First and foremost good on you for coming on here and being real, that takes courage. I saw myself in a lot of what you wrote, I can relate. I am a 33yo single female (single seems to feel worse when you are an cg) and I currently have $25,000 in debt (all gambling. I accumulated this debt in 4 months. Who in their right mind goes into $25000 debt 4 months? As of January this year my debt was clear! in the space of 6 months I dived straight back into debt after relapsing (was 7 months clean) . Out of all the things in my life that I have seen as bad re; single, dysfunctional family this was the WORSE. As you know with gambling we have MANY bad days, in fact nearly every day is a bad day. We also do plenty of irrational things and make really bad decisions. I have committed fraud and stolen from my family to get money to gamble and that is low. But the lowest of the lows was being 7 months clean, having no debt and having a couple of thousand saved to have it all undone in just a matter of weeks. I was seeing a counsellor at the time to help with the addiction and life was gold. I can’t tell you how empty the pit felt at that point. Or how in the many moments after feeling the despair of possibly always being alone. Not to mention how am I going to pay this debt? I can’t afford it and that is the simple truth.
My point is in all that I knew I had to remember no matter what my life is valuable. And their is no way I could let cg win, let it consume me until their was nothing left. Yes, I have lots of debt and I am screwed for at least the next 5 years. And I absolutely terrified of what tomorrow brings but I know I am not in it alone. We are family and we are here to listen and to help you. I have been battling this addiction since I was 25/26 an I used it to escape from reality. Because my reality was so bad I could not stand to be present. And that led to nothing but brokenness and despair.
However, it is not over, its never over not until I say it is and I will never do that.
Hang in their buddy we stand with you.