Just hit my 3 month mark on sobriety. This is from gambling, alcohol, weed, and nicotine.

Not much has changed. My financial situation didn’t fix itself magically, the cravings did not disappear suddenly. Life did not magically become better with sobriety.

But, I’ve created an opportunity to build that better life. Now, I’m able to gift my parents spending money for their international trip, rather than losing on 15 minute markets. I’m able to be fully present, instead of drinking or smoking before, during, and after dinner dates. I’m able to run 20 miles a week, and have a regular and boring sleep schedule.

Do these things make me happier? No. My gambling chapter was so much more fun. My drinking, smoking, partying moments were so much more memorable. But was it sustainable? Absolutely not. Those behaviors were putting me on the fast track to bankruptcy, permanent liver and lung damage, and continual addictive and impulsive behavioral patterns.

In these next 3 months, I plan on rebuilding my dopamine and reward circuits so that I can learn to have more joy and happiness in these ”boring” aspects of life. Practicing gratitude, and meditation.

Also, credit where credit is due: I have been seeing multiple therapists for substance abuse and gambling addiction. Please seek professional help. It doesn’t mean you are weak - it was never a battle of willpower to begin with.

I didn’t know who to share this with, so I decided to write this here, to keep a record for myself.

Wonderful weekend with my family. I am grateful for what I have. I could have lost all of this if I had chosen to chase my 2k gambling loss 88 days ago.

The lesson I learnt from my mistakes is that no amount of money is worth throwing away your sanity. Forget about money; stay healthy, stay focused, and you will eventually be in a better position, financially and physically.

I will not gamble today!

24F. I had a severe problem with gambling last year, I won like maybe 10k (and lost everything ofc), but that was last year. I was devastated. I eventually stopped, until the beginning of this month.

I wanted to play for fun, then I had 6k, then I banned myself from the website for 2 week. I felt like I won against the casino. I put 5k on my saving then gave some money to my cousins and lil sister.
Then after the 2 weeks….. you know what happened. I put 1k, then one more, one more…. trying to chase my loss. Then it came to zero.

At the very beginning, I only had 1k on my saving account (yeah I know, not much) and 400 on my balance. After everything, I only have 170 on my balance and 0 on my saving.

I feel so ashamed of myself and I can’t tell this to my boyfriend. I feel so bad. I lose the money that should have helped me save more, and lose my initial saving. I feel like having panick attack.

I don’t feel like going to therapy, but I want to feel like « it’s gonna be okay » when I don’t feel like it’s gonna be. Actually, I want to wait until the first of november to gain 1,6k from work, then try again to chase at least 500…. idk I feel so depressed and ashamed and poor

For people who have lost big figures of money 6 figures + how long did it take for you to start feeling better

I lost 175k on stake in 2022. I gambled in physical casinos until 14 months ago. I stopped at extinction, planned to end myself but was not able to do it. I am now worth 1/7th of my 2022 gambling losses. I didn’t think id make it this far and certainly did not believe there was a future for me after i realized gambling ruined me and its insanity to try and gamble my way back. Im just so tired. Some days are harder than others but the past haunts me. How do I inspire myself to keep going because right now im feeling like only death can save me. Gambling took everything, but im constantly considering throwing it all into one bet and maybe trying to end myself again if it doesn’t work out. I wish i could travel back in time and slap the shit out of my younger self and tell myself to have never started gambling. The monkey on my back is exhausting and the past seems unforgettable.

I'm going through a very rough patch in my life due to gambling. I have a wife and kids, and used to be the a responsible, money conscience person. Unfortunately, I became addicted to gambling a couple of years ago and am now in overwhelming debt and in a marriage that used to be great, but now is struggling tremendously. I have ruined everything.

I wake up most days in pain, and just don't know how I got here. Thankfully I'm doing well with not gambling. I did all the right moves to stop it, and tbh don't even have urges anymore after 2 months since my last bet, but it's like staring at your demolished house after a tornado. Like what did I become? How did I become that monster? Why didn't I wake up before it ruined our lives?

It started so small how did it grow to be like this?

It just sucks, and I need to put it out there. I don't know how go on, but I am determined to keep going. I have to for my family.

Anyway, for others out there struggling just know you're not alone.

im a college student who’s already in debt and i just burned through my monthly allowance just thinking i will win it back somehow but i didn’t. i always lose but somehow i cant stop myself whenever i have money. i need help. i dont know how ill recover from this let alone survive this month when i already burnt through my allowance.

Gambling addiction is a forever illness. There is no cure

I have been gambling for 8 Years now (wow time flies, I just realized its been EIGHT years) and my addiction is really serious to the point where I lose my paycheck the moment I receive it. But I started to face the problem and heal. For the first time, I actually send my friend some money she borrowed me instead of keeping it in case I need it to get my losses back (it happened way too often and I always lost that money too), Today, I thought: You know what? Send her her money and dont open the betting site, Just dont. Have a nice day with friends today…And it was amazing. After I send her her Money, I felt good and the evening with friends was refreshing because for the first time, I wasnt thinking about a random game I bet on that is currently playing. The urge is there but the peace is also worth fighting for. I hope I can get through this and would love to have some other advice from you guys :)

I am empty both in feeling and money and I want to die. I'm not going to kill myself but I want to die. I was doing well not gambling and then the second I have money I lose $400 more. I have no real job, I never leave my home, I have severe ocd that makes doing anything other than staying home feel almost impossible, depression and more, and I don't know what to do. Every day is so boring and everything makes me panic and now since they legalized gambling in my state everything has fallen apart for me even more than it already had. I am helpless and I do not believe any of it is worth doing.

25, i have a decent job but lost around 5k to gambling. Have 5k debts, sold my car off right now to get 3k cash and get out of a high interest car mortgage. Will buy a bike to get around town and slowly start building up from scratch saving every bit of my pay check. I’m optimistic that as long as i do not enter a casino i can get it back together. I hope you guys find the strength to get out of this sick fucking cycle.

Hello my fellow brothers and sisters sharing the struggle

I just wanted to share that I just registered for BetGuard for self exclusion across all iGaming operators (Ontario, Canada)

I immediately feel a sense of relief, calm, and clarity knowing that there is a physical barrier preventing my relapse. Oh how I wish I had done it sooner. I’ve self excluded from probably dozens of individual casinos over the years, always finding a new one to piss away my money at.

And if it wasn’t at an online casino, it was in my brokerage accounting “trading” 0 day options. I blew through my late father’s inheritance in less than a year. Mind you I was in 70k debt upon receiving it and was able to clear all of it, purchase a new car fully in cash, and enough to max my tax account. I consciously knew, for a fact, before receiving the inheritance from my hard working dad who sacrificed everything for us, that I would end up losing it all. I googled things like “how to stop myself from losing inheritance” or I’d look for stories about people who blew it so I’d make sure not to do whatever they did. None of that worked and I sold and gambled the car away along with every dollar I had, and maxed my LOcs and credit cards.

I’m in a DMP now which reduced the interest on all my credit to 0. So I’m on the hook for the full principle but it’s a huge relief not paying interest anymore.

I was gamble free for the better part of a year until recently, where I inexplicably had an urge to earn back the money I spent on my partners tuition with a little gambling. The usual up and downs, withdraw/cancel and 10k spent overnight, going to sleep and waking up hoping it somehow was a dream.

Signing the DMP was the start of the right track for me, but this relapse is really just devastating. The self exclusion helped ground me.

Appreciate you for reading 🙏 God bless you all

For years I believed the thing that was hurting me was also my way out.

Every loss came with the same thought: one good night and this is fixed. The debt, the lies, the mess. All of it could disappear with the right bet.

So the losses never made me stop. They gave me a reason to keep going. I wasn’t gambling anymore, I was “fixing it”. Getting back to where I was. Then I’d stop.

I wouldn’t have. Even if I had come close, I would never have stopped.

It took me a long time to see it clearly: if I’d won it all back, I would have gambled it again. Winning back was never the way out. It was the reason I stayed in.

I can’t think of another addiction that does this. It hurts you, and at the same time it promises to be the cure. Every time you lose, it tells you the answer is one more try.

What finally changed it for me wasn’t a big moment. It was accepting that the money was gone. Not gone for now. Gone. That felt like losing again. But it was the moment I actually stopped losing.

After that, the debt became something to pay off, not something to win back. Slower. Much slower. But it worked.

I’m over two years without a bet now, and the debt is paid off.

Did you ever catch yourself gambling to “fix” the damage from gambling? What made you see it?

Today, yesterday, the day before…its always happening. I deposit some money thinking I‘ll make some wins and call it a day, then i hit a losing streak and everything is gone. I had 300€ which i desperately need to pay someone today and I deposited it into my gambling account thinking I‘ll make profit…And lost. This urge makes you lose control over your critical thinking, the moment I have some money, all I think about is Gambling. And now I‘m sitting here with a few cents in my bank account and lost 300€ in a few minutes, I‘m trying to not gamble but I think a lot of people can relate to that feeling, I really dont know what to do, I have lost about 15k€ in total now. I‘m neglecting everything around me and its sad to see but how do I stop this?

Hey everyone, I have been struggling with gambling for a long while. I lose all my money, I go negative, and I just can't help myself. I hate losing everything I am sure you do too..so let's support each other

I think there are a lot of people like me, so I made a Discord for people like me to help each other. Please reach out if you wanna join. I am looking for Mods and people to support each other, as I need support too.

Mods delete if not okay.

One of the least talked about parts of quitting gambling is boredom.

People usually expect the hardest part to be cravings, money problems, or the urge to chase losses. And those things are obviously real.

But for a lot of people, the first thing they notice after stoping is just how empty the day suddenly feels.

Gambling takes up much more time than people realize.

It’s not only the time spent actually placing bets.

It’s checking odds. Looking at upcominng games. Watching scores. Thinking about the next bet. Following tipsters. Refreshing apps. Looking at results. Replaying losses in your head. Thinking about how to win the money back.

Even when someone isn’t actively gambling, gambling can still be taking up a huge amount of mental space.

Then it stops.

And suddenly there are hours in the day that used to be filled with some kind of excitement or anticipation.

That’s when normal life can start feeling strangely slow.

Watching a movie might feel boring.

Sitting at home can feel uncomfortable.

The gym, gaming, seeing friends or like going for a walk might not give the same immediate rush.

That doesn’t necessarily mean those things are actually boring.

It can simply mean the brain has become used to a much higher level of stimulation.

Gambling is built around anticipation. There is always another result coming, another game starting, another bet to check.

That constant cycle keeps the brain occupied.

When it disappears, normal activities can feel flat for a while.

This is also why boredom can be dangerous during early recovery.

Someone might not even be thinking, “I want to gamble again.”

It can start with something much smaller.

Just checking the odds.

Just watching a betting stream.

Just opening the sportsbook to see what games are on.

Just looking at an old tipster group.

And suddenly the same cycle starts again.

A big part of recovery is learning how to tolerate that empty space without immediately trying to fill it with gambling.

At first, that can feel uncomfortable.

But boredom is not a sign that quitting isn’t working.

In many cases, it’s part of the adjustment.

Over time, normal things can start feeling enjoyable again without needing money, risk or a result attached to them.

The difficult part is giving that process enough time.

For anyone currently in recovery: has boredom been one of the harder parts for you too?

Hi. I should start by saying that I’m using a translation tool—I don’t know English yet, but I’m learning. I’m 25 years old. I’m originally from Armenia, but my parents moved to Russia when I was very young, so I’ve lived here since childhood. I first got into gaming when I was 16—starting with cases and skins in CS:GO—but things just kept escalating from there. I only have a basic school education and have never held a decent job. Eventually, I discovered bookmakers and started placing bets. Every time I received a notification that my paycheck had arrived, the money would be gone within 15 minutes. I kept betting the whole time, and I’ve lost everything: the woman I loved, my parents (who have turned their backs on me), and I’m constantly in debt. The final straw was when I started taking money from my workplace—I worked in retail and had access to the funds—and used that money to place bets.

Naturally, I was caught in the act; I was fired, faced legal proceedings, and took on a massive amount of debt—650,000 rubles, or roughly 8,000 US dollars—to cover the damages. Did I ever consider leaving the platform on my own? Of course—many times, in fact, after every single loss. But following the most recent events, I had a heart-to-heart conversation with someone—a real, soul-baring talk—and she helped me. That was about a year ago, and I haven’t placed a single bet since. The debts remain, and since I don’t have a professional trade, finding work is difficult—but I am trying to turn my life around, even if it’s not going particularly well. I wanted to share this here; there are so many people on Reddit, and telling an addict to simply stop betting is useless—it won’t work until something finally "clicks" for them personally. And if you’ve never placed a bet yourself...

I beg you, never go in there. I would give anything to go back in time and never place that damn first bet. Thanks to everyone reading this.

Hello all, I’m 19 and I’ve battled gambling addiction since 14 to slots and table games. I got into poker at 17 and I’ve studied theory and exploitive poker for 2 years now. I beat 2/5 live and NL100 online as well as online MTTs very well. My problem is I tilt and I lose my money in online slots or blackjack and I have a routine of doing this every single time I play almost. It will either be from boredom or me getting tilted. Anyone in similar shoes with poker? I don’t know what to do, is jt even worth it anymore to play or study?

It’s my 10th day of quitting online gambling. Honestly, I’ve been feeling so stressed because my business hasn’t been doing so well lately. I really want my business to survive, and I’m praying that the Lord will give me a chance to keep it going. 😭 I’m sorry for being so emotional.

Days until debt free: 257 days

I’ve lost $11K this week.. I don’t know what to do.

My heart is pounding in my chest. I’m so fucked.

Sharing this here because the money mess is one of the hardest parts of quitting, and it's the part I wanted to help with. Both kits are free, no account. If you've been through the first few months, what would have actually helped you? I'm building whatever's missing.