r/GamblingRecovery

Hi all, relapsed again. At this point I accepted that willpower alone is not enough for me, so I focused on making gambling as annoying and inaccessible as possible.

My setup now:
- Cold Turkey + Gamban on PC
- Gamban beta + Screen Time on iPhone

For PC:
There’s a Reddit guide on how to make Cold Turkey very hard to uninstall. Nothing is impossible if someone really wants to bypass it, but adding friction helps a lot during impulsive moments.

I also:
- blocked gambling keywords/websites that Gamban is not blocking yet.
- blocked payment intermediary websites
- blocked pages listing casino sites
- restricted access to some system settings/tools (basically disabled safe boot and then blocked with cold turkey the cmd.exe , use at own risk)
- blocked the Cold Turkey uninstall page itself

For iPhone:
The Gamban beta puts the phone in supervised mode, so removing it is very hard unless you fully reset the phone. I also used Screen Time to block sites Gamban missed. A family member set the Screen Time password, so I don’t know it.

I live in Latam where most gambling sites use crypto, bank transfers or Mercado Pago/payment intermediary pages. Blocking those routes helped a lot. Mercadopago is a huge digital wallet in latam , I told them to block my account forever)

I also lowered my credit card limits to the minimum possible.

Realistically, the only ways for me to gamble now would be:
- going to a physical casino (nearest one is about an hour away in public transport, so probably not happening). Also not a fan of physical casinos, too lazy for that.
- or a completely new site showing up with a new payment intermediary that isn’t blocked yet
- factory reset my phone, clean install my pc or buy new devices. As a gambler I can spend thousands gambling but say that a new phone is too expensive.

Things I learned:
- Gamban yearly subscription is worth it
- Cold Turkey premium is worth it because it lets you make blocks much harder to disable during impulsive moments
- friction > motivation
- if access is not instant, urges usually pass

One downside:
Gamban also blocks Binance, IBKR and some investing/trading related sites.

Financially this still hurts a lot (lost 2 years of savings at 29, have almost nothing to my name) but I’m trying to focus on making access harder instead of relying on self-control.

Posting this in case it helps someone else. We can do this.

A year ago today I placed my first bet.

$10 turned into $80.

I remember thinking: “Wow… that was easy.”

At the time, I was the most disciplined version of myself. I worked out 6 days a week, ate clean, read daily, even started learning a new language. I didn’t smoke or drink. I enjoyed being around people. I had goals.

I even started my own business. It was expensive to run and stressful, but I was determined to make it work.

Then one day a friend told me he turned $2 into $25k on an online slot machine.

I had always heard stories like that, but I used to tell myself: “I’ll just work for what I want.”

But curiosity got me.

I deposited $10 and spun a slot machine.

I honestly wish I could go back to that moment, because that click started the worst downward spiral of my life.

Over time I lost my discipline. I lost my physique. I lost my car. My business suffered. My confidence and pride disappeared. Gambling didn’t just take my money — it changed how I thought.

I tried self-exclusion, but there are endless sites. I tried gambling blockers, but when the urge hits hard, you find ways around everything.

It got to the point where even when I had the biggest win of my life, I gave it all back within an hour. Thousands gone.

That’s when I realized something terrifying: for months, I would deposit, win, and never cash out. I’d just keep playing until it was all gone.

And once my paycheck was gone, I’d crash mentally. The guilt and disbelief was brutal. I couldn’t understand how I kept repeating something I knew was destroying me.

That’s when I learned about how gambling addiction works on the brain — dopamine, reward loops, “chasing losses,” and why big wins are often the most dangerous thing that can happen to a person.

I didn’t know if I could afford therapy at the time, so I decided to study this like my life depended on it. I spent months researching gambling addiction and the gambling industry.

That research ended up being what helped me start climbing out.

I’m still rebuilding, but I’ve made progress, and I wanted to post this for anyone who feels stuck in that loop right now.

If you’re in the chase, please don’t wait until you hit rock bottom. It doesn’t get better by “one more win.”

If anyone wants, I can share some of the resources that helped me.

Over the last few days, I have lost $30k, then won $40k (so +10k net at that moment), then lost 70k (so -60k net at that time), then won 55k, so basically since the beginning I’m down a total of 5k. (Who knows if my math even makes sense). Which is a huge difference than having -$60k, but it feels like all of this stress has been for nothing. My heart is about to explode from living like this. I feel a huge relief that I’m not in 60k debt anymore. But I have no sense of what money is worth either because one day I could be looking at bankruptcy and the next looking at vacations. I have bipolar disorder which I wonder if that could be a factor because I’ve always been used to extremes. It feels boring and I feel restless just making a normal wage at a job and saving money over time. I don’t know I hate this!

I tried willpower. I tried telling myself "just one more time." I tried deleting apps only to reinstall them 20 minutes later.

What finally made a difference for me was removing the option entirely. Not relying on discipline — just making it technically impossible to access gambling sites and apps in a moment of weakness.

I found an app called Gamebreak that does exactly this. It blocks gambling sites and apps automatically, and it's free. No premium tricks, no subscription.

I'm not saying it's a magic fix — the mental work still has to happen. But removing that instant access bought me time. And sometimes a few minutes is all you need to not relapse.

If anyone else is struggling with the 'just one more' cycle, might be worth trying.

Hi i’m M19 and addicted to gambling. I’ve started gambling around 2 years ago and I’ve been going on and off pretty much this whole time. I’ve tried to talk to my therapist but i just started lying because i was ashamed. It started in 2024 Euros when i won couple bucks. Then i started playing slots and i would loose my whole weekly/monthly allowance and would not stop for days. Long story short i’m in debt 2.5k$ and my paycheck is only around 250$ but i live with my parents so I don’t pay rent or something. And the worst thing is that i tried everything ad blockers web blockers making promises and ect but i still couldn’t keep my word. 3-4 days ago i only had 5$ on my account and i gambled until i got 1000$ but guess what i lost it again. Yesterday i got paid and also gambled it away and now pretty much im broke again till next month. I just wanna know how can i break free from this because i can’t keep doing this to my family my girlfriend and also my self. I just wanna break free and please someone help me.

I (F, early 20s) have been dating my boyfriend (M, early 20s) for about 6 months, and I feel really conflicted about our relationship.
When things are good between us, they’re really good. He’s sweet, loving, and makes me genuinely happy. But when things go bad, they go really bad, and I don’t know if I’m overreacting or if this is actually a bigger issue.
Tonight, he lost around $200 gambling (blackjack on an app), and he got really upset. I tried to comfort him, but he started pushing me away and even told me to “find a new man.” This isn’t the first time he’s reacted like this when he’s stressed—he tends to shut down, lash out, or say hurtful things.
At one point, he also said I “don’t want to help him” because I couldn’t send him money this time, even though I’ve helped him financially before. That really hurt, because I do try to be there for him, just not in a way that hurts me.
Then things escalated emotionally. He sent messages about how he’s been struggling for years, how gambling has affected his life, and how he feels like he keeps messing things up. He also said things about hurting himself earlier, and later told me that the only reason he’s still alive is because of me. That honestly really scared me and made me feel a lot of pressure, because I care about him so much but I don’t know how to handle that.
He’s okay now, but the whole situation really shook me. I feel like I’m constantly trying to support him and keep things stable when he spirals, and it’s starting to feel draining.
I care about him a lot, and I don’t want to just walk away from something that feels so good when it’s good. But I also don’t know if I can keep dealing with these emotional ups and downs, especially this early in a relationship.
I guess I’m asking:
Is this something that can realistically get better, especially with the gambling and everything else going on?
Am I doing too much by trying to support him like this?
How do I set boundaries without making him feel like I’m abandoning him?
Any advice would really help, because I feel stuck between loving him and feeling overwhelmed

Got an unexpected payrise where I’m earning a lot more than usual then started gambling, I’m saving money still but anything left in my bank is gone , is was 1600 down in 3 days then won back nearly 1300 only to lose it all again in one morning. I then applied gamstop after I gambled a weeks rent that was set a side with no second thoughts. So strange because I’m very tight with my money but this has seemed to take over my life in a matter of weeks. This is just casino games I was a frequent sports gambler but it was no more than £10 £20 a week. Does this sound like I’m addicted to gambling as I’m unsure if it’s just a phase or is this relatable to gambling addicts ? Thanks

I feel like killing myself

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

Something clicked for me when I stopped blaming myself and started looking at the mechanics.
Every feature you experience on a gambling app — every single one — exists because someone tested it and found it increased time spent, money deposited, or prevented account closure.
The midnight notifications? Tested. They know your resistance is lowest when you’re tired.
The free spins when you try to delete your account? That’s not generosity. That’s a retention trigger. The moment you signal you want to leave, the system escalates. Because losing a customer is expensive, and a few free spins cost them almost nothing.
The withdrawal delay? The most insidious one. You won. The money is technically yours. But it sits there for 5-7 days — and every single day is another chance for the urge to hit and for you to cancel it. I’ve spoken to people who cancelled £500 withdrawals. Not because they wanted to. Because the window was open long enough.
None of this is accidental. It’s architecture. Built by people who understand addiction better than most therapists — and use that knowledge against you.
The reason I’m sharing this isn’t to make anyone feel hopeless. It’s the opposite. Because once you understand that the difficulty you feel isn’t a personal failing — it’s an engineered response — something shifts.
You’re not fighting your own weakness. You’re fighting a system designed by professionals.
And the way you fight a system is with a counter-system. Not willpower. Barriers. Blocks. Friction. Anything that puts distance between you and the access point.
Has anyone else found that understanding the design helped them stop internalising the struggle?

My boyfriend is 28, and he has relapsed a couple times. I’ve decided to give him one more chance, but right now I don’t even have faith in him. I’m already mentally preparing on what would happen if we split, which is sad.

Can I hear more about your recovery story? How long has it been, and what is the key thing that helped you?

I’ve been thinking about how we talk about gambling losses.
We say “I lost £500 last night” or “I’m down €3,000 this month.” We talk about it in numbers. Abstract figures. And somehow that makes it easier to minimise — to tell ourselves it’s just money, money can come back.
But it’s never just money.
That £500 was rent. That €3,000 was a holiday your kids never got. It was the car repair you kept putting off. The birthday present you couldn’t afford. The savings account that stayed empty another year.
Gambling doesn’t take money. It takes the specific, real things that money was supposed to buy. And when you frame it that way — when you stop saying “I lost £200” and start saying “I lost my electricity bill” — something shifts.
It stopped feeling abstract for me the moment I did that. I stopped converting losses into numbers and started converting them into things. That week of gambling cost me a flight home I’d been saving for. Not £340. A flight home.
I don’t know if this reframe helps anyone else. But I think part of why gambling losses feel survivable in the moment is because we keep them as numbers. The brain handles numbers. It struggles with the actual cost.
If you’re trying to get a clearer picture of what it’s really costing you — not just financially but in real life terms — sometimes writing it out that way helps. Not “£X lost” but “£X = Y.”
Has anyone else found ways to make the real cost feel real? Would love to hear what worked.

Going through PPD led to horrible coping mechanisms, one unfortunate coping mechanism was gambling. I'm tired of this addiction and can't stand thinking about the money I've thrown down the drain just because I was depressed and bored. My monthly expenses include set bills but I'm wondering how I should handle expenses that come up suddenly that would need liquid money. I don't trust myself with a cent to spend.

editing to add: I'm located in Ontario and have gone through OLGs list of providers and casinos and self excluded from all. I had one website that required id to join and ended up relapsing because I signed up for it late and didn't complete the self exclusion until now. Wish me luck PFC, I'm so sad that my post partum period has been clouded with this shameful part of my life.