I rockbottomed... my story

I have been lurking the forums for quite some time and decided to give it a go. But first of all I want to think everyone for posting as I have seen the destruction that this disease creates.

Ijust turned 29 years old and have been betting on sports for more than a decade. The first time I placed a bet was when I was 17 years old as one of my friends introduced me to sports betting as we have casinos and sports books in my country. I gave it a go and of course the five dollar bet won. From that time on I was hooked.

I was in high school and most of my college years and did not have a job so whenever I had money I was placing bets on the NFL and NBA and was not losing much but it added up. I have been working as an independent contractor since college and after graduating some three years ago and a big chunk of my wages and money gifts from family have been lost to the books. I did not know how much money I have lost until this year when I made an estimate of it but it backfired as I have been wanting to recoup my losses throughout the years and have been chasing and been in a major losing streak since August and it is honestly taking my sanity with it! I have been gambling as a "side hustle" and it has not been affecting other parts of my life up until recently (more on that later on). Most of these years I mostly have been gambling in order to make some extra money but it does not work that way as it is extremely hard to come ahead due to the house advantage in the vigorish (the casino's cut). Now that I have read many posts, it is the action that I crave, and that is a dangerous slope.

Until now, my lifetime losses have been around 33k USD and it just kills me to think about what I could have done with that money. As I said, I don't think it affected much my life until recently that I have not wanted to do much but just bet on sports and watching the screen of my phone most of the day while being burned on some horrible beats. Seriously, on average my bets do well most of the game but they always seem to go wrong at the last second. For those that know American sports, just yesterday, I lost on a game going by it going to overtime, I was also burned with an interception returned for a touchdown with the clock on zero (of course I was on the under) and today the opposing team scored a last minute touchdown when they just made a couple of field goals the entire game to kill my spread. I am saying this because this has been happening all the time and it is just too stressful and I have reckoned that it is just plain stupid. When you think about it, it is pretty dumb to waste time and energy doing this, because even if it was somewhat profitable, there are way more productive and higher ROI ways to make money. Consistently losing money, time and energy for something negative is just ludicrous.

All of the money that I have lost was personal money, meaning I have never taken loans to gamble, or done something immoral to get money, so I am grateful that I'm not in a bad place now but am aware of what could happen to me if I continue on this road and that scares me a ton! I have a dream to start businesses but if I continue gambling I might lose WAY more than what I have lost now, so as fixated that I am now on the amount lost and as much as it hurts, I am going to count it as a bad business venture and try to move on with my life. There have been periods of my life where I have not gambled due to living in a foreign country or simply not having funds, and to be honest, it felt great not having to worry whether I am going to get backdoored with a last minute touchdown, or whether a team is making a meaningless bucket. I mean, it is just ridiculous to live life that way. It is pretty sick from a neutral point of view. On my gamble free periods, I have been able to live a normal happy life. Way better than with gambling so having thinking and rationalized everything I decided tonight that it is time to move on and hopefully it will just be a bad memory. It is a lot of money but in the grand scheme of things I like to think that it is not much in order to not beat myself up much.

Today is kind of special. Yesterday I lost on a really bad beat on a game and felt horribly. Decided to reload for a couple hundred feeling hopeless and worked it up to one grand. Tonight I placed four bets for that sum and of course managed to lose all of them. The only difference was that this time for some reason, I felt good when I lost! it was a relief that screamed freedom for me. This is the first time that this happens to me. Maybe it was that deep down inside I really hated gambling and what it has done to my life that I actually felt happy about losing everything. It was really getting out of hand. These past months I have lost bad on my regular picks (constantly goin on 0-10 losing streaks, that I have been losing my mind and chasing on random Indonesian basketball games at 2 a.m. to make up for it, only to dug me up on the hole deeper and deeper, making me unmotivated for life, not sleeping well, not working out, often not showering for some days and being distant with my family and friends, lowering my self esteem, thus also worsening my stuttering (I have a stutter by the way). When I think about that I KNOW that I have a problem and if I want to go places, I have to stop NOW. These past months, unlike any other period, have been bad for me and it is all due to me gambling. To be honest, I hate who I have become. I am sometimes mean and distant to my family and not communicating with friends due to me being glued to the phone looking at scores and mostly losing, of course.

I have been envisioning a life not gambling: being stress free and not having to worry about numbers and not having much money left; being focused on the things that I plan to do but have not done due to my life having being sucked by gambling lately; starting an ecommerce business; donating a significant amount to charity; going back to working out; working proactively on my speech fluency again; hang out with family and friends enjoying the moment; buying more crypto consistently.

Right now, I do not have much money left so it is good that I cannot gamble. When I get paid I will immediately buy a gambling blocking software for my laptop and phone. First, I plan to tackle this myself and after some time I plan on telling some people.

Thanks for reading

A couple of things I noticed from your story. First, you do seem to recognize SOME of the things that you give up/lose aside from money by your devotion to games of chance. I can assure you that if you set out on a path of recovery and total abstinence from gambling, you will come to terms with so many more things that you have given up or never even explored because gambling blocked it. Also, I couldn't help but notice how focused you are on the bad beats/bad luck that you have recently experienced from your action. Anybody that plays enough is going to have ridiculous beats or what seems like bizarre or unusual bad luck. I can tell you a couple of stories that are almost unbelievable. It's a matter of statistics. Things will happen. I am certain that several of your wins involved some good luck, but we seem to never recognize that. The money is gone. Many people have lost much more, including me. You just have to recognize what you do have.


You are twenty nine years old, healthy, a decent job and with a family that loves you. It appears that you still have friends left. You have everything you need to develop a good/happy life. You have to recognize that you are a compulsive gambler, which means that you can't gamble like other people. The Gamblers Anonymous book states that "The DELUSION that we are like other gamblers has to be smashed." We have the lost the ability to control our gambling and the idea that somehow, some way we will control our gambling is the great obsession of compulsive gamblers. Many will pursue it to prison, insanity or death. If you were diagnosed with diabetes, would try to convince everybody that you are not a diabetic?

Hey, I don't really reply to threads but I just wanted to say that I was in a similar situation as you are.

I'm 30 and was addicted to betting sports online, craving for the action. I've been off for 1 year now. All I can say is to restrict all access to online betting. You will be fine. Just don't think about the lost money. Everything happens for a reason so I hope you are stronger after this.

Welcome Chitonoto ,

That's some good advice and insight from Notlookingback and Timehealsall . Our addiction will give endless "reasons" why it's a good idea to gamble on any given day , horse , game . The plain truth is that this addiction , like any addiction , needs to be fed in order to stay alive . It needs that dopamine / endorphin / adrenalin buzz that it has become accustomed to getting on a regular basis .

The money we lost becomes the justification for gambling away even more money in an attempt to recoup our losses . If by some chance we should "win" , that becomes the justification to continue betting . It's an endless , vicious and destructive cycle and it all boils down to the addiction's single , focused goal : " Just keep feeding me ".

Breaking out of this cycle is hard work . It's unpleasant , uncomfortable and a long process . For most of us , this battle is lifelong . I have accepted that no matter how long I have been free of gambling , my addiction will always be waiting for its chance to lure me back into the trap .

Start by following the advice of Timehealsall : Shut down your access to gambling sites , restrict your access to cash and work hard to let go of the losses . That money is gone forever and no amount of gambling will get it back . Learn to recognize the voice of your addiction - any thought or idea that you could make a pile of money on a particular bet , that today is your "lucky day ", that you deserve to have some "fun" by gambling or that you are somehow owed or due for a win - all of these thoughts are disguising the addiction's real message : FEED ME .

Newsunrising,

I needed your answer too, thanks

Notlookingback wrote:You have to recognize that you are a compulsive gambler, which means that you can't gamble like other people. The Gamblers Anonymous book states that "The DELUSION that we are like other gamblers has to be smashed."

I have to disagree with that. There is no such thing as "other people" or "other gamblers" - anyone involved in gambling is in a serious risk of ruining his life.

Notlookingback wrote:Many will pursue it to prison, insanity or death.

Well said, that's a real rockbottom, I've never hit it throughout my life of gambling and like the OP I've never used money that is not mine, but nonetheless I know it could easily lead me there, which is why gambling is not worth it, period, for everyone, second period.