the start of it

Hello i have come for some guidance to this forum.

As of right now i am 18 years old and have really been gambling since the age of 15.

Im at an all time low now with not a penny left and zero motivation to continue anything at all.
I've given up school and went to working for my fathers company which for me doesn't really work either.

Even if i started going back to college i really dont know what i would do.

But i have been an addicted gambler for so long now, it all started with small amounts ofcourse and then i started winning.. and like most people say winning is the worst thing that can happen to you in the first place.

As of right now i've gambled away roughly 20k+ I'd say.

And ofcourse a 1k debt. i really dont know what todo anymore does anyone have advice on how to quit?

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forum howitbegan,

Your story sounds like mine over 20 years ago. I have often thought of what advice I would give to my younger self if I had the chance and it would be this.
- You can never make money from gambing and it is built so that you will always lose, the longer you play
- Look at the Math! It is built for you to lose, otherwise casinos wouldn't have that much money! (I was pretty good at math)
- Tell your parents. This will be the hardest thing to do, but they care about your future and this would help you overall. Let them watch over your finances so that you will be scared to gamble in the future.

The conventional advice that I would often give to older people, wouldn't have really worked for me when I was your age...
- Go to GA meetings (At that age, I had no car and no time to attend meeings with school)
- Seek help from a councilor (same reason as above)
- Spend all the money you have after the paycheck on things you need so that you have no access to money (back then, life as a teenager was too complicated enough that my money management skills were pretty much non-existant)

Overall, please tell your parents and look for a job that you enjoy. Many do not find their ideal career at your age and will look well into their 30s and 40s.

You have a number of things in your favor HIB .

You have recognized that you have a gambling addiction at an early age and your debt is manageable and can be paid off quickly .

Please consider that gambling addiction and depression often go hand in hand . I started off gambling as a way to pass the time , have some fun , maybe win some " free " money . But you're right - for a person susceptible to addiction , winning is the worst possible thing to happen . Later on down the road , as my addiction grew stronger and my bets became larger and more compulsive , I found myself in an endless cycle of gambling because I was depressed and being depressed because of my gambling .

I agree with Ares that it would help you tremendously to tell your parents although I know how hard that can be to do . If that's not possible , maybe you have a close friend that you can confide in ? Having someone in my life that knew I had a gambling problem was a huge asset for me . It gave me someone to talk to and it dragged the " secret " out into the light . It made me feel accountable , that someone was watching and would know if I messed up and gambled again . I truly did not want to let that person down .

There's no quick and easy way to overcome the compulsion . It takes time and it takes effort . Addiction fights back . It's only goal is to stay alive and be fed . It starts with a decision . Hoping , wishing and praying that you can stop gambling will not work . You have to retake control over the urge to gamble and fight back every time it tries to convince you to do it . The first few months are the hardest but every time you refuse to give in , you become a little bit stronger and the addiction becomes that much weaker .

Stay strong , fight back and I can almost guarantee you that after several months of not gambling , your motivation will return and you will be able to look towards your future without the chains of gambling addiction dragging you down .

Aries411 wrote:Welcome to the forum howitbegan,

Your story sounds like mine over 20 years ago. I have often thought of what advice I would give to my younger self if I had the chance and it would be this.
- You can never make money from gambing and it is built so that you will always lose, the longer you play
- Look at the Math! It is built for you to lose, otherwise casinos wouldn't have that much money! (I was pretty good at math)
- Tell your parents. This will be the hardest thing to do, but they care about your future and this would help you overall. Let them watch over your finances so that you will be scared to gamble in the future.

The conventional advice that I would often give to older people, wouldn't have really worked for me when I was your age...
- Go to GA meetings (At that age, I had no car and no time to attend meeings with school)
- Seek help from a councilor (same reason as above)
- Spend all the money you have after the paycheck on things you need so that you have no access to money (back then, life as a teenager was too complicated enough that my money management skills were pretty much non-existant)

Overall, please tell your parents and look for a job that you enjoy. Many do not find their ideal career at your age and will look well into their 30s and 40s.

Thanks so much for the wise words Aries,
I think it really hit me hard and i understand how i messed up.

I've finally admitted it to myself and let others know on this forums i feel like this helps because reading it over it makes me ashamed of myself.

So i once deposited 25$ and got 2k, and lost it all ofcourse just because i was trying to get it back.

Also i dont have a drivers license yet but im working on that and that has been paid already luckily so i can finish that, it would help greatly in my development.

Again i can't thank you enough for your wise words.

NewSunRising wrote:You have a number of things in your favor HIB .

You have recognized that you have a gambling addiction at an early age and your debt is manageable and can be paid off quickly .

Please consider that gambling addiction and depression often go hand in hand . I started off gambling as a way to pass the time , have some fun , maybe win some " free " money . But you're right - for a person susceptible to addiction , winning is the worst possible thing to happen . Later on down the road , as my addiction grew stronger and my bets became larger and more compulsive , I found myself in an endless cycle of gambling because I was depressed and being depressed because of my gambling .

I agree with Ares that it would help you tremendously to tell your parents although I know how hard that can be to do . If that's not possible , maybe you have a close friend that you can confide in ? Having someone in my life that knew I had a gambling problem was a huge asset for me . It gave me someone to talk to and it dragged the " secret " out into the light . It made me feel accountable , that someone was watching and would know if I messed up and gambled again . I truly did not want to let that person down .

There's no quick and easy way to overcome the compulsion . It takes time and it takes effort . Addiction fights back . It's only goal is to stay alive and be fed . It starts with a decision . Hoping , wishing and praying that you can stop gambling will not work . You have to retake control over the urge to gamble and fight back every time it tries to convince you to do it . The first few months are the hardest but every time you refuse to give in , you become a little bit stronger and the addiction becomes that much weaker .

Stay strong , fight back and I can almost guarantee you that after several months of not gambling , your motivation will return and you will be able to look towards your future without the chains of gambling addiction dragging you down .

Hi NewSun thanks alot for your reply

Your absolutely right, as of right now i have no rent to pay so it should really be easy to pay it off and get back on my feet.

As for the depression within gambling it may sound like a soft excuse but around the age of 13 was also when my mother died however, this cant explain why i started with gambling a year later. I guess i just got "sucked in" by some advert.

As of now i have told my best friend about it and he was shocked honestly, how i had been lying and deceiving but he said he wanted to help because we have been friends for over 6 years so he knows my situation.

Thanks for the kind and wise words, ill hope to live up to it.

My friend was shocked too . I had been compulsively gambling for close to 7 years . Not a single soul knew how much trouble I was in . I had over $ 30,000 worth of debt when I finally quit for good .

I am going to share some of my story with you HIB . It's not pretty .

By the time I had been gambling for 3 years , nothing mattered to me except getting to the casino at every opportunity . I stopped seeing friends , family , made excuses to get out of events like weddings , funerals , parties , get togethers . All of that interfered with my gambling time . All that mattered to me was money - how much I needed , how much I had to gamble with , how much I had lost . I hoarded my money for going to the casino , bought barely enough food to keep myself going , neglected my health , my responsibilities and my appearance . I gambled away my rent several times and lied to the landlord about getting paid late by my company . I lied to my family to get them to send me money when I had lost everything and I racked up my credit card to its 20K limit . 90% of my credit card charges were for cash advances . I was spending money I didn't even have and not making a salary big enough to pay it back .

In the worst moments of my addiction , I knew gambling was killing me ...and I didn't care .

This is a progressive disease . The longer you do it , the worse it gets . Stop now and never go back . I know in my heart there is no "cure " . Addiction physically changes our brain and the way it works . Research it - it's an eye opener . I quit for 6 months once and then the addiction convinced me I could gamble " a little " - you know ...like normal people . The resulting spiral out of control was worse than any nightmare I ever experienced and quitting again was much , much harder . I barely made it out alive from that place .

Lastly - addiction doesn't make us bad people . No one "chooses" to become addicted . But we can choose fight back , to remove it from our lives and we can choose to acknowledge that , for us , gambling is as dangerous to our existence as a peanut is to someone who is deathly allergic to them .

Free yourself . You don't deserve the horrific , desperate life of a gambling addict .

NewSunRising wrote:My friend was shocked too . I had been compulsively gambling for close to 7 years . Not a single soul knew how much trouble I was in . I had over $ 30,000 worth of debt when I finally quit for good .

I am going to share some of my story with you HIB . It's not pretty .

By the time I had been gambling for 3 years , nothing mattered to me except getting to the casino at every opportunity . I stopped seeing friends , family , made excuses to get out of events like weddings , funerals , parties , get togethers . All of that interfered with my gambling time . All that mattered to me was money - how much I needed , how much I had to gamble with , how much I had lost . I hoarded my money for going to the casino , bought barely enough food to keep myself going , neglected my health , my responsibilities and my appearance . I gambled away my rent several times and lied to the landlord about getting paid late by my company . I lied to my family to get them to send me money when I had lost everything and I racked up my credit card to its 20K limit . 90% of my credit card charges were for cash advances . I was spending money I didn't even have and not making a salary big enough to pay it back .

In the worst moments of my addiction , I knew gambling was killing me ...and I didn't care .

This is a progressive disease . The longer you do it , the worse it gets . Stop now and never go back . I know in my heart there is no "cure " . Addiction physically changes our brain and the way it works . Research it - it's an eye opener . I quit for 6 months once and then the addiction convinced me I could gamble " a little " - you know ...like normal people . The resulting spiral out of control was worse than any nightmare I ever experienced and quitting again was much , much harder . I barely made it out alive from that place .

Lastly - addiction doesn't make us bad people . No one "chooses" to become addicted . But we can choose fight back , to remove it from our lives and we can choose to acknowledge that , for us , gambling is as dangerous to our existence as a peanut is to someone who is deathly allergic to them .

Free yourself . You don't deserve the horrific , desperate life of a gambling addict .

Thanks so much for sharing that and for all your advice.

i hope your doing much better now and will never return to that dark area.


i really don't want to be an addict to this but in the end there is only one person who can solve this problem and that's me.


But im convinced with the forums advice i'll want todo good because i finally told someone, it has been years without telling someone about it.


Again thanks so much for taking the time to write it.

NewSunRising wrote:i really don't want to be an addict to this but in the end there is only one person who can solve this problem and that's me.

That is very true, but at the same time, none of us have gotten this far in our recovery without help.
I am happy you told a friend. It must have been difficult. Any type of support can be a great help.

I never told anyone about my problem and tried to combat this thing on my own, but it is so easy to believe our own stupid excuses to gamble. I figure that since I got myself into this mess, I will be the one to get myself out. My pride didn't let me get help form other. Of course, those were other lies that the gambling monster told me to make sure it thrived.

Please keep posting your thought and feelings on this forum and we'll all be here to help.

Aries411 wrote:

NewSunRising wrote:i really don't want to be an addict to this but in the end there is only one person who can solve this problem and that's me.

That is very true, but at the same time, none of us have gotten this far in our recovery without help.
I am happy you told a friend. It must have been difficult. Any type of support can be a great help.

I never told anyone about my problem and tried to combat this thing on my own, but it is so easy to believe our own stupid excuses to gamble. I figure that since I got myself into this mess, I will be the one to get myself out. My pride didn't let me get help form other. Of course, those were other lies that the gambling monster told me to make sure it thrived.

Please keep posting your thought and feelings on this forum and we'll all be here to help.

Right there. i can do it alone thats what i thought for a long time aswell same reasons.
well guess what.. we can't cause we will safely convide in our own little gambling shell it doesn't work!!

but you, Aries and NewSun helped me cause i did contact my friend about it when you guys told me, and i thought; what the hell.. i have nothing more to lose i may aswell do it.

thank you both now onward to the right path and paying off my debts and start enjoying life again.