Hey guys today I thought I'd share a little bit , about myself and my personal gambling story. So it isn't really everyone that ends up in . a Gambler's Anonymous program, it takes a lot to get there. You have to go through a lot for , yourself to finally admit that you need the help. So I thought I'd give like a raw mostly . unedited version of how I ended up where I am and what I want to do moving forward. So , I guess pretty much going back to about 2017, I've been gambling more or less every single day up until of course my last bet date. And it's... it's interesting to me that a lot of . the people that I talk to now feel the same way but we really can't quite identify why we gamble. Some people they do of course there are exceptions but a lot of people just don't know what happened , during the course of their lives that led them to gambling. I really just started placing bets . on basketball games when I was really young and it was during the time when the uh the . Warriors had Kevin Durant so they would always somehow be losing at halftime and then I , would place bets on them to win and they'd come back because they were statistically like the . best third quarter basketball team of all time. And so I'd win money and up until a , certain point all I did was win um and then that seems to be the common pattern of uh problem gamblers is that we have a big win to start which is what gets us hooked or a set of wins at least. Um then I just started gambling on whatever was on and it got to the point where I would gamble , on literally anything like I'd gamble on who would win the first point of a specific game in a , tennis match it was uh just gambling on anything for quick hits to make money really fast. And . sometimes you made money but always it seemed that it would get given back over the course of , the day and I'd end up uh losing way way more than I would win but gamblers know that uh we have . selectively short-term memories and you can go and lose a bunch and a bunch but then a little bit of time passes and you're ready to hit that big win so for me I think where things really started to spiral out of control, happened probably when I was in Australia. So . I went to Sydney for a semester abroad uh the plane landed at 4 45 in the morning and within an , hour of travel after traveling 18 hours within an hour I was at the Star Casino in Sydney playing poker. I thought I was a great poker player but uh as it turns out I was terrible and I was , always losing my money so I was always going to the casino trying to get it back. The biggest misconception that problem gamblers seem to have including myself for quite a long time is that the best way to make money is by gambling. And it's because of the pace at which you earn money. For me it was exciting that I could be so young and not have a job or when , I had a job just an entry-level job and be able to make a ton of money very fast through gambling by doubling up tripling up or hitting a God forbid hitting a parlay and making a huge return. So when I was in Sydney I'd probably spend five out of seven days in the casino for ,

at least four hours a day and that continued when I came home going into Atlantic City and . in between those periods with online poker. And throughout that whole time I . was continuing to bet on sports. If I was to try to put a dollar amount as to , what I've lost I don't really think I could um because I'd have to include winnings in . that and there were times when I would win but I would always give it back so . net losses if I was to take a wild guess um probably somewhere within the range of five , or six years worth of a standard U.S salary So I've set myself quite behind and I feel that and I felt that especially the last year right before I started . going to Gambler's Anonymous meetings. Um by just finding myself financially behind many , of my friends and that wasn't a great feeling which is what led me to get a job and now chase , the mainstream nine to five to try to make money, but as I've uh as I've learned it's it's , not fun of course but it's a lot more peaceful than the chaos of going up and down on swings and gambling and eventually losing. My problem is that I always , wanted more and more and more. I'm finally becoming happy with what I have and . not to say I don't have ambition of wanting to earn more or do something or create my own , business but I don't need to have it today and I think that the most important lesson that . I've learned in my self-improvement and habit building time in the last 110 115 days or so, has been the concept of delayed gratification. I've made a video on it but I want to remake but . I want to continue to make videos on it because I think it's such an important topic. My ability , to delay gratification as of late has led me to be eating healthier doing healthy things each day such as writing journaling reading meditating getting good amounts of sleep using my phone less getting outside more just every single good habit that I can think of that I'm doing is something that's not immediately satisfying. It's actually sometimes very boring and sometimes . it sucks in the, in the immediate time... sometimes it sucks in the immediate time right . after you do it but I know that the results... The results are going to come. When I was gambling , my day's productivity was measured by how much money I made during the day and often that was . how much money I lost during the day so I'd feel terrible for that entire day and I'd have nothing to show for all that time that's passed. Now I release a video or two videos every single day , and even if I only get 10 views on that video that's 10 views I didn't have the day before and I have something tangible to show for my efforts during the day. Now I'm measuring my success . based on my efforts and based on what I... and based on the delayed gratification , that has... that's become so important to me rather than basing my day on results . that are more or less out of my control. Find what's in your control... find a meeting if you're a problem gambler it really does help to talk to like-minded people and focus on delaying ,

gratification. I won't say that I'm the happiest person in the world yet I won't say that I'm a , successful person yet but I know and I feel that I'm on the right path and that I'll look back at . this video and videos like this in a year and know that I have an entire year's worth of quality an entire year's worth of content to look back on and smile about because I didn't waste my days , because I started using my time more productively there were many times where I would push friends . and family to the side to gamble. I would be in my car looking at scores refreshing scores and . the worst would be when I was delivering food as a side hustle and I would lose more money than I . would make during my shift so I was driving around for free always paying down debt and I still even have debt today and it's all a result of bad decisions but I'm not making it worse. Since . I've stopped gambling it's only gotten better... It's hard it's really, really difficult . to walk away from something that you love it's difficult to stop doing something that's become your identity that's become the main part of your day but just know that you can change you , can make the change and you can live a better life Through making these videos I've gotten , comments from people that are clearly not problem gamblers saying "oh let's keep . gambling" or "oh like you'll hit it big" or something like that and I just I laugh it off because it's clear that I haven't found my target audience yet. My target audience is . someone who thinks that they want ... someone who thinks that they might be a problem . gambler who wants to make their life better. If I find one of you through this video then it'll be a success if I find a hundred guys telling me that "just keep digging you'll you'll get that big hit" I'll deal with it. Gotta sift through... Gotta sift through the crap , to find the gold what are you gonna say?... Thanks for listening I don't want to dive into financial . details because I don't want to trigger anyone or make anyone think that their gambling isn't as . severe as mine was because of the amount that they've bet so I'm gonna just leave it as vague . as I've left it so far, but the only thing... the only thing that you can never get back is your , time. Stop wasting your time. Live your life every single day no matter what it is that you enjoy . doing you have to do it... unless it's gambling just stay off the bet, find things that mean , something to you, find... find something that you can do that you can have something tangible to show for your progress and show for your effort, and just keep working. So that's it for me I have . my weekly Gamblers Anonymous meeting tonight and I'm excited to get back to that it's been a little . bit too long for me. Again find a meeting if you're all questioning whether or not you might be , a compulsive gambler, because the worst thing that can happen is you decide it's not for you. Let's , keep getting better together one day at a time,

My Gambling Addiction Story | 6 Years Of Hell