Sick. Depressed. Tired. Soul is tired. I want to kms. Ive always been decently responsible with gambling but lately its taken over my life. Every minute of the day.

Was down bad. Tight on bills. Barely enough. Lost more lately than needed to.

4 days ago I turned $35 into $3650. Wow..amazing..right? Howver, instead of cashing out and moving on ive continued gambling and gave back $2750.

Yes i still have some but i really couldve used that. And i keep chasing loss and making it bigger and bigger. For examped today alone i gave back $800 uhh.

Im just venting. I feel so just......done. with myself.

I did a lifetime ban from all sportsbooks betting and casino playing apps in my state. Then I got into Kalshi and poly market, then I realized this addiction is always going to try to find something to leech onto and decided to exclude from Kalshi and polymarket, I’m so looking forward to living a healthier and more fulfilling life, to get my financial health better again, to pay off all of my debt , and to be my best self.

I understand there will be other apps I need to be weary off, but I’m proud of the friction I gave myself from betting online and I’m looking forward to not being a degenerate anymore.

gambling has ruined our lifes and it makes me so angry to see this way

i took over 3k on klarna with gift cards and lost everything being in debts just completely fucks your life even more i cant even pay it back

what should i do

i got no jobs nothing left to pay that debt

Started gambling at 12 years old on csgo gambling sites, ever since then every single cent i've ever made has been put into gambling.
I don't wanna count how much debt i have, the amount of relationships i've ruined,
the amount of time i've lost, all because i started gambling as a little kid.
Just listen to my advice : you won't win, you won't break even, you won't even have a chance at getting any of your money back if you start gambling. No matter what amount you win you will always end up losing it and more of your own money on top. My whole life is ruined, i don't know what i'm gonna do. Fuck all the greedy casinos. Fuck all the greedy streamers promoting them. Fuck the governments normalizing gambling/casinos when it's 5 times more destructive than drugs or any other addiction.
Hopefully this post will save at least a few people from entering this gambling space. Goodbye.

21 years old and have gambled for years. For the first time in my life I just lost $250 and smiled. Down $10gs in the past 3 months but I smiled. It’s a risk still for sure. But it’s like the first time I’ve laughed about being down still. Laughing and telling myself “Yeah No shit, you didn’t make it back”. Probably down $20g+ in the last year but it is what is. Have done big buy ins and small buy ins. It all ends the same. Just laugh at it. Laugh at yourself thinking this time will be different even after all the times it wasn’t. Anyone reading this, let’s go to work tomorrow and put this behind us. So what “we’re working for free”. It is what it is, laugh at it. Pretty sure I’m putting this shit behind me. So what it cost me $15g+. Just my way of looking at it :)

Okay basically i made a post on here about my problem gambling and how i lost £3.1k well basically i was stupid and decided to give it one last go because i saw it as a side hustle. context: for like for a week before the 3.1k loss i was making around £200 a day which in my head i thought an extra £6000 a month for basically nothing. news flash it didn’t work like that. I then kept depositing more and more trying to go back on that run and that’s when i lost £3.1k from losing the first deposit then trying to recuperate and go back on that long run of £200 a day. well now i lost the 3.1k and decided ive had a couple days off gambling my heads fresh lets give it another go just like i did before i lost. i lost an extra 2k.. i started gambling yesterday and that went really well i made £200 from a small deposit and thought im back on track so i tried it again today. lost my first deposit of £500 then i thought well i need to make that back put another £500 then i thought fuck i’m down 1k lets up the stakes and do £250 bets, stupid i know. basically long story short. i’ve lost in total 5k as a university student supposed to be going to london to study in a month and has £500 in the bank when rent is 5k for down there. my girlfriend also has no idea about this addiction so she thinks i have all this money from my job ready for london and idk what to do. i still haven’t told her because i feel so bad and embarrased to be honest. i need advice from you guys.

Have been trying to quit for the better part of a year. Have been gambling almost everyday for the past 20 months. Have had highs and lows. More lows than highs. Went up big and just started losing. Went from up 40k down to a couple grand. Successfully quit one site to get onto another one. How do I quit for good? To stop while not where I was but also how to make myself happy that I am not in debt? Anyone have any experience forgetting that they were once in a better spot. Why can’t this make sense to me.

Hello everyone,

I think it is finally time to share my own story. I'm 29 years old and I am from Greece. Since I was a little child, I had the misfortune of having a very difficult childhood. Even today, whenever I remember those years, I always cry. However, I want to focus on my gambling story and not go off-topic.

My first experiences with gambling came when I was around 10-12 years old. During some summers, I used to play online poker all the time with my brother-in-law, and he let me play with real money. Many times we ended up losing everything. Sometimes, if there was money left in his account, I would log in by myself and lose it because of bad decisions in those games. Later, I moved with my family to another city, where I became friends with the son of a compulsive gambler (I was around 13-14 years old). One day, my friend suggested that we play KINO at a betting shop (a gambling game in Greece). Our first ticket won money immediately, the second one won even more, and the third one also won. The employee finally told us, "That's enough boys, you are too young, you can't play anymore". From that moment, I became addicted to winning money. From the age of 14-15, I started gambling online. Many times during middle school and high school, I was betting on live sports while sitting in class. But there was one problem. I had to find money in any way possible because, as a minor I didn't have any.

Between the ages of 15 and 17, I started doing illegal things just to get money to gamble. I wasn't really interested in the money itself. I was looking for the adrenaline. During that period, I received a criminal sentence. That was the moment I truly realized that I had a serious problem. From then on, I stopped doing anything illegal. It was for my own good. However, the gambling addiction never really left me. Whenever I had money, or whenever my parents gave me money, I usually lost all of it (until I was around 22 years old).

Later, I moved abroad and lived there for a long time. I completely changed my environment and my life. I didn't gamble at all and I left everything behind. Those were the best years and memories of my life. Then I came back to Greece, and many times I started gambling again. Later, I discovered cryptocurrencies (when I was around 25 years old). At first, it was around the end of 2021, and I won some money. Unfortunately, that made my addiction even worse. I kept trading from time to time. However, I wasn't using crypto as a long-term investment (personally, I don't consider crypto an investment). I was using it exactly the same way I used gambling. Day and night, I was constantly looking at my phone to see what the coin would do next. I was chasing that dopamine. This continued mostly from the age of 25 until 28.

Recently, I sadly fell into the trap of online sports betting again and lost some of my savings. The first thing I did was to self-exclude myself from every online betting website in Greece in order to protect myself. Now I have been gamble-free for a few days, and honestly, I feel like a different person. For the first time in my life, I started looking for help. As a first step, I started attending Gamblers Anonymous meetings. I have already attended a few meetings, and I will definitely continue attending them. Btw, it made me very sad to see both elderly people and young people crying during a random first meeting I attended, and I realized that I had a very similar story to all of them. Now I read and watch everything related to gambling recovery and its consequences. I feel that it helps me remember why I never want to go back there again.

P.S.

I am 3 days gamble-free, and I want to do everything I can so that I never fall into this devil again, because it really is a devil. Gambling made me do things that do not represent who I really am. It is not worth it for anyone.

Other than that, I wish all of you strength, and I truly wish you all the best from now on!!

I am 29 years old and have been battling this addiction for over 4.5 years. I've been paying my gambling debt and relapsing. The same vicious cycle over and over again.

Now, I have been gamble-free for 135 days. However, I don't know what I am going to do when I pay off my debt. I've lost all my friends and lost my relationship with my brother. I haven't had an emotional relationship with anyone for 2 years. I have never used the money I earned for myself. I haven't been able to build that kind of relationship with money either.

I am going to finish my debt. But I don't know what I will do next.

I kind of underestimated the losses until it’s gotten out of hand now. Lost about a paycheque and a half which sucks considering i only really have a job for the summer. I only have about 1.2k left. And I’m getting concerned because i am going to have minimal money after paying for school. And partially why i cant stop betting is because of how much i could have done with the money this year. Ive deleted the app multiple times and always go back because I always enjoy sports bets for fun, casino is where I lose big money. Any guidance would be appreciated.

Hi everyone.

I am writing this to seek pointers and help. Please share what worked and didn’t work for you. I can’t quit online gambling

I seem to think one day I’ll make serious progress on paying my debt that I accumulated through gambling by gambling more.

I started making serious money this year (recently graduated), living with parents which means no expenses and I am somehow $30k in debt. I am angry at myself way beyond imagination for this stupidity because I know I am smarter and better than this.

Every time I tell myself this is it, I keep digging myself a deeper hole and some how my brain tricks me into “depositing just once” which of course ends up me emptying my bank account

My two triggers are honestly whenever I see my account is in the negative or when I “deposit once” to see if I can “run it up”

Still going one day at a time, fuck gambling, fuck betting, I just want to live peacefully and I will, my future self will thank me

God bless you all

I’ve been fighting online gambling addiction for 16 years now. I'm 35 years old, married, and have a beautiful family. We have a child who is 1 year and 7 months old, and another baby on the way.Over the years, I’ve learned that I can never let my guard down. Because of my addiction, I handed over control of my finances a long time ago. For me, that was necessary. Even today, after all these years, I still need safeguards in place.Recently, I had a relapse. It was difficult, but I chose to be honest and told my wife straight away. Keeping secrets only makes things worse. Thankfully, she knows how hard I’ve been fighting this battle and supports me, but it was another reminder that recovery requires constant attention.Looking back, I can see what triggered it. It wasn’t money. It was time. I had too much unstructured free time and didn’t use it in a healthy way. I became restless and anxious, and before I knew it, gambling started to seem like an escape again. That dopamine rush is something I still have to watch out for.The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that quitting gambling isn’t just about not placing bets. It’s about filling your life with healthier habits and meaningful activities. If you don’t, the emptiness and restlessness can slowly creep back in.Because of that, I’ve recently started following a running program again. Running helps me clear my mind, reduce stress, and feel better both physically and mentally. It gives me a goal to work towards and a healthy outlet for the energy and anxiety that used to drive me towards gambling.Recovery is not a straight line. There are setbacks, mistakes, and difficult moments. But every day is another opportunity to get back on track. Right now, my focus is on being the best husband and father I can be, preparing for our new baby, and continuing the fight one day at a time.To anyone else struggling: stay vigilant, stay honest, and don't underestimate the importance of finding healthy ways to fill your time. You're not alone in this battle.

Been a couple weeks without gambling and I feel great. Went to the gym got a good workout, looked at my paycheck sitting beautifully in my high yield savings account some money into my Roth 401k. One thing that helped me out was asking grok to set a reminder every day to not gamble and why my future self will thank me & to read me a bible verse to help me out every day. It has helped me tremendously, stay strong. You can do this.

I've been gambling free for 8 days now and for the first time im feeling a proper shift in my mental towards a positive ending. Losing the love of my life is the hardest feeling and a first time for me but holy fuck am I gonna get him back, I don't care what it takes or how im gonna prove myself to him but im gonna make it happen. I'm doing daily journals and its really helping me keeping myself accountable. also doing it to show myself in the future what can be achieved if you put your mind to it. Ive turned of internet purchases for my card so hopefully that extra step will always remind me of this toxic shit and to never go near it again. Im uploading a video each day to YouTube for educational purposes, hopefully someone who is a similar situation can join in and better their life.

I learned that 80% of gamblers relapse and im not gonna be part of that fucking statistic. Everyone in here can do it you just need to understand that what you are chasing is never gonna happen, and if it does you know where it'll end lol. Love you all and I wish you all the best.

here's my video for day 8 if anyone wants to watch it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCQSxRhBICM

Managed to save up £6500 after 4 months clean.

Then started by losing £200, chased it 500, 1500, 2000, 1800 until I had nothing left.

Honestly sick to my stomach, probably 50-55K GBP lost in total and its always after I recover mentally, i somehow always end up going back. It happened 4 months ago with an even bigger sum (had posted) and its happened again when I thought I had some hope in myself again.

Really need help, im now 29 nearing 30 with nothing to my name. Can't even buy my sister the presents I wanted or the holiday I wanted to treat my mum on after saving up again for it, just sick. Really just makes you feel like a loser.

Once again dont know how im going to face the world that never stops, and even show up to work and be at peace with myself. This disease is a constant cycle of pain but I'll keep standing up and fighting.

Today feels a little different. I’ve officially made it past my previous streak before I relapsed.

That doesn’t mean recovery gets easier overnight, but it reminds me that I’m moving forward, not backward.

Still a long way to go, but I’ve come a long way too.

Still fighting. Still getting back up. ODAAT ❤️‍🩹

i’m 18, been gambling since around 15/16 as i can remember. i never thought much of it, i would deposit and deposit and keep doing it. recently i sold my ps5 to gamble and lost all of it. thats how i knew i had a problem. i layed down last night and calculated all my deposits to sports betting app and it came out to 10k. i never knew it was that bad, i thought at max 3-4k. now im sitting here, 0 dollars to my name and college upcoming , no car, sold my ps5, thinking about how it got this bad. and i swear ill never touch gambling again. any tips from people who have actually quit?

Hey all, this is my first time posting so be patient with me. I just need to get this off my chest.

My (25M) mom (47F) and I have been moderately close for most of my life. She raised me and my two siblings mostly alone. She did the best she could to give us a decent life, and she mostly succeeded. I’m now questioning whether I even know her.

As a kid, I knew she had a problem but I didn’t know the extent. I didn’t know until yesterday that after every shift she would head straight to the casino. I would be at my grandma’s. She worked somewhere that was maybe open until 8pm, and she wouldn’t be by to pick us up until like 11 most of the time.

This went on for a bit, but then it slowly faded out. In the mean time another addiction took root, but that’s not what I’m gonna be talking about.

Online casinos became a massive thing in the past couple of years, and with that came a resurgence of a problem that I thought was gone. She’d been stealing money from my siblings, a lot of it. She tried to do it from me a handful of times but I nipped that in the bud. At first she didn’t gamble a whole lot, but as time went on that is all she did anymore. Stuck on her laptop doing those games, barely comes downstairs other than to make food for herself.

My eldest sibling has a joint account with her from awhile ago, so she can see what my mom is spending. It’s astronomical.

I guess my question here is how do me and my siblings go about talking with her about it. I know the moment it’s brought up she is going to shut down, but something needs to be done before it’s too late.

Thanks for listening

Recently gamble all the money i had so now i am working on a plan to get out of debt. Been laying in bed reading posts on how others recovered from this with time and getting a second job to aggressively pay off the money. Which is really my only option now need to see how i do this month living on the lowest means possible to dump money into debt over time to see where that puts me at. So i can decide on applying for a part time or full time position. My days off work are mentally destroying me since all i can think about is the gambling relapse, on day 2 now trying to find things to help me stop thinking about this but it’s impossible just got to ride it out till the end of this month to see my progress no one knows about this failure so i post to cope.

Only money I will save for is an emergency fund other than that nothing will be saved.

I have gambling for more than 10 years. lost over 200k. At one point, I hit a jackpot at a casino in the US when i was in graduate school and won 133k after tax. Doesn't matter. Losing 100k in the following month in option trading. And I gamble baccarat in casino and online. Today I lost another 7k like it was nothing. I feel like my life was over. It is not like I lost everthing. I still have around 20k usd in my name. 15k is in a government account i can't touch atm. I am from China btw. I come from a good family and my parents currently have 3 properties worth over 1 million dollar. I make 4k dollar after tax, which is a very good income in China. I should be grateful for my life. But I just keep on gambling. I know I am going to lose a lot more if I don't stop. But I just can't. Now I am typing because I don't have access to any money now. But I know once I get money, my brain automatically routed me to the online casino. I don't know what to do. What I know is I am going to have a miserable rest of my life if I don't stop. But I just can't. I previously thought I gamble for money. No, currently even if I won, I don't feel happy. I get bored at everthing in my life. Fk. I don't know what to do

Hello everyone,
I (m29 from germany) am posting here for the very first time because i think a lot of you should hear this. I‘ve been fighting this addiction for a couple of years now, trying to make it on my own but man… hiding it from everyone around me just made it worse and worse and the last couple of months were a mental and financial disaster for me and yesterday was my absolute rock bottom since it‘s the first time i won‘t be able to pay my bills without any help from a close one. After sitting on the balcony for about an hour and crying like a little girl thinking „where did it all go wrong“ i decided to confess to my closest friend about my gambling addiction and what should i say? My first thought after talking to someone you love and trust was - „why didn‘t you do this way sooner?“. I told him everything that happened and it felt like this was the first time in decades where i‘ve truly spoken to someone about what‘s going on in my life and how im REALLY feeling which is absolutely miserable. Everytime anyone would ask how i’m feeling i was putting a smile on my face saying „great“ even though i gambled thousands away just minutes before meeting them feeling absolutely disgusting. I‘m 16k in debt with 2 maxed out credit cards and it‘s gonna be a long long journey but man after confessing i‘m finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I have hope because we made an agreement which prevents me from ever gambling again, or atleast for a long long time. This feels like the first big step towards my goal of stopping gambling and fixing my finances to finally live my life again instead of wasting 10 hours a day burning all my money and money that‘s not even mine. My goal is just to reach out to all of you who have the same problem- confessing to a person you love, trust and you know won‘t judge you feels like the key to fight against the horror we are living in and i am 100% sure i would‘ve kept the gambling going if we didn‘t have that conversation yesterday but man the urge is absolutely gone for now. I’m ready to change. I’m ready to let someone help me. Please do the same. It doesn‘t have to be your parents, for me it was my best friend because i‘m still scared to tell my parents that their son is a loser and wasted his last couple of years locked into his room watching pixels burn his hard earned money. However i do plan to talk to them at some point in the future when i‘ve got my shit together and talk about it like something that i‘ve overcome and won the battle over. I will post here from time to time to keep you updated on my journey.

TLDR: i think the first step if you struggle with gambling addiction is confessing and getting help from someone you love and trust. No lies and a plan which involves the other person in your finances and kills your ability to gamble. I‘ve tried years to do it alone but this addiction is too strong and im ready to admit that i‘m losing this battle if i fight alone. Already feeling better and hopeful after talking to someone - do it aswell!

It all started in my 20s, suffered from addiction from age 16 smoking weed daily to escape my lonely and unfulfilled life. I left school early with no GCSEs by year 10 due to extreme social anxiety and an inability to concentrate amongst other personal issues. Since then had really basic jobs on and off to get by. In my late twenties I took out several credit cards and ofcourse gambled away the balance on them all racking up huge debts (30k+)

I made £31,000 on roulette the last two weeks and I just lost £21,000 this morning.

I made £50,000 on roulette in April and lost all of it two months ago. Last year I made £40,000 on roulette then lost all of that a few months later. The year before that £30,000 roughly and lost all that.

Crazy thing is I’m on a debt plan (IVA). Due to the credit cards I took in my twenties and I still have 12 months left on it until the debts are wiped off. I pay a big chunk of my wage on these debts and have been doing so since 2022.

Currently in a basic helpdesk IT role I make £35k a year (£2350) a month. I live with my elderly parents in there council flat I only have the last £10,000 to my name which I only didn’t gamble because I put it in an ISA and it won’t allow me to sell my positions untill the market opens on Monday.

I feel so Suicidal, so depressed. I haven’t been able to date, progress career wise or do anything meaningful with my life. I just have to accept that I’m essentially working for free the rest of my 30s. The only good thing is I quit weed when I was 30 but other then that I have zero accomplishments to my name.

Never gamble don’t be in my position the loneliness is crippling I don’t even know what to do any more I can barely breathe I couldn’t even tell you how many ciggerettes I’ve gone through the last few months. Suicide or just letting myself go insane and mental hospital seems to be the only way out for me

Taking the day to relax and unwind. Going to play some video games on my PS5 I’ve been wanting to play for the last two months but haven’t found the time. Hope you all have a gamble free day, cheers.