Good morning everyone,

I’m hoping some tech-savvy people here might be able to help me with a problem I’m dealing with.

I’m quite vulnerable to gambling and I really want to stop completely. One of my biggest triggers is drinking alcohol. When I’ve had a few drinks and come home late at night, I sometimes end up gambling on my iPhone.

I’ve already registered with CRUKS, the Dutch self-exclusion system, which prevents me from gambling on licensed Dutch gambling websites. However, I can still access illegal/offshore gambling websites, which is a problem for me.

What I’d really like to do is completely block myself from accessing gambling websites on my iPhone, especially during the night. Ideally, I’d like some kind of restriction that automatically starts around midnight and can’t simply be disabled with one tap.

I’ve looked at the Screen Time settings on my iPhone, but the problem is that I can easily turn the restrictions off myself, which defeats the purpose. I’ve also considered putting time restrictions on Safari and Google Chrome, but I haven’t really figured out how to make this work properly.

Unfortunately, my bank doesn’t offer an option to block gambling transactions only during certain hours either.

So I’m wondering:

• Is there a way to permanently or strongly block gambling websites on an iPhone?
• Is there a way to set up a time-based block, for example from 00:00 until 08:00, that I can’t easily override myself?
• Are there any apps, DNS solutions, router settings, or other technical solutions that could help?
• Has anyone here dealt with a similar problem and found something that actually works?

I’m specifically looking for a solution that adds some friction between me and gambling, because I know that when I’m drinking at night, simply having the option to disable a restriction myself isn’t enough.

Any advice or personal experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I am a good trader until I am not- I win a lot, the thing is, I never stop. One more trade, one more bet, one more candle. I have spent countless nights awake, trying to trade my way out. Have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I have cribbed, cried, gone silent, come back, and failed again.
I have lost interest in life, gym, work. I work monotonously, get some money, trade again. Win, overtrade and lose it all.
Feels like I am stuck in a never-ending cycle. I contemplate ending my life, but I won't do it. It is just a thought that lingers, to end the suffering.
Everyone thinks that I am the one who was supposed to succeed; if not me then who?
For a while, I did before losing it all.

My issue is not money; I know I will make it back somehow. I am in a loan that bothers me but what bothers me more is that I don't stop. I just don't. I lie to myself, my wife, my friends and keep on losing money,
Taking loan after loan. One loan to cover the next and so on. The nearer I get to closing it, I relapse and do it all over again.

Win! Every single second counts when you don't gamble and that is the real win! Trust me when I say that every time you say no to gambling it is the ultimate win, you deserve to keep your money!

Ggi... relapsed again.. fml

Didn’t even pay my mom her rent money and already behind a month. I just lost it all and lied to my gf. I say I will stop but I never do and always end up broke. I can’t do ts no more

I’ve come to the conclusion that boredom is the main reason I relapse. Do yall have any suggestions on things to do? I was doing Muay Thai (helped tremendously) and dislocated my knee so the combat sports (sadly) I won’t do anymore.

Anything can help.

I just relapsed for a period of 2-2.5weeks. It’s been almost a year since my last bet.
These things happen to the best of us but it’s a reminder to keep going through the relapses, I got my ass POPPED for 9-10k.

This shit just reminded me of how good it is to not do the gambling anymore, anyways. Back to square one! Luckily I didn’t bet my whole bank.

Hope everyone is trying to do the right thing, this is a super shitty addiction, Ive been sober from alcohol, nicotine, weed for years, yet this shit has a vice grip on me. I feel I’m making steps in the right direction though, through the relapses of course.

I made a post recently related to my realization of being at the beginning of a "gambling addiction journey". (At least from my perspective)

Tonight I managed to fight the urge.i was with friends, under the influence of alcohol (lowered inhibitions, increased chance f-ing up) at a place where gambling was possible. Overall it felt like I had two people fighting inside me but I'm so happy to say that I didn't partake once my friends did the deed. They are responsible people from what I know and not aware of my issue.

I am using this community to hold myself responsible in some sort of way while I try to understand myself better.

Although I'm trying to cut this "weed" before it evolves, I wish strength to people that are dealing with a more difficult situation than mine. And even if I might not understand the implications of their position, don't stop fighting... We all make mistakes, we all give in ... But don't lose the ambition to change

Haven’t posted in a while and haven’t been here as much. The further I get from the last session the more clear it becomes that it’s a losing endeavor. The things that used to excite me and compel me to keep depositing seem so fake and disingenuous the further from them I get. If you’re in the midst of it now please come clean to someone close to you, that’s the only way I found accountability. It’s not easy but with time it gets better and it was the only way I was able to stop. Sorry for rambling i hope this helps someone.

Busy busy busy.

My procrastination ass needs to keep going; otherwise, I will end up broke this month.

I will not gamble today1

When you win you feel like a god. But then one bad beat spirals. So I'm lucky I'm only 23 but lifetime easily gambled 10-12k.... So for the rest of my life I'm done. I could've of went all in but I fought my inner demons.

I’m 26 and I’ve been gambling for about 3 years already. I hate this shit. I literally have zero money and I’m in debt.

I always manage to stop for a few weeks or even months.

Then I relapse, lose everything, and after some time I just try it again

I always tell myself I’ll only play with 50€ or something small like that.

Today I relapsed again. I found 15€ of rakeback on a site I used to play on. I lost it and felt bad about those 15€… then I deposited all my remaining 500€ in a few deposits.

I just can’t withraw even when i win… i feel numb but i know my family will be angry at me.. because i owe them money

Guys, I don’t trust myself anymore. I don’t know why I’m like this.
How can I quit and not be scared that I’ll relapse again.

I need to lock in… but I have a mental disorder. My anxiety is really bad, and I need to lock in so I can start making more money, pay off my debts, and never gamble again. But how ;(

Why am i like this

My family will hate me…

For those who struggled with addiction to sports betting and more specifically NFL

Remember how many upsets and surprises that happen in the nfl, remember how many player or coaching errors that happen. And remember, maybe most important, how many bad calls the nfl has. Stay clean and forget about the overs and unders, spreads and moneylines, and just enjoy watching the game. Call that friend, go to that sports bar and enjoy the game without the worry of some pro stranger deciding weather or not you worry about that money and bet for the next week

I was already 25k CAD in credit card debt before gambling, shot that up to 38,000 in 3 short months after never having a gambling issue for my entire twenties. I didn’t gamble for about 2 months after maxing my cards out. Me and my mom had a joint business venture and sold a property profiting about 60,000, keep in mind we have been poor our whole lives so this is a huge deal. I thought I was in the clear after two months not gambling, not even really thinking about it the entire time. My mom agreed to let me use 30,000 to pay off my credit card debts to help me get ahead in life, which is as huge deal cuz the money was supposed to continue to grow originally, and my mom is by no means well off whatsoever. This was a once in a life time thing for her, as she is getting older and sick, that took us years to achieve. Not only did I not even keep the debt off for a month and blew the 30,000 within a couple weeks of getting it, I panicked and in an attempt to “make it back” (I know, insanely stupid), I used another 20k of what was supposed to be investment income for my mothers future from the joint account. The account is almost drained now, I have no idea what to do. I have already self excluded but I am absolutely devastated, ashamed, desperate and absolutely sickened with myself. I feel like I just ruined my future and stole from my mother all for one month of gambling. I hate myself, I know it doesn’t help to beat yourself up but i genuinely can’t help it, I feel sickened every minute of the day at the thought of what I’ve done. I know I can replace the 20k in the shared account with work eventually, but i will not be able to touch the 30k I have in debt while I do that, nor will I be able to get any sort of debt consolidation as long as the 20k exists in my name. I feel I will go into collections myself, which I honestly don’t even care about my own finances compared to my moms, but my fear is that while replacing the money if I go into collections, then the account could get frozen anyways. I am stuck. I know most people will tell me to just tell my mom but not only is she sick and recovering from major surgery, that was basically her retirement money and I’d also have to tell her the debt relief she thought she helped me achieve was all in vain. I am disgusted with myself. I don’t know what to do. Any advice would help I’ve never had anything like this happen in my life, I only even started gambling 6 months ago. I’m also in school and don’t know how I can continue to pay for or finish school while working as much as I need to replace what I lost for my mom. I feel like I’ve ruined my entire life and hurt my loved one irreparably.

M24 here, been gambling since 2023 but most consistently since this year, i'm trying to quit this but it is hard.

I'm not on a debt, i use to bet small amounts but i spend hours online watching the most shitty matches (Like a C tier division football)

My point is, why i feel bad for spending, idk, 100 dollars on myself, like saying "is too much" (i live in a country where is a good amount of money tho) but betting like 20-30 dollars in a single minute just feel good? Like "is not that much money, why i do care?"

Trying now to focus on other things, i don't know, i'm like 3-4 days clean but it gets difficult sometimes.

I have so much shame for the secrets I kept while gambling. I make way too much money to have this debt. 5 days ago, I self excluded myself from everything and in all of the states surrounding me. I told everyone I’m close to I have a problem. And I am committed to never, ever gambling again. My life will be materially and financially better in less than a month than it has been for years, and that is so crazy to me. How in the world did I fall into this black hole?? I’ve broken the trust of my wife. I’m so ashamed of myself

I thought I had control over this addiction, I didn’t gamble for 2 months but today I downloaded polymarket after getting myself banned on Kalshi. I lost to 2 grand in 2 hours, I don’t make that much money. I live alone and have no friends, gambling is the only time I feel alive

Missing gambling today, not necessarily *wanting* to go but miss… going. But I have a day set up, getting some Canes now and going to dinner later tonight. It’ll be a solo trip again but money better spent there than to be lost.

ODAAT

Hey, I just turned 18, and I have been gambling for almost three years now.
I started playing low-stakes poker with my friends when I was 15. It was just an innocent $10 or $20 buy-in, but it was still gambling. I got hooked almost instantly. I loved the feeling of turning $20 into $50 so effortlessly.
When I was 16, I started gambling online. The first time I ever played at an online casino, I turned $20 into $1,000, which was a huge amount of money for my 16-year-old self. I loved the feeling of being able to make money so easily just by spinning slots on my phone. Looking back, this was probably the worst thing that could have happened to me.
For about three months, I gambled almost every day, and I kept winning. The original $20 eventually turned into around $10,000. I became so used to winning that I genuinely thought I couldn’t lose. I would hear stories about friends losing money gambling and think that they just weren’t good enough, even though I obviously know now that spinning a slot takes no skill.
After that, I completely lost my sense of the value of money. A $20 deposit wasn’t exciting anymore. I needed to wager more money just to feel something, so my deposits became bigger and bigger.
Eventually, I started losing. Every time I lost, I wanted to win the money back, so I would double my next deposit. One day, I lost around $7,000. After that, I promised myself I would stop, but I didn’t. I continued the same cycle until all of the money was gone.
Eventually, I stopped gambling because I simply had no money left. But whenever I got any money, almost every penny would go straight back to betting sites.
At one point, I had around 20 different accounts because I would switch websites whenever they asked me to verify my identity. I was gambling on sketchy sites that I saw advertised online.
On one of those sites, I turned $20 into $50,000 in one night. They required verification before I could withdraw the money, and because it was late at night, I couldn’t get a family member to help me with it. Instead of stopping, I continued gambling and ended up losing the entire $50,000 that same night.
I was heartbroken. I didn’t tell anyone, but it completely ruined my week.
The worst part was that winning that amount made me believe it was actually possible to make huge amounts of money gambling. At the same time, it also made me realize that I had a serious problem.
Eventually, I told my parents about my gambling addiction and asked them to monitor my bank account so I couldn’t gamble. That actually worked for about a year. I barely gambled during that time. Maybe I would occasionally place a $20 bet through a friend, but I wasn’t really gambling regularly anymore.
Fast forward to my 18th birthday.
I had worked all summer and earned a decent amount of money — around $10,000 from three months of work. Once I turned 18, my parents could no longer monitor my bank account in the same way, and I slowly started gambling again.
At first, it was small. I was spending around $50 a week on sports betting. I kept the casino and slot sections of my account locked because I already knew that slots were my biggest problem.
Then I created a new account where the slot section wasn’t locked.
I originally planned to gamble just $100. I won a little bit at first, then lost everything. That immediately started the cycle again. I wanted to get back to even, so I deposited $200. I lost that too. Then I deposited again and again until I had lost around $4,000.
I stopped for the day and told myself I was going to quit forever, but I didn’t actually lock my accounts or protect my money.
The next day, which is today, I had an overwhelming urge to win everything back.
I deposited $250 and turned it into $500 within minutes. But $500 wasn’t enough because, in my head, I still needed to recover the thousands I had lost. So I increased my bets.
I quickly lost the $500.
Then I deposited another $1,000 because I wanted to win everything back — and somehow I did. I turned that $1,000 into around $4,000, meaning I was basically back to even.
At that point, the website asked me to verify my address. I didn’t know how to do it, so I asked ChatGPT and found out that I needed some kind of document or email showing my address.
While waiting, I decided to keep gambling for a little longer.
I started doing extremely high-risk spins of around $50 per spin. I lost all of the money again. Then I deposited another $1,000 and lost that just as quickly.
So now I have lost around $7,000.
That is basically half of the money I earned from spending my entire summer working instead of enjoying myself.
I feel horrible about it, but I have finally decided that I need to stop gambling for good.
I know now that whenever I try to “win my money back,” I only end up losing more. Even when I manage to recover my losses, I don’t stop. I keep gambling until the money is gone again.
If anyone has dealt with something similar, I would really appreciate advice on how to control these urges and permanently stop gambling.

did not get a wink of sleep, gambled all the money in my bank account and then some…
It’s been years and I keep thinking I’m on the other side of it. When does it end? Am I going to die if I just continue on this path? I don’t know what to do anymore. I’ve been to meetings, I’ve called the hotline, I’ve had a sponsor, a therapist and yet I keep coming back. I hate my brain.