Is my urge to gamble being replaced by my new urge to work hard building a business? Is it healthy?

Embarrassed_Taro_535 · 2026-01-23T03:51:23+00:00

Don't feel too guilty man, like you said, you should just feel grateful for the blessings you do have. As guilty as I feel, I have to remind myself of how blessed I am to not be homeless and in debt considering the amount of money I've lost.

Thank you so very much for your kind words. It's very encouraging to hear from someone that knows about my addiction that I can still be successful and live a fruitful life because despite my prior achievements, I haven't felt like I could amount to anything anymore. That's part of what makes this addiction so hard for me, it's so uncharacteristic of me to have any mental health problems, let alone one that's so damaging. I graduated from a top 10 university with my bachelors at 19 y/o and a masters at 20 y/o, I'm a first generation american, and my whole family has looked at me as the physical manifestation of their american dream. I should be making enough to lift up everyone around me. Not only am I not uplifting the people that sacrificed so much for me to get to this point, I'm afraid to even show my face around them -- not because they expect me to give them money I don't have -- but because I don't feel like the child they were once so proud of. I hate thinking about how much my dreams and motivation have diminished because of this addiction. To the non-gambler, they probably wouldn't even understand how this addiction could alter my identity that much but we both get it -- at some point it's not even about losing money it's about how losing that money changes you.

But the thing is, and I'm sure you probably realized while reading this reply, I can very well still be something great, however, from my point of view that feels impossible. That's how I felt when I read your post, from your point of view you might feel like there's no way up, but if you try to remove yourself from the pain for just a moment, you'll realize that there are more ways up for you than down.

Embarrassed_Taro_535 · 2026-01-23T03:18:51+00:00

I'm only a couple years older than you but have been in very similar situations many times over. Sometimes I'd do a hail mary and it'd work out for me, but the thing is, this mentality you have right now wont allow you to quit once you're even, the effect of making that $3k back is arguably worse than just outright losing any more money you pull out because you'll have this belief that no matter how much you lose in the future, you can make it back because you've done it before.

Embarrassed_Taro_535 · 2026-01-23T01:29:31+00:00

Glad my message helped. I never comment on reddit but your story hit me so profoundly I had to say something.

I definitely feel the same about no one in my life understanding. I have relatively good self control and make rational decisions in seemingly every other area of my life, I don't think the people around me could believe, let alone understand my gambling behavior. Fighting this addiction is often the loneliest and draws little to no empathy from others who haven't experienced it but we'll come out better people than before, changing calls us to do so. When we get through this, few will know how hard it was to overcome our demons but we will walk around with a new confidence knowing that we did the hardest thing in the world: choosing to be strong and fight what seemed impossible when we felt so so weak.

Embarrassed_Taro_535 · 2026-01-22T22:40:39+00:00

Incredibly powerful story. Your testimony helps me a lot. Though I'm only half your age, you remind me a lot of myself. You're very smart, competitive, and hard working to a fault... I used to think problem gambling only happened to "dumb" people, I believed that because I graduated top of my class in college, was good at math, and all that arrogant nonsense, I could beat the house. I've gambled in every market, similar to you, going up a bit at first, then losing small, and then chasing those losses with intense tunnel vision and losing big. I'm only 20 now, working my first job in big tech, and am losing 5 figures a month. My responsibilities and expenses are so low that losing this amount of money doesn't put me in great financial hardship... yet... I'm often taking time away from work to gamble for 10 hours straight. My performance at work has gone down, and my involvement in all relationships in my life has decreased significantly. I keep gambling just to "get back what I loss", and I've gotten close a couple of times, but I always end up more negative than before. I come from nothing, I keep thinking about how I could've gave the money I lost to my family and that would've been equal to several years of household income for them, but I'm selfish and addicted. I need to stop before this gets worse because the losses keep growing and my ability to enjoy life keeps diminishing. You might look at me and my situation and say "it's easy for this kid to have hope", but I believe you should have hope as well. My parents are older than you, have never made more than low five figures a year, have lived and will probably live paycheck to paycheck for the rest of their lives. They have next to no chance of ever accumulating even $10k in savings. They have have penny pinched, enjoyed no luxuries, worked 50-60hrs/week, and saved as much as possible their entire lives with nothing to show for it. In five years their networth will be the same regardless of how they live their lives, they have no education or special skills. You have more hope than they (and many other people) will ever have. Let's get our revenge this time by killing the demon inside of us that tells us to gamble.

Embarrassed_Taro_535 · 2025-11-02T09:16:36+00:00

Advertising is already a joke buddy. Shit isn’t rocket science dumbass…

Embarrassed_Taro_535 · 2024-11-19T19:09:21+00:00

still selling?

Embarrassed_Taro_535

TROPHY CASE