well, it cost me a few years and more than 200,000 $ half of it was loans and credit card untill I hit rock bottom and to understand and to admit the following points ” you didn’t explain more about your story i hope you have not gone that far on this addiction”, however the below points I hope can helps you:
1: you should admit that you can’t win money gambling ( i believe you already know that, if you still have any doubts that you can win money gambling you can go through this forum to know that it is not possible).
2: admitting point 1 is not enough, it is an addiction, you may say I will stop after I have lost lot of money but once you calm down and you have an access to an extra money you will gamble again ,you will start convincing your self that ( you will reduce your losses, I will gamble with x amount only, I will do it only one more time and then stop …etc) and guess what the result will be .
If you lose the first bet you will start chasing your losses until you lose all your money, if you win you will continue gambling because of the euphoria and you will not stop until you lose all your money.
3: if the above points are clear for you and you agree on them then we can move to how to fight back, “it took me 2 to 3 years to admit that”.
4: how to fight back:
4.1: don’t keep everything to your will power, it may work for some time but the life is tough and you don’t know what may trigger you to gamble again, so start to build a prevention strategies that will work as a buffer between you and gambling again, ( for example of you have online gambling issue you can install web blocker, and you can cancel your credit and debit card so you will not have access to the gambling site and you will not have the way to deposit the money to the gambling web sites ). You can build similar strategies to help you to fight back.
4.2: If you have money the urge to gamble will continue, the perfect solution is try to involve a family member and give him the control at least for the first stage.
4.3: go through the forum, read the stories, the advises, the success the failures, if you are a gambler you can relate to each story. we know each other and we learn from the experience of each other