u/EmCeeFriction

I just need to stop thinking about it. Imma be fully honest: it's so easy for me to not gamble. I know that sounds stupid coming from a problem gambler and maybe it's something that makes some of you chuckle. What I can't get over is the money I lost. I was in a position where I was actually in profit. Did I stop? No. Why not keep the gravy train chuggin? Well, that train exploded. What makes my gambling a problem is I do not take a loss, and in conjunction with that, I will keep gambling when I keep winning. There is really only one guaranteed outcome with this type of pattern: losing everything. I had 18 days of no bets, and all of that was just buying myself time to try to recover money again. What happened? Now I'm officially down money and it irritates me beyond comprehension. So many rock bottom stories involve being in debt and losing houses and families. The worst it's gotten for me is gambling rent money and being behind on bills for a couple weeks, along with debating how I'm going to kill myself...

For those of you who left this behind while having the monetary means to make another bet, what are the biggest things you did mentally? I'm talking beyond self-exclusion and relinquishing finances—what was it about a gamble-free life that made it easier and easier to be okay with the past and your mistakes?

I've been up before. It's so hard to let go when I have a loss. I've chased small losses into thousands. I've even disciplined myself to take a break and then start again smaller and it worked out this last time. Then I got a big buffer of profit and all of it was gone within ten deposits. I'm an online blackjack player for the most part that will take some money over to slots to see if I can hit something there too. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to stay on the positive side of variance for weeks—for two months. All of a sudden, within a day, all $4500 gone and I self-exclude from maybe the tenth site so far. A few days pass and I still can't get over it. I end up going $1200 in the hole, wait about three weeks, and go another $1700 in the hole. I'm down $3,000 this year now when I told myself I should stop after I lost all profit—when I told myself I should stop before I even made any of that profit. Here's my proof again.

I'm just saying this because I feel like saying it: someone talking about their winnings doesn't trigger me nearly as much as someone talking about their losses.

I relate too much to the losses. Go ahead and talk about some winnings. They happen less often and I know they're unlikely. Why would those trigger me? Talk about losses and I think of mine and how I want to get them back. Talk about winnings and I know it's not happening for me. Lol it's bizarre.

In my last post I talked about how I didn't want to gamble. I'm posting now because I am feeling an extremely strong urge to gamble. I think it came from seeing a memecoin shoot up to the moon and reminding myself about a memecoin I bought that basically went to zero in a split second about an hour and a half after I bought it near launch. I thought about missed gains (i.e. FOMO) and immediately I wanted to "catch up" in an even faster way. I am fantasizing about online blackjack and doing a 400 main bet with 50 on the sides and getting perfect trips. I got perfect trips in January and it meant almost nothing because even though I self excluded after getting them I found another site and another site and another site.

I am so convinced this time that IF (and it's such a massive IF) I can get back to where I was this time last month, I will be fully satisfied and can actually walk away. I know I would not walk away and I'd be gambling regularly again and looking for profit at least three times a week which would be setting me up for that session where one deposit goes to zero and I get agitated over that so I deposit more and who knows, lose absolutely everything from the last fifty sessions? It's so bizarre. Lord, help me just get to June. One more day and one more day and keep em coming until I am so far removed from this behavior that it no longer gets under my skin.

Quite literally.

Gambling addiction is an insidious psychological disease. Right now, I'm sitting at the start of Day 17 and once again confronting a medium urge to deposit online and play blackjack and some slots with some of the gains (funny that I already pan it out that I will have gains). I realize there will be shame if I lose money and there will be an almost more destructive pride if I make any.

I told myself today I owe it to myself to go for a long period of time without gambling. For as much advice as I've given about letting time pass, I myself have not given (myself) the opportunity. I'm too used to being able to leave sessions in profit territory. But this fact really matters: every single time I have accumulated profit over a few weeks to a couple months, the same thing happens; I wager and catch a downswing that sends every cash redemption back into the site, deposit after deposit, and end up self-excluding before things can get even worse.

Here I am, Day 17 and willing to repeat the same pattern. But, honestly, after the way things went last time, I'm not even hopeful about winning. It used to be so plausible, but the inevitability of losing makes it feel like not only a waste of time and money, but a disposal of my common sense and a shattering of my integrity. I know full well I will be engaging my selfishness and feeding my greed and stimulating my hedonistic drives all just to squander my creativity and hinder genuine progress.

I've found it is very helpful to just write this out, especially with the hope that others with similar mindsets/in a similar predicament can relate and provide insight/support of their own, or ask for the same in return. I hope reading this and being here on this subreddit keeps you going another 24 hours or helps you get started. Peace.