[ronnie810]

Hello everyone.

My name is Ron and I am 28 years old. For my entire adult life, I have been a compulsive gambler. It started in college with the poker craze, and then moving to online poker. At this stage of my gambling, it was more about the game than the money. The amounts lost were rather small, but all my days were consisted of playing online poker. I should have been networking and focusing on my studies. Amazingly, I was still able to BS my way through classes to a Bachelors degree, and through sheer luck landed a very stable and very well paying job for my field. Around this time, the online poker industry in the US was getting shut down by the feds, and I looked for other ways to gamble.

My whole life I have been a huge sports fan, without ever placing a single wager on a sport until I was 25. I don’t know why I did, but this was the worst decision I have ever made. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be a normal sports fan ever again. I had a lot more money coming in at this point, so dropping a 100 dollars on game was nothing. As a sports better, I generally did OK. Probably broke about even. Whenever I did lose a game on a BS call, or last minute hail mary, I would end up on the online casino attached to the sports book. Most of the time, I would drop whatever I had in the bankroll playing blackjack or craps. This led me to making even bigger sports bets chasing my losses. My Saturdays and Sundays have been doing nothing but watching sports I have wagers on. Teams that in the past I would have had no interest in watching. The cycle continued each time with higher amounts to satisfy the gambling itch. I always say I will not deposit again, but that lasts no longer than a week.

Fast forward to today. I am approximately 35K in debt to show for 3 years of wages. I have a good job with good opportunity to grow a career, but I can feel my performance starting to slip due constantly thinking about how much money I have wasted and how I can get it all back with one big win. I have a girlfriend that I love, but I know I should be spending time with her instead of finding excuses to watch the games.

I imagine what life would be like without gambling, and how great it would be. I hope that this forum/community can help me see that happen. Thanks for reading.

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