I'm Rob and I'm in recovery for a gambling addiction. I made my last bet on November 12th, 2022 and now I create content about gambling addiction recovery to help others avoid going down the same path that I did.
In this article, I want to tell you a little bit about what happened to me, my rock bottom moment and where you can follow along the steps I used to get myself out of it.
How Did I get addicted to gambling? My Gambling addiction story begins:
I grew up in the Philadelphia area, and we love our sports teams.
It was normal to me that every family event and every hangout with my friends centered around a sport of some kind.
When I found out about daily fantasy sports, it was a no-brainer that I would get involved. Very soon after, I found myself gambling on sports every day, as I'd gamble on every sport that I watched. This went beyond just the fantasy sports now as I found a way to bet with a regular sports book through a bookie and websites that operated in a legal gray area here in the US.
It wasn't long before I was gambling all the money I had and more compulsively and finding myself miserable beyond belief in the process.
Over the next 6 years, I would go into debt 6 different times where I worked a second job to pay off my gambling debts.
The last time this happened, was my rock bottom moment.
My Rock Bottom moment
My rock bottom came after a period of sobriety from gambling. I had gone about 8 months clean but went back to gambling to fill a void in my life that I couldn't seem to figure out how to resolve... I felt meaningless!
To me, gambling was a sense of competition, purpose and excitement. After 8 months going to meetings and staying away, I was bored and still lacking purpose in my life and I caved and made a bet.
Over the course of 12 hours that day, I would max out my credit lines and find myself in debt to the tune of 6 months of 70-80 hour work weeks as a financial analyst (ironic) and bartender.
I knew right then that I had to figure out a way to leave gambling in the past, and it ended up being a simple (not easy, but simple) process.
How I Got Clean
There are four things I've done personally to quit gambling and keep myself clean for over the last 600 days.
The first step was obviously admitting that I had a problem and that I needed to get help! Here's some resources that can help with that
Now, check out this blog post to see the four steps that I've used to stop gambling.
This was my gambling addiction story...
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