First, thank you

Hey everyone,

First I wanted to say "thank you" for all of your posts and the love you show each other. I use to look through websites like this trying to find someone who lost as much money as I have. To know someone was hurt financially as much as me. Now I realize that isn't the point. That search is pointless. Its the will to stop (real will, not just emotion following a loss) and the support we can show each other that i seek. So thank you again for being the community for us lost souls.

Gambling has taken me on a journey over the the last 20 years. I don't have an exact number of money lost, but I'm guessing its between 250-300K since i turned 18 (now 38). I'm still trying to understand my triggers, but I know my OCD and compulsiveness keeps bringing me back to the blackjack tables. What started as losses of $500, which would ruin a night, a weekend, or a month when I was 22 has now escalated to $15,000+ losses that leaves ones savings in ruins at age 38. Since my father passed 10 months ago, my gambling has increased in intensity and volume. The losses have increased as well (go figure). I've probably lost 100K in the last 12 months. I'd lose 40,000 one weekend, win 50,000 the next, then lose 60,000. Then chase (as if that 50K was attainable so easily) and lose more and more. If I was up, i couldn't walk away. I was the prototypical compulsive gambler - gamble till every dime was gone. Sickens me to write that cause I know there were two or three times I said "never again." But yet, I let myself believe i could win and I sought that stimulation. Above money, I have lost relationships with women and self-respect throughout this journey...things you can't put a value on.

My last bet was on June 5, 2018. Ironically, D-Day anniversary was the next day on June 6th. The definition of "d-day" is the day on which an important operation is to begin or a change is to take effect. I want that change to be in my life. A life without gambling. A life worth appreciating, celebrating, and wanting. I don't want to have the emotional burden of that large amount lost to drive me to ponder suicide and other dark thoughts that have crept in overt the years. I want to be free of this feeling. I want to stop compulsively thinking of what "could have been." I want to be strong, for me, for my parents, for my father. Thank you for listening. Day 15 gamble free....

Randy