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RTI18
You are posting in the mental health forum but not talking about what you are doing to fix a very big, life-altering addiction.
This is not the place to talk about bankruptcy.
Have you gotten a therapist yet? Been to a 12 step group focussed on gambling?
You can't fix this by talking about getting back money you lost.
You start by taking steps to never gamble again, drop any friends that gamble, quit any online places related to gambling.
Start talking to a therapist who can help you re-orient your life away from addictive behavior.
RTI18
You are posting in the mental health forum but not talking about what you are doing to fix a very big, life-altering addiction.
This is not the place to talk about bankruptcy.
Have you gotten a therapist yet? Been to a 12 step group focussed on gambling?
You can't fix this by talking about getting back money you lost.
You start by taking steps to never gamble again, drop any friends that gamble, quit any online places related to gambling.
Start talking to a therapist who can help you re-orient your life away from addictive behavior.
Good luck.
This thread was MOVED from Personal Finance to the Mental Health forum. Doubt very much the OP had anything to do with it. He doesn't seem to get it. Bankruptcy isn't the problem.
Last edited by Parnassia; 02-01-2023 at 03:45 PM..
Thought this sounded familiar! Over the years, multiple threads but no change. Obviously, the OP is unwilling to acknowledge and address his true problem. It isn't about money. Regardless whether it was earned or owed. Justification after justification, this bankruptcy chapter or that, how much interest paid or not paid are unimportant details.
The OP's story is why gambling has been illegal up until recently. While gambling on the surface seems like a nothingburger to most people, it can be extremely destructive, not only to the person who has the addiction, but the effect it has on their family as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RTl18
I've lost everything. I had 250K equity in my house, I took out a 140K home equity loan. I Had 150K in 401k and lost everything (now barely have 20K. I have 10K savings and have about 90K in personal loans and credit card debt. I'm gonna claim bankruptcy because the interest on the 90K in personal loans and credit card is crazy. I'm not interested in paying 100K interest over a 5 year period.
Wow, that is hard to read, not even joking. It stinks hearing that a fellow citizen is doing this to their future. You claim to be a smart guy, but I'm sure you're fully aware there is nothing smart about these two moves in particular. The gambling got you there and you know it. If you are the same poster who is recurringly making posts about this, it's time to take your gambling addiction seriously. Right now. You are at max levels, deep within throes of it. At 34 there is no way you can still be doing this type of stuff. I don't know if you have/plan to have kids, but you certainly can't be doing this for their sake either.
At least do the right thing and set up some separate accounts for your wife that you won't be able to access without her approval or something like that, so that she won't be left destitute by your decisions some day. She works and has her own income, so that shouldn't be an issue. Just throwing that out there, because you're out of control. I don't know if this is solvable for you, but I sure hope so. I do mean that. It really is an addiction.
The OP's story is why gambling has been illegal up until recently. While gambling on the surface seems like a nothingburger to most people, it can be extremely destructive, not only to the person who has the addiction, but the effect it has on their family as well.
No one is suggesting that gambling isn't destructive. Don't put words in another person's mouth (keyboard). What some here have been suggesting is that the OP has recounted his sorry tale under different usernames for years, has gotten good advice from multiple threads, but keeps returning lessons unlearned. The tales continue because he never addresses what's really going on and keeps looking for solutions to the wrong problem.
No one is suggesting that gambling isn't destructive. Don't put words in another person's mouth (keyboard). What some here have been suggesting is that the OP has recounted his sorry tale under different usernames for years, has gotten good advice from multiple threads, but keeps returning lessons unlearned. The tales continue because he never addresses what's really going on and keeps looking for solutions to the wrong problem.
I wasn't saying anyone was suggesting any different, or working off their suggestions in what I wrote at all. I was making a general point based off your quote which tied into the OP's story of "how gambling addiction ruined my life" and why society made it an illegal practice for so long. Your suggestion of word-stuffing is inaccurate, and misplaced. Ergo, although I used your quote, it wasn't about you.
Anyway, speaking generally now:
OP's a smart guy, but his addiction is causing him to make unwise decisions. He could do very, very well if it wasn't for gambling. It's unfortunate. He got back all his previous losses, gained some excess, then lost it all again. The amounts don't make any difference if the behavior doesn't change. No matter how much he has or makes, he is at risk of continuing this if it's not addressed. It's unfortunate.
In 1983 I was working for a bankruptcy attorney (a name partner). One of his clients, a married couple, had debt in the amount of about $320K. That's $953,565 in today's money. I said to him, this is unbelievable. He said to me, "we're not here to judge, we're here to help."
That's all fine and good, but in the OP's case a 12-step program is in order, and a financial counselor with a plan for accountability. Thinking that one is smart enough to fix one's own problems of this magnitude is a huge mistake. There is help out there, and everyone should avail themselves of it.
Good luck, OP. To be brutally honest, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for a young couple who pulls in $220K/yr. and the potential to make much more during their lifetime.
I know addicted gamblers—they had to stop gambling. There’s no “getting it back” by more gambling. They quit and got help with a 12-step program.
I’m in recovery for another addiction. For years I thought I was smart enough to figure it out on my own. How wrong I was. Some people are too smart for their own good. If you haven’t hit your bottom yet, nothing we say will make any difference.
I watched (and suffered) my father’s lifelong, ant-times extreme gambling addiction. Without a smudge of bleeding-heart sympathies trailing this post, I say unequivocally that OP’s problem is an organic brain disorder. The OP describes a state of mind and situation that is nothing short of stereotypical of gambling addiction. Intelligence (IQ) is helpless against the irresistible suck of the gambling siren call into the abyss of oblivion.
The gambler ALWAYS thinks all he needs is to hit that one last hot streak to make up for past losses. It’s a form of OCD, to be honest. I heard it from my father a million times.
OP, if you are indeed making multiple posts about the same struggle under different names over the years, I understand, and you still have my sympathy — even though it’s hard to give given the obscene amounts of money you and your spouse make, only to pi$$ it away in a toilet bowl of addiction. I get it, as a bystander to my father’s helpless self-destruction.
I agree with everyone who says that your only saving grace is a 12-step program. I’m going to assume that you don’t think so — that the one last hot streak is the saving grace. You think we ordinary mortals on the sidelines don’t get it — don’t get the luminescent grace that descends on a gamer who stays on course long enough. But I do know that it is real and that it exists and descends. I know it’s something like a hit of euphoria and mysticism and the beatific vision rolled up into one potent ball that takes flower in your hand.
I also know that the flower is poison that transfixes your gaze, and you can’t walk away from just one. You want two and three.. and a thousand. The moment you held one, you are sure you can hold an infinity. Really, it’s a mystical experience hijacked by satanic forces. I have no other words for it, having witnessed my loved one in the grip of its possession.
I’ll tell you what I did when I saw my father carried away on those demonic wings. I called Gamblers Anonymous in his stead. Thirty five years later, I still want to sit down and kiss the feet of the man who answered on the other line. He had a terrible stutter. Every word he conveyed was at the expense of a heroic effort against a massive speech impediment. It slowed the conversation down in a providential alchemy against the racing whirlwind that is the gambler’s flight into a hurricane of non-thought. All I could think was, my father needs to be talking to this man. All the man kept reassuring me about was that it was not my responsibility to get him there.
I promise you this: you will never hit the last big streak that puts an end to them all and sets your life straight. Your thinking is no different from the bank robber’s who thinks this is the last big heist. (As a matter of fact, some gamblers turn to robbing banks to cover their gambling losses, only to discover a bigger and far more dangerous spiral into the same obsessive vortex). Don’t end your life in prison, or chasing ‘the last big one.’ (Whatever it may be). Life and love are RIGHT HERE, right in this moment, longing for you.
When I was a kid my dad scared the crap out of me. I don't know why but he said "you know all about boozers and drunks but you've never seen any really sick until you've seen a "sick gambler", but it was one of the best life lessons ever. I gambled one time and saw how easy it was to think "I'll win the next one and break even" and remembered Dad's words. I worked with three degenerate gamblers who I watched ruin their lives.
After my father passed I asked Mom if Dad used to gamble. She rolled her eyes and told me a nice story. Yes, he did gamble, a lot. My older brother was born with health issues and they were in debt to their eyeballs. Dad asked Mom if he could get on a train and go to Youngstown. He knew of a card game and he had $200. Mom gave her blessings figuring what the heck. He returned in two days, paid off everything they owed, put a couple of hundred in the bank and never gambled again. Thinking back on it I remember Dad always did like to "quit while he was ahead".
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