u/Eternal77777777

I’m 27 years old, and I’ve been gambling since I was 18. I started small about $10 a week playing poker, then $20. I’ve had periods where I stopped, but the real damage began when I got into crypto.
I didn’t know much about it at the time. Around age 20–21, I put $1,000 into Dogecoin when it was at $0.01. I panicked and pulled out after losing $200. A few months later, I saw it almost hit $1. That missed 100x opportunity still frustrates me, even though I try to move on and focus on working hard I save about $1,500 a month.
The real problem came later. During one summer, (while still losing about $200 a month at the casino), I decided to invest $20,000 ( all-in ) into a very speculative crypto. Within 3–4 months, it grew to $45,000. I chose to hold everything. In the end, I lost it all—mainly due to heavy futures trading. I even used money I had set aside for taxes. I ended up $10,000 in debt.
I was desperate. It took me two years of work to recover and get back to being $7–8k positive. Then I went through a depressive period because of a girl. I put $5,000 back into crypto, grew it to over $10,000, then put everything into PEPE. For some reason, I pulled out 8-9 days before it almost did a 10x. That broke me. I had the right intuition, but I sabotaged myself again.
After that, I spiraled. Between casino gambling and crypto trading, I kept losing everything. I don’t go into debt anymore, but I always end up back at zero. Over these 9 years, I’ve lost around $50,000.
I could have had solid savings, traveled, built a life. Instead, the losses, relapses, and lack of money have taken a serious toll on me. I’m trying to quit this for good, but it’s hard. I feel like I’ve wasted my best years working without building anything real. I enjoyed parts of it, but now I have no foundation
and I feel completely broken.