u/indigothecaretaker

After losing almost everything, do you focus on building your emergency fund or retirement? Still have $40k left in savings and have shifted it into emergency fund with my financial advisor and out of the market as watching my stocks feels like a gamble as well. My goal is to save $1k monthly back into the market for the next 5 years if I am able, hell even 2 years and closer to $1500-$2k if I am able with side gigs. What would you do differently or how do you recover financially? I need a plan that I can work twords. The losses are breaking me still mentally and I need a way to focus on rebuilding.

Please she your recovery stories and how you recouped loses or are working twords it. Need some encouragement and light at the end of the tunnel.

How do you carry on? Losing $100k in 6 months to gambling has me at my lowest. Im 30 years old and I have $40k remaining to my name between retirement snd savings and my physical and mental state feels unrecoverable just as much as finances. I want to genuinely give up and off myself. How do you find hope to carry on? I have to double my income monthly just to try and recover from this. I cant sleep, I cant eat. Ive gone to treatment and still relapsed. I genuinely can’t carry on.

Down to my last $40k in savings. Down $100k in 6 months time. I am absolutely broken. Was up $20k tonight and blew it all again. It never ends. I self banned on all the apps and still found a way. Banning in my state and trying to protect what I have left. I feel hopeless.

Officially down $100k in 8 months. All to online live casinos. $55k left in savings / stocks at 30 years old. Feeling hopeless but it’s time to grow up and start rebuilding. I feel like a complete fool but hope to come back to this page one day with my redemption story. Self excluded on every site possible and in my state finally. Its over. Im done. The losses are gone. I give up chasing them and continued relapse after relapse. This has absolutely broken me. I still feel like I want to die but its up to me to start LIVING. Gambling has not only stolen my future, but my present time. I think that hurts even more realizing how quickly Ive lost time the last several months, wasted away. Time to start over and start a new.

Lost so much more and more every week. Down to $60k in savings, had over $100k a month ago and feel ruined. I keep thinking I hit rock bottom and yet continue to gamble. Will like genuinely ever get better? Why can’t I be grateful with what I have before I lose everything? Ive self banned yet still find ways to gamble and ruin my life. I am sick and hurting. I want to better my life.

Hello! I make about $50k a year after taxes at my day job plus side jobs (Djing, music production, photography) and have $70k saved between stocks and a cd /account savings. 30k stocks, $30k CD, and $10k personal savings. Probably roughly $2k-$3k in checking at all times after bills monthly. No current debt, car paid off and no student loans. I want to ensure I have enough money to buy a home in the next few years and still maintain emergency funds while preparing ahead for retirement as well. Am I doing okay? What would you do from here?

Continued relapsing and It got worse. My $100k left in savings is now $75k in two days time and I have officially hit my lowest low and rock bottom. I don’t want to go on living anymore and this may be my final post. I have ruined the next 10 years of my future if not longer and I don’t know how I will ever forgive myself for not stopping. I genuinely want to die. Idc that I don’t have debt, I genuinely am devastated. I have $40k in stocks and 35k left in savings. I failed myself and I don’t want to go on any longer.

My biggest advice to anyone struggling is to quit now. The last two weeks Ive posted on here first thinking I hot rock bottom and on the brink of losing my partner, gambled again and came back up another 40k, now lost it all in a weeks time and here I am with $60k down in less than 6 months time. Still have $85k in savings / stocks but my value of $ is so f***ed I feel like I have nothing and feeling like I destroyed my future but know and fully aware at the same time that I still have a chance at a good life if I start saving and stop for good as I still have a little under double my yearly salary after taxes in savings at 30 years old. I pray that god and my angels above and keep me strong and help me fight this before its too late. Every loss pushes me to ending my life and I don’t want to lose myself to this disease. Please don’t comment “just self exclude” or get “gamban” because I did all this and still found the work arounds to continue gambling. I just need support and prayers at this point because ultimately its up to me to change.

Im not sure what to do anymore. No amount of wins has ever stopped me from continuing to gamble thinking I have any ounce of control. I am sick to my stomach with this burden that weighs on my heart and soul. I am truly tired and want to end it all. All the trauma and suffering has led me to self sabotage and I don’t know how to get better, from GA, to treatment, to Gamban, to new habits, I still relapsed and I cant forgive myself for my mistakes. Even with damn near $95k in the bank still at this moment at 30 years old, I wouldve had $50k more than that if I never gambled and I feel my future is destroyed and absolutely hopeless. I can’t wrap my head around the value of money any more and my mental and physical state is beyond fixable. I can basically burn money gambling yet feel I now cant afford to do anything I ever wanted to do now and cant get thru the urges and despair. I used to be frugal and save and now Ive set myself back 10 years easily even working full time and with side income. How do you move forward knowing you are just a burden to your partner and yourself? I give up. I know others have it worse when it comes to finances but I don’t think Ill ever be able to stop and will eventually lose everything and off myself unfortunately. It feels like the end of the story is evident no matter how much I try to save myself, I can’t carry the weights any longer. The trauma layers run too deep, and the ways I’ve coped keep the score. Ill never be free.

**a few deep breaths later**

Feeling this way and still having a solid $ in savings I hope brings awareness to others that money will never buy you happiness. I feel like I did when I was homeless living in my car at 18, or when I lived with no running water or heat in our childhood home. I know what it feels like to have absolutely nothing and having $ still feels the same because I have lost that sense of control, even though this time it was something I caused. At the end of the day we are sick and gambling is a disease we have to work actively to cure on a daily basis. I hope that I can still find the light at the end of the tunnel because I’ve overcome so much worse that was out of my control, I owe it to myself to get better and get healthy again and I know I can be whoever I want to be in this life and am not defined by these mistakes. One day at a time I do believe I can get better, and I WILL get better, even when all feels lost and hopeless.

Every time I say Im done, I some how get pulled back in. Every, single, time. Even when I know Im about to lose everything if I continue. I am going to get to the point I really lose everything or off myself If I don’t figure out how to quit and Im breaking apart. I relapsed once again and the wins meant nothing. The VIP “free cash” dragged me back in and made me $40k but then lost another $20k in less than 72hrs once again. I so easily lost my battle once again. I am absolutely sick to my stomach. Even when I came back up all day today I walked around feeling like it wasnt enough because I lost 10k of it, then tonight blew another 10k tho ai knew the consequences. It never is enough and it never will be. I read posts on here all the time to ground myself then slip up. Ill never dig myself out of this hole emotionally, even having nearly $100k in the bank still at this current moment (which has gone down to 75K and up to $120k within a weeks time and back down to $98k currently) I am losing my mind. Nothing I do, banning on every device, nothing seems to help. I just factory reset my laptop over the weekend to get back online to gamble. I continue to fail myself time and time again. At this point I don’t know how to live as I feel I will never recover or get better. Im failing myself, my partner and any ounce of a future I have left. I know I have to figure it out on my own and again should be grateful I have any sort of savings and am not in debt but the pain I feel inside I don’t think Ill ever repair at this point due to this addiction. I truly want to give up. The highs and the lows are too much to bear physically, mentally and emotionally.

Yesterday I opened up fully about my gambling to my partner and almost lost him. I could feel him slipping away due to my lies about not gambling anymore when in reality I relapsed bad and was hiding it. I am down $20k more than I last told him. I finally put gamban on all of my devices and closed the chapter today. The amount of times I have said I was done after winning and being "comfortable" again for about 24hrs but never quit, today is finally the day. Last weekend I was only 10k down from when I started after winning $40k back in a few days time. I told myself Im done for real this time. And here I am, I didnt stop. I feel horrible and still feel I want to gamble thinking hey I can make it happen again but that will never happen because I will never stop once Ive won. I have no self control. I am grateful I have $80k saved, 40k retirement and 40k savings at 30 years old and even though it feels like nothing since I had $50k more than this 6 months ago, If I continue, it will be $0, I will lose my partner, I will lose my job, I will lose more of my future, I will lose more time, and I will lose my life. No matter what. If I kept winning, I would've kept making the choice over and over again because I always did 10x fold no matter how much I won, after being down It always went back in and chipped away lower and lower at what I have left. Im excited for the future and the 2nd chance at life I get to give myself to truly LIVE. One day at a time, I will reclaim my life.
I survived and the choice is mine. I deserve a life worth living. We all do.

Yesterday I opened up fully about my gambling to my partner and almost lost him. I could feel him slipping away due to my lies about not gambling when in reality I relapsed bad and was hiding it. I finally put gamban on all of my devices and closed the chapter today. The amount of times I have said I was done after winning and being “comfortable” again for about 24hrs but never quit, today is finally the day. Last weekend I was only 10k down from when I started after winning $40k back in a few days time. I told myself Im done for real this time. And here I am, I didnt stop. By Tuesday it was gone plus some. I feel horrible and still feel I want to gamble thinking hey I can make it happen again but that will never happen because I will never stop once Ive won. I have no self control. I have to remind myself to be grateful I have no debt and $80k saved, 40k retirement and 40k savings at 30 years old and even though it feels like nothing since I had $50k more than this 6 months ago, If I continue, it will be $0, I will lose my partner, I will lose more of my future, and I will lose my life. No matter what. If I kept winning, I would’ve kept making the choice over and over again because I always did 10x fold no matter how much I won, after being down It always went back in and chipped away lower and lower at what I have left. Im excited for the future and the 2nd chance at life I get to give myself to truly LIVE. One day at a time, I will reclaim my life. I survived and the choice is mine. I deserve a life worth living. We all do.

Once again I have reached another rock bottom. In a span of 24hrs I lost another $10k. Currently have $80k split between a CD, stocks and $10k emergency fund in the bank but feel like I have literally $2 to my name at 30 years old. Lost over 1/3 of my savings in 6 months. All ive done today is obsess over what I need to save monthly to recoup losses and keep investing for retirement and I feel absolutely hopeless 😞 Nothing feels like it will be good enough and I feel like I ruined my life just for the sole fact of how my brain now views money and I feel like I have set myself back at least 5-10 years. I feel like I will never recover from this disease and want to give up even with money still in the bank. I feel like at this point It would be cowardly but easier to let go. This pain is absolutely devastating on my heart and soul. Through all life’s adversity, this still hurts the worse. I cant sleep, I can’t eat again. I already went to treatment for 4 weeks and still gambled again. What helped you truly move forward?

Lost another significant amount of $ today. Still have double my income saved but feel like I have nothing. I have been obsessing all day how to save to get back to where I started. I cant sleep, I cant eat. 1/3 savings gone. Set myself back 5-10 years. I feel hopeless and don’t want to be around anymore. I went to treatment 4 weeks and still at square 1 once again. How will I ever rewire my brain to see the value of money again? I had so many plans this year and they all feel unattainable now. I don’t know what to do anymore.

Relapsed and came back up to when I started this week with some lucky wins, told myself Im done for real this time. Nothing lost. Felt blessed I gave it another try and recouped my loses and was even again and feeling free. Welp within 24hrs and feeling like I was finally done, I still convinced myself I had enough control to play a little more since I had to go back into the app to transfer the funds and ended up just playing it all back down. Back down to exactly where I was last time I posted. I am fortunate that I still have $100k in the bank but keep convincing myself I NEED to gain back the $30k I’ve lost and yet even when I was back up to it, I still didnt stop. Time and time again, continued cycle over and over and over again. Its a total mind fuck but Im telling you now NO WIN WILL CHANGE YOUR MIND - IT WILL NEVER BE ENOUGH. Im so sick of the self Sabotage I keep putting myself through. I just want to be happy and money will never buy us happiness. I keep thinking I can’t do anything unless I have a certain $ amount now and have to figure out how to get out of this head space when In reality I still have $, but feel like I have $2 to my name. I pray that this suffering gets better and I learn how to truly make a change before I lose absolutely everything. Gambling addiction and the way it twists your brain on perception of money is just so heartbreaking to me. One day at a time I know I will overcome this.