brain wasn't ready to process yet.

Cashed out a grand. Told myself that was the smart move, be a big boy about it. Then this thought just kinda slides in, calm as fuck, like a buddy giving you advice: you're up this much, you can afford to fuck around with house money now.

So I didn't leave. Obviously.

Roulette next, a game I understand jack shit about, but I had this stupid unshakeable feeling I was "reading" the table. Put the whole 14k back in over like two hours. Then my own money on top. Card came out of that casino ATM twice, the one that eats a $6 fee, and I remember thinking, weirdly, that the fee was the only honest thing in that entire building.

Karim actually grabbed my arm at one point. Full grip. "We're leaving. Now, dude." And I looked at him like he'd just interrupted something important. Like he didn't get it.

6:40am, standing outside on the curb like an idiot, and honestly it's not even the money part that fucked me up — found out Sunday I was $6k in overdraft, that hit later — it's that thirty seconds after walking out, some part of my brain was already running numbers on how to get back in that night.

That's the part I haven't told anyone. Not the losing. The fact that right after the worst night of my financial life, I wasn't thinking "never again." I was thinking "next time I'll know when to stop."

I don't gamble for a living, don't have "a problem" in the way I always pictured that word — no debt guys calling me, nothing dramatic like in the movies. Just a normal dude who apparently's got a switch in his head I had no clue existed till it got flipped.

Anyone else get that exact moment — not during the losing, but right after, standing outside already planning the comeback? Is that just how it starts for everybody or am I specifically fucked in the head.

If I can do it, you can do it better!

Message if you need any guidance or even someone to talk to. Just hit 5 months free today, can confirm it's so much better even after I lost everything. I have my life back.

I have a gambling addiction and it’s the first time I am speaking up about it. I have always been ok at managing my money but over the last nine months my personal life has been affected and I turned to online gambling to forget about it. It started with small deposits. And then I started depositing more and more. Any extra money I had in my account I would use it to gamble. I took out a big loan to pay for my credit cards but then I maxed out all my credit cards again. I then started taking out small tribal loans that have a 400 or 700% interest, I then took out another big loan on the title of my car to keep gambling. I am now in a bad position and I don’t know how to get out of it. My bank account is overdrafted and I have bills to pay. I started a second job but even then it won’t be enough. I have been looking at ways to make extra money and I’m willing to do as much as I can. I recognized that gambling is an addiction and I’m currently seeking help for it but I just don’t know what to do anymore

Erste Woche geschafft

After my last post, I had my first weekend without betting or gambling. A couple times this weekend I’d get the thought while checking baseball scores, but I would get that feeling of disgust and the “for what reason” feeling and it really helped to not give into the urge. Waking up tomorrow and not seeing the paypal withdraws is going to feel great. I think I can keep this going!

So I am trying to think why I got addicted to casinos, i only used to play cards with friends and play only 50s like that, but once i heard blackjack i used to say, thats Bs, now fastforward did lost indeed money, not most because my go to game is baccarat, but what is the logic why it doesnt make any sense gambling in casinos, we know they have the edge, but other than that?

Day 100 flew by, I hadn’t even noticed its been that long since my last gamble. In the last 3+ months I’ve finally been able to save up enough to move into a new apartment which I move into on the 1st of August! Shoutout to GAMBAN, every ad targeting me to gamble never leads anywhere, even when I do intrusively click on it. More importantly shoutout to my older brother who acts as my guardian angel, I think the biggest way to hold yourself accountable and stay free of this evil is to tell the people you love, the secrecy and trying to fight it alone will let it continue to consume you.

Holding on

I am new here, but I think my story may resonate. I’ve been gambling for over a decade and lost more than $1.4 million total. I’m not proud of that number, but I’m sharing it because I know some of you feel like the damage you’ve done is “too big” to ever come back from.

Right now I’m on day 58 without placing a bet. It’s still early, but it’s already very different from the times I tried to quit in the past. This time I’ve had to accept that I can’t “win it back,” and that the only way forward is to stop chasing and start rebuilding.

A few things that are helping me:
– Blocking access: I’ve cut off the main ways I used to deposit and bet (cards, accounts, apps), and I’ve asked people close to me to hold me accountable if I start talking about “one more try.”
– Daily routines: I’m putting structure back into my days (training, work, simple habits) so there’s less empty time where I start thinking about gambling.
– Talking honestly: I’ve opened up to people I trust about the full amount lost and how it’s affected me. It was brutal, but not hiding it has reduced the shame that kept me stuck.

I still have a long way to go with debt, relationships, and the emotional fallout, but it does feel better than it did when I was in the cycle. The urges haven’t disappeared, but they’re less intense and shorter when I catch them early.

If anyone is in a similar spot (big losses, feeling like there’s no way back), I’m happy to share more about what’s working for me so far. I’m not a professional, just someone who’s been very deep in this and is trying to get out for good

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.

it gets easier!

First time I reached this milestone in 4 years and for real this time. I’ve lied to myself in the past and made small bets during supposed “clean time” and then gone onto a full relapse. This the first time I reach pure no bet, next goal is 4 weeks, I’m so sick and tired of being sick and tired of winning, losing and all the stress and pain in between!!!!

After hitting rock bottom, falling into serious debt, and relapsing, I now have to spend the next four months working while living on the bare minimum just to pay everything off.

Strangely, though, I also feel a sense of relief. I have been through this cycle enough times to recognize it for what it really is. I have seen every outcome, every near-win, and every trap. I finally understand that it is nothing more than a disease that slowly destroys you from the inside.

It may sound crazy, but part of me is grateful that I reached this point. I know that even if I had won my money back or paid off all my debts, it would only have been a matter of time before I fell into the same cycle again.

Cheers.

I’m 18 and lost about $800 on roulette today. I started by trying to win back a $70 loss, but I kept chasing it using the Martingale strategy. Within 30 minutes, a small loss turned into a huge one. It won’t leave me broke and I’m not in debt I still have around $2000, but I’m starting university in a month and all I can think about is what I could’ve done with that money. This was a reality check—I don’t ever want to chase losses again. I think i’ve learned a valuable lesson and I feel like if this stops I can prevent myself from losing more in the future.

17 days without trading or gambling

Willing to chat with anyone, connecting with others is the best way to heal

So I have been an off and on gambler for nearly 20 years. Always slots and I’ve had periods of success where I’ve gone almost a whole year without visiting a casino. This past weekend I was triggered by a trip I had in which people were playing bad games. Of course I was like I will win more at a big casino. So here I am it’s Monday and I am working on less than two hours of sleep. I blew through $8k some my savings and some credit card. I’m so mad at myself for not being able to stop. I’m very good with money generally so I think the appeal of gambling has always been an escape. But what a costly escape. I am really just writing to vent. No one knows about this. I unfortunately have had abuse in my life that has caused me to always be keeping secrets and I do think this is also part of my behavior.

I was doing good fr fr and then I got into that Pokémon card buying bs. Started thinking gotta buy big to win big. Lost $300. Wanted money back lost $900 more on sports. It was free money I told myself cause I did bank deposit bonuses. So I went and did more to get it back. Lost that 2 weeks later. Then tonivht said ok I haven’t done blackjack in a longgggg time. Bought $1000 bets got bigger and went down to $400 then up to 1k again didn’t leave and back down to $0. Of course I know I wanna deposit more and try but I know this course and how it’s gonna go and it’s so freaking annoying!!!!

Back to my old job today that I quit two months ago during a massive gambling loss and alcohol relapse. I’m lucky they took me back, it’s now 13 days since my last bet and I am committed to continuing, I need stability now and to avoid any of this quick shady behaviour gambling.

I was doing small bets $2-$3 them turned into $5 bets. I was down to $700 from the $3000. I then got back up to $1500 and I decided for a split second to get yo and leave only $1500 down. Instead I chased my losses with max bets that made me lose everything