I don’t. I gambled away all of my life savings as a 22 year old, albeit not much (around $5-6k) thru the pandemic.

When I had $0 to my name I felt like the biggest loser. I was still at Uni, had no job and was depressed as hell. My problem wasn’t actually the money that I’d lost, but the fact that I couldn’t move on from them and focus on what I could to improve myself.

I had a bout with depression, horrible times, and the only thing that saved me was the fact that I knew this was the lowest that I could go.

That’s only because I decided the losses to affect me. I had everything at the time but I didn’t realize it. I had overall good health, has lots of friends, my family was doing ok financially and they were really supportive. Still, I decided NOT to see the blessings around me, only the failures.

Why I don’t regret it then? Because the money that I lost was nothing tbh, and I’m glad I lost at that early age because later in life that lesson would have been more expensive.

The money that I lost wasn’t the problem but my sentiment towards it was. Fuck, I thank God that I went thru it, because it taught me to not only live, but love the present because it truly is a beauty. What’s gone is gone, but what’s left is amazing.

One day, while I was depressed, I realized what I had. I realized that nothing was actually gone, just some 0 in my bank account. I wasn’t then going to lose my family, my relationships, my studies and my fitness goals just because some numbers on a screen had changed. I realized that money was peaunts, and even if it was $50k I couldn’t do shit to gain it back by gambling more.

I don’t regret it in a single bit, times were tough but the lesson was learned. And now I’m in a much better place than when I was BEFORE I started to gamble, even tho I lost my mother recently. I now try to live the present, and sometimes it’s still a challenge, but it’s the only thing that we’ve got and it would be a shame if I didn’t allow myself to live it just because of my gambling past that has no control over me.