A Systematic Guide to Overcoming a Gambling Addiction (by a recovering problem gambler)
Tags: Gambling, Addiction Recovery, Addiction, Gambling Addiction, Problem Gambling

A Systematic Guide to Overcoming a Gambling Addiction (by a recovering problem gambler) theonlywayout123 5 days ago·42 min read

Introduction:

If you have been trying to overcome your gambling addiction, you know firsthand just how difficult it is. However, with the right knowledge and strategies (and the determination to quit), it can be done. In writing this systematic guide, my aim is to equip you with the most useful knowledge and strategies I’ve acquired over my years of battling my gambling addiction. Relying on this set of knowledge and strategies, I have fortunately been able to stay clean from gambling for over 2.5 years now. I also know that there are other problem gamblers who have found similar success by relying on a similar set of knowledge and strategies. I am thus optimistic that it can really help you too.

Throughout this guide, I have tried to keep my writing as clear and concise as possible. I thus encourage you to read through the entire guide if you can. Of course, feel free to skip any paragraphs that don’t apply to you. In case you’re not interested in reading through the entire guide, I have bolded certain phrases to make navigating the text a bit easier, but please do read through the rest of this introduction.

Here’s a roadmap of what’s to come. This guide consists of 4 sections and 2 appendixes. In section 1, I share with you the strategy that I’ve found to be indispensable to preventing future relapses: stacking effective barriers. There are, of course, other strategies out there that many have found helpful, such as GA, professional therapy, and certain cognitive defenses (e.g., visualizations of the consequences of gambling, observing one’s urges, etc.). Since I personally haven’t had to rely on any of these other strategies, I won’t have much to say about them (although I do say something important about GA in section 2, point 4)

In section 2, I discuss some common causes of relapse and how to properly deal with them. Having this knowledge will help to prevent future relapses. This is because we can use this knowledge to prevent some urges and better respond to others. This helps to supplement the aforementioned effective-barrier strategy that helps to stop us from acting on our most intense urges. The common causes of relapse that I’ll be discussing in section 2 are:

(1) Inability to come to terms with our past losses.

(2) Attracted by the potential for quick and easy riches.

(3) Not appreciating the math/thinking we’re the exception.

(4) Getting complacent/confident after making some progress in recovery.

(5) Unresolved issues in our life that we use gambling to escape from.

(6) Boredom/lack of excitement or emptiness/lack of meaning

(7) Not knowing what your personal triggers are, or knowing what they are but not proactively protecting yourself against them.

In section 3, I explain why a problem gambler cannot keep any gambling in their life. In section 4, I discuss the long-term outlook for someone who is able to stay clean from gambling, answering questions like, “Will the urges eventually go away? Will I be able to come to terms with my past losses? Will I stop feeling guilt or regret?”

Finally, there are two appendixes in which I provide step by step instructions for how to properly set up two blocking softwares that worked really well for me: Screen Time for iPhone and Cold Turkey Blocker for PC/Mac. These appendixes are associated with the effective-barrier strategy discussed in section 1. Let’s jump in.

Section 1: How to prevent future relapses

The wrong approach is to rely on one’s willpower/discipline/internal strength. Many of us problem gamblers let our ego get in the way of our recovery. It hurts our ego to admit that we aren’t strong enough to deal with our gambling urges, and so when our urges do cause us to relapse, we might make some excuse like “I didn’t try my hardest to stop myself”. And so the relapses happen, over and over again.

The reason why relying on willpower simply does not work in the long run is two-fold. First, our willpower is directly affected by many other factors that are often outside of our control. These factors include things like insufficient (or poor quality) sleep, stress, anger and other tasks that we had to use some willpower to get done earlier in the day. Second, the urge to gamble is oftentimes simply overpowering/irresistible. If we’re in good shape, we might be able to fight it for a few days or maybe even a week, but eventually, the urge just gets the better of us. When we have an ego to protect, this is a hard fact to admit, but it is a fact and we need to have the humility to accept it. And once we have, a better approach becomes available.

The right approach may involve various strategies. In what follows, I discuss the strategy that I’ve found to be indispensable to preventing future relapses: stacking effective barriers. Putting in place barriers between us and our gambling can be highly effective at preventing future relapses. This is because the barriers can stop us from acting on our urge to gamble where willpower alone could not. Indeed, once the right barriers are in place, we won’t even need to rely on willpower anymore.

There are two aspects to making barriers work. First, a barrier needs to be an effective barrier for you. Second, effective barriers should be stacked (although for some people, one effective barrier may be enough). I will discuss each of these ideas in turn, starting with the idea of an effective barrier and then giving some examples.

An effective barrier for a person P is a barrier that P considers to be very inconvenient, if not impossible, to undo and that reliably does what P wanted it to do. As this definition of an effective barrier makes clear, whether a barrier is effective is relative to the person in question. For example, for someone who is not tech savvy, the blocking software, Gamban, may in fact be a very effective barrier for him/her. But, this may not be the case for a tech savvy person.

Not every barrier we put in place is an effective barrier for us according to the definition above. For example, if you do online gambling, you may have permanently self-excluded from several websites that you gambled on. However, for many of us who gamble online, this ends up not being an effective barrier, for several reasons. One is that there are tons of other gambling websites on the internet and new ones are popping up all the time, and many of us will be willing to gamble on new sites we discovered. Thus, for many of us, self-excluding from particular sites doesn’t reliably do what we wanted it to do — namely, to stop us from being able to gamble online period. Thus, it is not an effective barrier for many of us, although it may be for those of us who only trust the websites we self-excluded from.

What, then, are some effective barriers for most (if not all) of us? Well, it partly depends on what form of gambling we do, e.g., gambling at land-based casinos, traditional online gambling, stocks/options/forex gambling, or crypto gambling. In terms of land-based gambling, an effective barrier for most of us is requesting for permanent self-exclusion from all the casinos that we see ourselves capable of driving to from where we live and also the casinos located at where we may go on business trips or where our family likes to go on vacation to (of course, ideally, we should try to avoid having to make such business trips if possible and, similarly, our family should seek gamble-free vacation destinations).

Now, not all casinos offer true permanent self-exclusion in the sense that, although they’ll have an option called “indefinite self-exclusion”, they give you the ability to request to undo it after a certain amount of time has passed, say, 1 year. (If this applies to you, keep reading; otherwise, feel free to skip to the next bolded phrase.) This is, for example, the case with government-operated casinos in Ontario, Canada, which is where I live. If you find yourself in this non-ideal situation, always ask if they can remove this privilege. If they say no, I think it would be helpful to reply (truly or falsely) that you have been diagnosed with a gambling addiction and that your doctor has told you that you should never gamble again, and see if they budge. Unfortunately, when I first self-excluded, it didn’t occur to me to say this. But, luckily, if I were to request an undo of my self-exclusion today, the Ontario government requires a 30 day “cool-off” period before the undo can take effect and I’d also need to complete an online math course on how probability works so I know that I can’t profit in the long run from gambling. Knowing that there is this “cool-off” period and this online math course I’d have to complete has certainly helped to keep me from undoing my self-exclusion. Thus, for me, they have been an effective barrier to undoing my self-exclusion. Hopefully, the casinos in your area offer similar barriers that would be effective for you, but if they don’t, try asking them to add certain requirements to your file that you’d need to complete in order to undo your self-exclusion. The requirements you propose should seem very inconvenient to you. For example, if you really hate the idea of getting a doctor’s note to confirm that you are okay to gamble, you might suggest that they add as a requirement that you have such a doctor’s note.

Part of the reason why the aforementioned things (i.e., “30 day cool off period and online course) are effective barriers for me is because, over the course of that first year of being self-excluded, I worked on myself, developing new interests and pursuits, so my urge to gamble after that first year became weaker, more short-lived and less frequent, which makes the 30 day cool off period and online course seem like far more of a hassle (see section 4 for more on this point). Had I failed to make any real progress in my life during that time, perhaps those barriers would be less effective.

But, importantly, there are other effective barriers that are also playing a role in stopping me from undoing my self-exclusion. For example, I have an accountability partner who is aware of my situation and I made a promise to him that I would not undo my self-exclusion and I know he’ll check in from time to time to see whether I’ve kept my word. And personally, I hate to break a promise. Here we see the holistic power of stacking effective barriers, an idea I will discuss in more detail later on. But, very quickly, when we stack effective barriers, one barrier can help fortify another, or they can even be mutually fortifying. Consequently, the effectiveness of the whole stack is greater than the sum of the effectiveness of the individual barriers. For example, by having an accountability partner who knows of the situation, I am far less inclined to undo the self-exclusion, which makes the self-exclusion an even more effective barrier than it otherwise would have been.

In terms of traditional online gambling, an effective barrier for most of us is contacting the third-party services that facilitate depositing from online casinos and requesting that they permanently ban us from using their services. This is more effective (and easier to do) than requesting permanent self-exclusion from particular gambling sites since there are only a small handful of these third-party services compared to the vast and ever-growing number of gambling sites.

Here’s a list of some of their email addresses:

Gigadat solutions/Interac: csr@gigadatsolutions.com

Instadebit: security@instadebit.com or, if no one answers there, try support@instadebit.com

Much Better: support@muchbetter.com

Ecopayz: customersupport@ecopayz.com

idebit: security@idebitpayments.com

If the contact information of the third-party service you use to make deposits isn’t listed here, please take a moment to seek out their contact information and contact them. I know that certain banks and credit card companies can block gambling-related transactions if requested.

Here’s an email template you can use:

Subject heading: Request for permanent account ban.

Hi there,

Please immediately and permanently ban me from using your services. I have been using your services in a way that has been very harmful to my wellbeing. This really needs to stop, and having my account permanently banned is absolutely necessary for that to happen. Thank you for taking my well-being seriously and doing as I have requested.

My information is as follows: [insert the relevant info such as account name or the email you have associated with them or, in the case of gigadatsolutions, the email you use to make interac e-transfers]

Sincerely,

[Insert your name]

There are of course other effective barriers to combat this form of gambling, perhaps most notably certain blocking softwares (see crypto gambling below). Also, if you are from the UK, check out GamStop, a blanket self-exclusion scheme from all online casinos licensed in UK (https://www.gamstop.co.uk/).

In terms of stocks/options/forex gambling, an effective barrier for most of us is contacting the brokerages we use and either asking them to permanently ban us from using their services or asking them to place permanent limits on our account (e.g., ban us from options trading, ban us from margin, ban us from buying securities and thus only allowing us to hold/sell what we already own, etc.).

There are of course other effective barriers to combat this form of gambling, perhaps most notably certain blocking softwares (see crypto gambling below).

In terms of crypto gambling (whether casino gambling or currency gambling), when thinking about what effective barriers might exist for you as a crypto gambler, you should consider every step in the crypto gambling eco-system from how you buy crypto, to how you store crypto, to how you transfer crypto, to how access crypto sites (e.g., via VPNs) and ask yourself whether there is something you can do (e.g., some service provider you can contact) to block one node in this process. Thus, for example, if you buy crypto through exchanges like Coinbase, consider dedicating a day to creating accounts with all crypto exchanges and then contacting each of them to ask them to permanently ban your account. Perhaps something similar can be done with VPN service providers, if you use VPN.

However, here, I want to focus my discussion on what I believe to be an effective barrier for most (if not all) crypto gamblers as well as traditional online gamblers and stocks/options/forex gamblers — namely, blocking softwares such as:

- Screen Time for iPhone (see Appendix A for instructions for proper set-up)

- ColdTurkey Blocker for PC/Mac (see Appendix B for instructions for proper set-up; https://getcoldturkey.com/)

These two blocking softwares have worked really well for me. There are, of course, other blocking softwares available such as Gamban (https://gamban.com/) and Bet Blocker (https://betblocker.org/), the latter of which is entirely free. However, since I have never used them, I’m won’t say too much about them. I do know that there are people who have found them to be effective barriers, so I certainly recommend trying them out.

When we’re gambling online, it’s either through our phone or through our computer. I want to address phones first. If you’re using Gamban or Bet Blocker and it’s is working for you, great. But I’m going to assume that it isn’t. If you are an iPhone user, Screen Time is an extremely powerful blocking software, virtually impossible to bypass once it is properly set up (see Appendix A). On the Andriod side, if Gamban or Bet Blocker isn’t working for you, unfortunately, I don’t know of any other blocking software that will work. If your priority is to overcome your gambling addiction, as it should be, I thus highly encourage you to switch over to iPhone to take advantage of Screen Time. On the computer side, if Gamban or Bet Blocker is working for you, great. But, again, I’m going to assume that it’s not. Personally, I’ve found Cold Turkey Blocker (or ‘Blocker’ for short) to be an effective blocking software (see Appendix B).

Finally, there are other effective barriers that apply to all forms of gambling. One is finding an accountability partner who you respect and feel comfortable to confide in (e.g., because you have good rapport with them and know that they won’t judge you and that they have your best interest at heart). It’s important to select the right person to be your accountability partner. Ideally, your accountability partner should be someone who takes an active interest in seeing you get better, someone who is understanding, encouraging, dependable and, in general, someone who takes their role seriously. This may be your best friend, a sibling, parent, partner or a mentor with relevant experience (e.g., someone you met at GA or online who is farther along the recovery journey and who has shown a willingness to help you).

An accountability partner helps us in many ways, such as by being a source of encouragement, a source of advice and problem-solving, and someone we can turn to when we’re in need. But, most relevantly, an accountability partner acts as a strong emotional barrier to gambling because we’ll feel a sense of responsibility to them. For this to work best, you and your accountability partner should make a plan to do check-ins, maybe multiple times a day in the beginning, and then less frequently over time as things improve. While the frequency of check-ins can decrease over time, regularity should be maintained. For example, if the frequency has decreased to 1 check-in per week, make sure that 1 check-in happens each week. Check-ins should not be missed. It should be prioritized (see section 2, point 4, for the hazards of getting confident as we make progress in our recovery).

If you do relapse, your accountability partner and you should talk about what happened so as to identify the problematic cause of the relapse and work out a solution to avoid the same situation happening again. Frequency of check-ins may also need to be increased. Consequences for further relapses (e.g., agreement to establish further effective barriers) may also be agreed upon.

If none of the previous effective barriers are enough (even when stacked, an idea I’ll come to shortly), a final effective barrier is getting someone you trust to control your money. There is no shame in this. We are simply doing what needs to be done, which takes courage and indeed intelligence. For this to work, you need to make sure that the person you are relying on to control your money understands that a gambling addiction is very difficult to overcome and can take a long time to overcome, so they should not hand control back to you just because you requested it, even if you’ve managed to be gamble-free for a couple of years. When you first give up control of your finances to someone, you and that person should agree to a list of specific and clear conditions that needs to be met for control to be given back to you. This may include being gamble-free for a certain length of time (e.g., over 2 years), demonstrating that you’ve achieved certain goals, etc. You two should also agree on under what conditions control would be revoked again.

After talking extensively about effective barriers, we now come to the idea of stacking effective barriers. Stacking effective barriers is the idea of having in place multiple effective barriers at the same time. This is beneficial for at least two reasons. The first reason is that sometimes an effective barrier for us may fail. For example, maybe a new update introduced a bug into the blocking software that we are using, or our accountability partner got really sick and can’t carry out their role anymore. By having multiple effective barriers in place, we protect ourselves in the event that one of our effective barriers fail.

The second reason is that some effective barriers can fortify or strengthen other effective barriers. Sometimes they can even be mutually fortifying. These effects make the effectiveness of the whole stack greater than the sum of the effectiveness of the individual barriers. For example, suppose you have an accountability partner who you’re regularly checking in with and you’re also using certain blocking softwares, say Blocker for PC; then the fact that you’ll have to report to your accountability partner later in the day will make it far less likely that you’ll try to reinstall Windows to get rid of Blocker (which for me is already an unpalatable process). In this way, one effective barrier (i.e., check-ins by your accountability partner) fortifies another one of your effective barriers (i.e., Blocker). Moreover, in this case, the fortification also goes in the reverse direction. By having Blocker installed, you are less likely to relapse, and as a result, you’re more likely to want to talk with your accountability partner and keep the accountability barrier going (for we all enjoy to share good news instead of bad news). Ultimately, this means that stacking an accountability partner with Blocker is far more effective than the sum of the effectiveness of Blocker by itself plus an accountability partner by itself. Indeed, stacking barriers can have the effect of turning a collection of barriers that aren’t effective in of themselves into an effective whole. For example, perhaps Blocker would not have been effective for you if it was implemented by itself. And perhaps the same is true of having an accountability partner. But by stacking them, they become an effective barrier for you as a whole.

Section 2: Some causes of relapse to watch out for and how to properly deal with them.

(1) Inability to come to terms with our past losses. As problem gamblers, we lose a lot of money to gambling because we can’t stop. Understandably, it is extremely difficult to come to terms with losing so much money, especially since it typically happens over a much shorter period than it took for us to earn it. One obvious sign that we haven’t been able to move on from our losses is that we’re constantly thinking about it. These thoughts give us the urge to gamble more in the hopes of quickly winning back what we lost. We tell ourselves that as soon as we win it back, we will quit for good, and that the only reason we continue to gamble is because we still haven’t won back what we lost.

But the truth is, for us problem gamblers, no amount of winnings is ever going to get us to stop gambling. When we are on a winning streak, we just can’t stop. We keep betting until we lose it all back. I don’t need to tell you this. You know this from your own personal experience. Your brain may be telling you to stop, but your hands just keep clicking away until the balance is back to $0. We also know this from reading the posts of some problem gamblers who got lucky and won back all that they had lost, but instead of stopping, they kept on going until they lost it all again. What makes us problem gamblers is precisely our inability to stop. If we were able to stop, we wouldn’t be desperately trying to win back what we lost in the first place, because we wouldn’t have lost more than we could afford to lose in the first place.

So, gambling to try to win back what we lost is certainly not the way to deal with our inability to move on from our past losses. So what can we do to move on from our losses? Part of the answer is being patient. Time has an intrinsic healing effect, so it will be part of what helps you move on from your past losses. I once lost almost all my life savings (around $70k CAD) in under a month. In the following months, it was extremely difficult to come to terms with what happened. It was all I can think about and it made me miserable. However, as time went on, I eventually came to terms with that massive loss. I can now think back to it and feel fully at peace. But this occurred only because I stopped gambling entirely: time can only work its healing power once the gambling has completely stopped. In this respect, the situation is a bit paradoxical: the only healthy way to come to terms with our losses is by not gambling, yet its precisely our inability to come to terms with our losses in the here and now that make us want to gamble. This is why having in place effective barriers is so important. It helps to protect us from the urges that are associated with our inability to accept our losses in the here and now, giving time the space to work its healing power.

But another part of the answer is using that time well. Time is intrinsically healing, but it’s likely not enough to help you fully get over your past losses. Rather, you also need to spend that time working on yourself and slowly rebuilding your life. By making real progress, you will feel better about your situation over time, which will help you move on from your past losses. In contrast, if you wasted that time (e.g., by surfing the internet all day long), you won’t feel very good about your situation even though you’ve stopped gambling. As a result, your past losses will likely continue to sting to some extent (see section 4).

(2) Attracted by the potential for quick and easy riches. As problem gamblers, we’re used to losing a lot of money easily and quickly, but we’re also used to making a lot of money easily and quickly. Easily because we just need to click some buttons, and quickly because the results of our bet come quickly. As a result, many of us will have experienced turning a relatively small amount of money into a relatively huge amount of money at some point during our gambling years. Of course, the ending is always the same: we can’t stop so we lose it all back. But, we often forget about that ending, thinking that we might get lucky one day and win a large amount easily and quickly and ultimately walk out with it. This thought is far more appealing than the thought of working a low-end job or a job that we dislike for many more years to come. We might also have debt that is accumulating high interest, which makes the ease and quickness of winning a large amount through gambling seem even more appealing.

But the hard truth that we really need to appreciate about ourselves as problem gamblers is that, ultimately, no amount of winning is ever going to make us stop until we’ve lost it all again. Perhaps there might be a few times when you somehow do stop and make a big withdrawal and pay down a debt. But I promise you that sooner or later, you will come back to bet more and you’ll keep betting until you’re back in debt again. For you won in the past and you will have the strong urge to gamble more and think that you will win again. Only, you’re losing this time and chase your losses back into even more debt. In short, for problem gamblers, the potential for quick and easy riches is really just a one-way street to bankruptcy. Once we truly appreciate this fact, we will no longer be enamored by that false potential.

(3) Not appreciating the math/thinking we’re the exception. There is a reason why we’re always the ones going broke and not the casino. It’s not because the casino owners out lucked us. It’s because they set up the odds so that they are mathematically guaranteed to come out ahead in the end. As problem gamblers, it seems that we often don’t really appreciate the probabilities governing the bets we make or the games we play. For example, when we start a gambling session, we sometimes go in treating our chances of being profitable by the end of the session as if it was a coin flip (50%,50%) when really it’s worse than that. We might even think that we’re favored to come out with a profit, when we are in fact favored to come out with a loss — indeed, mathematically guaranteed to be down money over time. Perhaps there is no better illustration of this failure to appreciate the math than the fact that many of us problem gamblers see gambling as a “source of income” and think to ourselves that if only we were able to control ourselves (i.e., leave when we’re ahead), we can be making decent money from gambling on a daily basis. This is categorically false. It doesn’t matter when you leave on any given day: you are mathematically guaranteed to be down money over time. There aren’t any “winning strategies”: the mathematical model underlying almost all gambling activities simply doesn’t allow for them. Anyone who shares with you a “winning strategy” most likely either doesn’t appreciate the math themselves or is just trying to get make some ad revenue off you by getting you to watch their video or visit their website. Think about it: if these people really did find winning strategies, why would they make their discovery public, allowing the casino to find out about the strategy and altering the game to remove it?

Put in a more technical way, almost all gambling activities has negative expected value (ev). The only exceptions are:

- professional card counters when playing blackjack (which is why casinos actively seek them out and blacklist them)

- professional poker players playing against weaker opponents

- a handful of super smart and resourceful groups of individuals in the sports-betting industry who run sophisticated computer algorithms to guide their decision making.

Now, you might be a sports better who knows way more about a certain sport than the average person on the street. However, the superior knowledge you have over the average joe is nowhere near enough to compensate for the odds you are offered by the bookmaker. This is why in the whole history of sports betting, only a small handful of extremely smart and resourceful groups of individuals have been able to profit from sports betting. These groups spend a lot of time building and refining sophisticated computer algorithms that takes into account thousands of relevant factors when determining how to bet in a given case. Whatever factors we are taking into account when making a decision is completely dwarfed in comparison. Again, it’s no accident that in the whole history of sports betting (we’re talking about tens of millions of bettors here), only a small handful of groups of people have been profitable while everyone else has lost money.

Similarly, you might be a stock/options/forex trader who knows way more about a certain company, the economy and/or technical analysis than the average person on the street. But the superior knowledge you have over the average joe is nowhere near enough to help you trade profitably against hedge funds and the like — groups of individuals who are experts in various respective fields, working together to make the best decision with enormous capital. Indeed, they have built complex computer algorithms that act at lightening speed and take into account far more relevant information/factors than you ever could. As a result, by the time you’re making a buy (to sell again in the not too distant future), it’s more-likely-than-not to be an unprofitable one because the price you’re buying at is the result of hedge funds having already bought in at the cheaper prices, which they can then sell back to you at the more expensive prices you or others are paying. In short, you’re always going to be one step behind. It is thus no accident that almost all individual traders lose money over time. Long-term investing is of course a different story.

One reason we think that we are an exception is that we have had winning streaks, making us think that we’re capable of being profitable over the long run. But this is a cognitive bias because in just focusing on our winning streaks, we are forgetting or downplaying our poor decisions and losing streaks. When we win, we tend to attribute our wins to our superior knowledge and skill, but when we lose, we tend to attribute it to bad luck or to being too hasty in our judgment. This is be clear bias. If we attribute our wins to our superior knowledge and skill, we must similarly attribute our losses to our lack of knowledge and skill. And if attribute our losses to bad luck and hasty judgment, we must similarly attribute our wins to such factors too. To be free of bias, we should let the long-term results of our decision-making speak for themselves. And the long-term results are clear: we’ve been losing more and more money over time, just like pretty much every other sports bettor or stock/options/forex trader out there. In short, we are no exception.

(4) Getting complacent/confident after making some progress in recovery. Suppose you’ve been able to stay gamble-free for over three years thanks to the effective barriers you had put in place. During this time, you have been working hard at your job and have managed to save a decent amount. Moreover, since it’s been awhile since you last hit rock bottom, it’s harder to recall in a vivid way the pain from that time. Furthermore, the gambling urges and thoughts have all but disappeared and you feel like you’re back in the driver seat of your life. At this time, you decide to remove the effective barriers you had in place. Perhaps you had an accountability partner who you used to do check-ins with on a regular basis, you decide to end that arrangement. Perhaps you used to have a blocking software like Cold Turkey Blocker and/or Screen Time in place but you’re now going through the inconvenience to remove them (perhaps because it just so happens that they’re getting in the way of some other minor thing you want to do). “What’s the harm?”, you think to yourself, “I’m in much better shape now, so I’ll be fine.” One day, you see a gambling ad or email offering a $20 free bet or 50 free spins. You think to yourself, “Might as well give it a go since it’s not my own money anyways.” So, you play it. You don’t win. But later in the day, you start to feel that all too familiar urge again. “Another small deposit isn’t going to hurt. I can afford it and I’m in control now.” You deposit $20. Then another $20. Then $40. Then $100. By the end of the night, you’ve entirely emptied your bank account.

This is what happens when we get complacent/confident and remove the effective barriers we had put in place. Why does it happen? It happens because a gambling addiction (nor any addiction for that matter) truly ever dies: they just become dormant. As a result, they are always a potential threat. When we remove the barriers that kept our addiction in check, we give our addiction the opportunity to wreak havoc in our lives again, and it is will, with alarming speed. Misplaced confidence is therefore a major cause of relapse, and the way to deal with it is knowing to never be confident in one’s own ability to control one’s gambling. That is, we should always remain on guard, treating our addiction not as a defeated enemy, but always as an active threat and acting accordingly by keeping at least some (but ideally all) of our effective barriers in place. Just one relapse can lead to us losing all the money we saved up in the meantime. Always keep that in mind.

A similar point applies to those who attend GA. When we get confident, we might stop attending GA altogether thinking we’re fully cured. But there is no such thing as being cured from an addiction, because as I just mentioned, addictions never truly die. Thus, the key to making GA work for you in the long run is maintaining regular attendance. Regular attendance should not be confused with frequent attendance. How frequently you attend should be dictated by where you are on recovery journey. If you just started on the journey, you should attend very often. Over time, as your condition gets better, it might be okay to attend less frequently. So, frequency can certainly vary over time. But whatever you do, make sure to attend regularly at the set frequency. For example, if you’re doing really well in your recovery and have reduced your GA attendance to once every three months, make sure to keep going once every three months. Don’t skip on a meeting for any other activity. Make it a priority. To really hit the point home, I once read a post by someone who attended GA for many years and ended up relapsing after 7 years of being gamble-free after they stopped attending GA altogether because they thought they’d be fine.

(5) Unresolved issues in life that we use gambling to escape from. Perhaps all of us who turn to gambling as a form of escape know that gambling won’t resolve the issue we’re trying to escape from and that the only way to resolve it is by dealing with it head on. The problem is that the issue is extremely frightening to deal with. Oftentimes, these are issues that we don’t know how to address nor what their outcome will be, where we think that outcome could be really bad — an outcome we can’t emotionally handle. In short, our lack of knowledge is oftentimes what makes certain issues frightening to deal with. If that’s the case, the solution to our fright is to improve our state of knowledge. This can be done by seeking the help and advice of people who are experienced/knowledgeable in the kind of issue we have. For example, try doing some googling. Or make an anonymous post on reddit in a relevant subreddit to ask for advice. Or talk to someone in real life, which may include a professional. By doing this, we learn the steps we need to take to address the issue and get a sense of what the outcome is likely to be. This should make the issue much less frightening. Of course, sometimes we are frightened to find out what the outcome is likely to be, or we might even know it, but because we can’t emotionally accept it, we try to ignore it. If this is the situation, perhaps what is needed is some courage or a different perspective. This gets into territory I haven’t experienced, so I’ll end this discussion here.

(6) Boredom/lack of excitement or emptiness/lack of meaning. Prior to our attempt at quitting gambling, we spent a lot of our waking time gambling and being in a state of excitement. Once we’re not gambling, all of a sudden there is a bunch of free time that we don’t know what to do with and it’s certainly not exciting. We are thus likely to feel bored as a withdrawal symptom. This typically leads to strong urges to gamble. Of course, the right way to deal with such feelings of boredom is not by going back to gambling, however appealing that might seem in the moment. Rather, it is by fully occupying our waking hours with activities. This will help to counter feelings of boredom and help to take our mind off of gambling. Make your bed. Tidy up your room. Clean the house. Go for a hike or bike ride. Bring a garbage bag with you to your local public park and help pick up the garbage on the ground (perhaps while listening to some music or an interesting podcast). In other words, try to keep yourself busy. If there is some lengthy project or responsibility you can throw yourself into, that would be ideal.

You may find that it’s difficult to focus in the beginning. This is normal. It will get better with time. This difficulty to focus can make it practically impossible to read a book or do anything that requires focus. If you are experiencing this, then start with simple activities like the sorts I listed above where focus is not needed. As your ability to focus improves, you can try more challenging activities that requires focus to execute. Be patient with the rebuilding process.

Along the way, one thing you should try to do is develop deep interests (i.e. passions). Spending time on our passions is what brings long-lasting excitement to our lives, and this kind of excitement is far better to the fleeting, unsustainable kind of excitement that gambling once provided us with. But it is important to know how deep interests are developed, so we succeed in developing them.

When we first try something new (call this thing N), we often feel an initial excitement for it. This initial excitement we feel for N is due to N’s novelty for us: after all, novelty is a reliable cause of dopamine. Inevitably, however, N is going present us with difficulties/challenges and when this happens, the initial excitement for N is likely to disappear. At this point, N no longer excites us and many of us will give up on N, thinking “it’s not for us”. As a result, we move on to something else, and the same pattern repeats. In the end, we try many things but fail to develop any deep interests. When this happens to us, it is likely because we are operating under some false assumptions, namely:

The belief that difficulty or loss of initial excitement is a sign that something is not for us. The belief that passions don’t take effort or time to develop. Relatedly, the belief that passions are discovered, not developed.

The truth is that we all face difficulties and will often lose our initial excitement before the long-lasting kind of excitement takes hold. Moreover, the only way for something to turn into a passion for us is for us to face those difficulties and overcome them. In other words, developing a passion requires spending time and effort on it. Why is this? Because only by spending time and effort on it can we come to appreciate its intrinsic richness/depth and be captivated by that. This is the source of the long-lasting excitement that comes with having deep interests.

Thus, we shouldn’t expect to feel lasting excitement for something when we’ve only pursued it briefly. It is only after spending a good deal of time and effort on climbing the learning curve, dealing with the early difficulties/challenges , that we can be sure that something is not for us.

So try not to jump between new things too quickly as you try to develop new interests and feel a sense of excitement in your life again. Keep going even after the initial excitement has died down and I’m sure one day you’ll feel that long lasting kind of excitement that people who have passions feel. Note that it’s often easier to develop a deep interest when you do it with others. For me, going back to school and being able to study alongside my teachers and other classmates really helped to develop my academic interests.

But in life, we’re not just after excitement: we’re also after a sense of meaning and fulfillment, and it’s not clear that spending time on our passions is always guaranteed to also provide us with the latter. Having said that, I think one source of fulfillment is doing things that further our values (e.g., the causes or outcomes that we value/find important) and promoting values. I think another source fulfillment (and excitement) for most of us is our relationships with others. So, please also try to develop these over time. Just as with passions, relationships that bring us long-lasting excitement and fulfillment will take nurturing through time and effort.

Finally, it is important to bear in mind that prolonged lack of excitement and/or fulfillment may by due to a mental disorder like depression. If you suspect you might have depression, please see a doctor to get assistance.

(7) Not knowing what your personal triggers are, or knowing what they are but not proactively protecting yourself against them. For all of us, there are specific situations that trigger in us an urge to gamble. These triggering situations (“triggers”) may vary somewhat from person to person, and each person likely has multiple triggers. We’ve already come across some specific triggers, such as thoughts about our past losses, boredom, etc. Indeed, the concept of a trigger is very general concept and encompasses even those issues that we use gambling to escape from that I spoke about earlier. Due to its generality, it’s not surprising that much of what we discussed so far also falls under this concept. But there are other triggers not covered by what we discussed so far.

Some other typical triggers include payday, thoughts about being broke, negative emotions, positive emotions, seeing certain images (e.g., a gambling advertisement or an email offering a free play) or certain sights or faces. There are many different triggers. The important thing is knowing what your triggers are and actively protecting yourself from them. For example, if interacting with a certain person leads to urges, think of how you could avoid them. If seeing your earnings arrive in your bank account causes urges, think about sending your earnings elsewhere so you don’t have to see it.

Section 3: Can a problem gambler keep some gambling in their life?

Many problem gamblers hope that they can keep some gambling in their life. To have this hope is very understandable since gambling was fun before it turned into a disaster. Moreover, after gambling for a long time, one may develop an emotional attachment to the activity: it might be one of the few activities that make us feel at home. As a result, it might be hard to imagine life completely without it.

Consequently, many of us will try to keep some gambling in our lives. At first, we are optimistic that we can because we’ll come up with a plan on how to gamble responsibly. This plan might include setting aside a certain portion of our annual income to gambling, using deposit limits, always gambling with someone else around, and other rules we set for ourselves. In short, we think it can be done as long as we go about it in a smart way.

Unfortunately, the hard truth is that all such attempts always end in loss of control. And the reason is simple: when we gamble, we feed the urge, and when the urge gets strong, we slowly start to make exceptions for ourselves. Maybe we’re having a bad day for no fault of our own, so “we deserve to gamble a bit more today”, or maybe we did something great, so “we deserve to gamble a bit more as a reward”. Etc. Etc. The brain will come up with the most amazing reasons to make an exception to our rules. Ultimately, what ends up happening is we ignore our rules and gamble everything away. So, the answer to the main question is No. A problem gambler cannot keep any gambling in their life, not even a bit. Once we do even a bit of gambling, we will soon find ourselves back to full loss of control. Thus, as problem gamblers, we must accept that gambling cannot have any part in our lives, that gambling cannot be a source of fun and excitement for us.

The only way to start living a happy and fulfilling life is to stop gambling. We win by keeping our future hard-earned money (which really adds up over time) and spending it on the people we love and care for, instead of giving it to those who are trying their hardest to profit off our addiction and pretending to care about us by doing the absolute bare minimum in terms of protecting problem gamblers and constantly trying to pull us back in by creating new sites that we haven’t self-excluded from. The truth is, we don’t need gambling to live a happy and fulfilling life. To live a happy and fulfilling life, we need the exact opposite.

Section 4: Will the urges go away? Will I be able to come to terms with my past losses? Will my negative feelings like regret and guilt go away?

When I first started out on my recovery journey, I constantly had intense urges to gamble and I kept thinking about my losses. These urges and thoughts were tormenting, making it difficult to fall asleep and making me feel a lot of negative emotions, like self-hatred, regret and frankly wanting to disappear from this world. One thing that I really wanted to know at the time is whether these urges and thoughts would ever go away or if I had to live the rest of my life like this. So, I went on online to search for answers. Some posts were positive while others were negative. The negative ones told me that the urges will always be there, perhaps less frequent and less intense, but it’ll always be a nuisance in my life. The positive ones told me that the urges will all but completely disappear, and on the rare occasions it does appear, it will be very weak and short-lived. In short, the urges won’t be a nuisance at all. After being over two years of gamble-free, I am happy to report that the positive story can happen, as it did happen to me. I hardly ever feel urges anymore, and when I do, they are very very weak and short-lived. I’m also happy to report that I have been able to come to terms with my past losses. It no longer occupies my mind at all, and when I do choose to think back to it, I am at peace. Finally, the self-hatred, guilt and regret is also gone too in the sense that I don’t feel these emotions on a typical day. In fact, even when I purposely think back to the years where gambling wreaked havoc on my life and health, I am able to think about those years entirely free of feeling those negative emotions. I don’t remember exactly when things got this good, but it definitely took many many months.

But it’s important to know that even though time intrinsically has a healing effect, how well things go also depends on other factors too, perhaps most importantly: how you spend your time after you’ve stopped gambling. For example, if you spend your time working on yourself and on slowly rebuilding as I did, then I think you’ll eventually feel just as good as I do now, though the time frame could vary somewhat (see Section 2, point 6, for some advice on how to rebuild). But if you spend your time unproductively (e.g., just playing video games or surfing the internet all day), you may very well not experience the positive story (or at least not to the extent that I have). That is, even given the passage of a lot of time, you may not be able to fully accept your past losses, still feel some guilt and regret, and feel stronger and longer lasting urges. And this wouldn’t be surprising if it did happen since you haven’t made any real progress in your life (except for not gambling).

In conclusion then, the positive story is possible, but whether it happens for you in part depends on how you spend your time after having stopped gambling. Finally, as I pointed out in an earlier section, no matter how great you eventually feel, always remember that addictions never truly die. Our gambling addiction will be a threat to us for the rest of our lives. So, don’t get confident and let your guard down. Keep at least some of your effective barriers in place. If you attend GA, keep attending on a regular basis (see section 2, point 4). With patience, hard work and vigilance, the future is bright. Here’s to your recovery.

Appendix A: Instructions for properly setting up Screen Time for iPhone

Screen Time is an extremely powerful blocking software that iPhone users have free access to. Once it is properly set up, it becomes extremely difficult to get around it. I will first run through the gamble-proof set-up, which I recommend. Afterwards, I’ll run through another set-up that is not as gamble-proof, but also involves less sacrifice. Some people may find the latter set-up effective enough for them, but it is a risk that I don’t recommend taking.

The gamble-proof set-up

1. First, we need to remove our ability to access problematic websites. Thus, we need to block Safari (Apple’s native browser App) according to the following steps: Settings-> Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> toggle on Content & Privacy Restrictions -> Allowed Apps -> toggle off Safari. Next, delete all your other browser Apps (e.g., google chrome, google search, etc.) according to the following steps: hold down on the App -> Remove App -> Delete App. Complete this step before moving on to step 2.

2. Something I discovered is that many non-browser apps are designed in such a way that by clicking around in them (e.g., their “terms and conditions” section), you’ll be able to access problematic websites through them (despite having all your browser Apps deleted) because they natively support web browsing. To combat this problem, you should first delete all the Apps you can part ways with. This is to save the hassle of clicking around in each one of them. Btw, no need to delete Apple’s own apps (e.g., Apple maps, phone, calendar, camera, etc) as those are safe. Presumably, there will be some third-party Apps that you don’t want to delete for whatever reason. The good news is that you might not need to part ways with them. If you hope to keep them, you will need to spend some time clicking around in them to make sure you can’t get access to problematic websites from them (e.g., by first somehow accessing google search). If you do find a way to access problem websites, you are faced with a choice. Either delete the App and continue with setting up Screen Time as an effective barrier, or don’t use Screen Time as an effective barrier (although see the less gamble-proof set-up below). If you already have other effective barriers set up that have been reliably stopping you from acting on your urges (e.g., other blocking software like Gamban or BetBlocker, permanent ban from the deposit-enabling services, a dedicated accountability partner, etc.), you might decide that the cost of using Screen Time as an effective barrier is too high. However, if you do later relapse through your iPhone, you should immediately start using Screen Time or implement a further effective barrier. At the end of the day, our priority as problem gamblers should always be to overcome our gambling addiction, for nothing good in life can happen while we’re caught in our addiction.

2. Once you’ve deleted all the other Apps that can give you access to problematic websites, the next step is to block the App Store so that you cannot reinstall these Apps, as follows: Settings-> Screen Time -> Content & Privacy Restrictions -> iTunes & App Store Purchases -> set Installing Apps to Don’t Allow. Note that you will still have the ability to update your existing apps: this can be done through Apple’s native text messaging app. Just click on one of your chats and you’ll be able to see a small App Store icon that appears just above your onscreen keyboard. Click the icon -> click on the blue person/body icon -> click on Purchased.

3. Once that is done, you need someone to set up a Screen Time password. When they do, they will be asked to input an Apple ID as a way to reset the password if it is forgotten. Make sure that they input an Apple ID whose user and password you don’t know. If they don’t want to input their own, they can easily create a new Apple ID at icloud.com (on the bottom left corner of that website, it says “Create Apple ID”). Once that’s done, you’re good to go!

4. For those of you who do crypto gambling, make sure to also delete all your wallet apps even if they can’t be used to access problematic websites, just to be safe.

5. If you want to undo the restrictions one day, you and the person who is helping you set up Screen Time should agree to a list of specific conditions that needs to be met for undoing the restrictions. This may include being gamble-free for a certain length of time (e.g., over 2 years), demonstrating that you’ve achieved certain goals, etc. You two should also agree on under what conditions the restrictions would be enforced again.

The less gamble-proof set-up

The set-up just outlined is gamble-proof, but it involves blocking Safari and thus not being able to do any browsing on your phone. It also requires blocking the App Store which means you can’t install any new Apps in the future. A less extreme, but also less gamble-proof set-up allows you to keep Safari or your App Store or both, depending on your choice. This set-up involves using Screen Time to block specific Apps and websites. If there is a specific App you wish to block, the first step is to open/use it for about 30 seconds. Similarly, if there is a specific website you wish to block, the first step is to go to that website on Safari and surf it for about 30 seconds. Then click Settings -> Screen Time -> See All Activity -> find and click on the App’s name or website’s name -> Add Limit -> Set Timer to 1 min and toggle ON “Block at End of Limit” -> Add (in top right corner). Once you do this, you’ll have 1 minute daily access to the App or website that you blocked (keep in mind that even 1 minute access could be problematic for some people). Feel free to delete the Apps you’ve blocked afterwards if you don’t like the clutter (the block will still work if you were to reinstall it from the App Store).

This set-up is less gamble-proof because it opens up the potential for finding a problematic website that you didn’t block or finding a problematic App in the App Store that you didn’t block. Now, if all you care about is being able to browse, you should still block the App Store to make this set-up somewhat more gamble-proof. For the same reason, if all you care about is having the ability to download new Apps in the future, you should still block Safari. If you care to browse and be able to download new Apps, don’t block Safari or the App Store. This is the least gamble-proof set up, but it also requires the least sacrifice.

Moreover, note that this second less gamble-proof set-up may or may not help with the earlier dilemma of wanting to keep a certain third party App that, through clicking around, you’ve found can lead you to problematic websites. You’ll have to see if blocking specific websites will also make those websites inaccessible through such Apps.

Appendix B: Instructions for properly setting up Cold Turkey Blocker (and a note on Gamban)

Cold Turkey Blocker (https://getcoldturkey.com/) is an extremely powerful blocking software for PC/Mac. It can be used to block applications as well as websites. It currently costs $49 CAD for lifetime access, and students can get a 20% discount. I’m a PC user and, for me, it has been an effective barrier. This is because bypassing it requires reinstalling Windows, which is too inconvenient for me to do. Felix, the creator of Blocker, does offer a 7 day free trial, and a 30 day money back guarantee, which gives you some time to see if it’ll be an effective barrier for you. If you find that it’s working well for you, please do yourself the favor of buying it. I won’t get any benefit from you buying it, but I promise that you will. Personally, I know for a fact that I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. Here’s what you need to know about how to set it up properly for PC users, although I imagine it’s similar for Mac.

1. After downloading and opening the software, click on “Blocks” on the left-hand side -> “+ Add a new block” -> “import” -> “Website categories” -> “Gambling” -> “Save as” -> give your new block list a name like ‘A new beginning’. Congrats! You have just created a new block list that contains many gambling urls and key gambling search words that Felix has personally compiled. If you now toggle the blocklist to ON from OFF, this will have the effect of blocking access to many gambling websites. However, you should know that this quick importing strategy currently does not help to block all gambling websites, so you should input the urls that you personally know into your block list. To do this, click on the new name you gave your block list to edit the block list -> type in the url you know -> click add -> repeat the last two steps until you’ve added all the urls you wish to block -> click “Save”. When looking for urls to add to your block list, you may want to google search for casino review websites and add their urls to your block list since those websites are a gateway to countless actual casino urls/websites. For crypto gamblers, add the urls of the crypto exchange platforms you use to buy crypto or to access your wallets and of course the crypto gambling sites you use.

Note that Felix is regularly updating Blocker and is likely to improve the effectiveness of his compilation method, allowing for more gambling sites to be covered. In the meantime, Gamban is a helpful supplement since it does a more complete job at covering gambling sites. However, I’ve heard that Gamban can be bypassed through certain savvy methods. For those of you aware of such methods, perhaps Blocker can supplement Gamban by allowing you to block certain urls or applications that make bypassing Gamban possible on PC/Mac. In this way, Gamban and Blocker can be mutually fortifying.

2. We’re almost done with setting up your new block list. One thing we want to do is remove certain straightforward ways of uninstalling Blocker. One involves going to https://getcoldturkey.com/support/reinstall-instructions/ to download the uninstall.exe file. You’ll want to remove this option by adding that url to your block list. Also, for safe measure, google “How to uninstall Cold Turkey” and add the urls of relevant search results to your block list. In those search results, people might suggest some third-party software that can execute a brute force uninstall, but I’ve personally always been hesitant to download third-party software out of fear of viruses/malware, so I’ve never tried those suggestions. So I don’t know if they work or not. In case that they do work, you should block those urls so you can’t access that information in the future. Or you can download the third-party software file (at your own risk) and use Blocker to block it. To do this, open your block list again, click on “Applications” near the top -> click on “Add exe file to block” -> click on the “Downloads” folder -> click on the file you just downloaded -> click “Save”.

3. Once you’re done with your block list, click on “Settings” on the left-hand side -> “Blocking” at the top center -> toggle ON the following:

“Block unsupported browsers when websites are blocked”

“Block supported browsers if extension crashes while websites are blocked”

“Block Time & Language settings when a block is enabled”

“Block the Pause for a Cause feature on the block page”

Finally, at the bottom, where you see “Seconds given to re-enable browser extensions if disabled or removed”, change the default 60 seconds to 1 second.

3. Now click “Blocks” on the left-hand side to return to your block lists, find the new block list you created. If you have not already toggled it to ON yet, do that. Now click on “Unlocked (with the unlocked symbol)”, which is right beneath the toggle. Here, you’ll have several options of how you’d like to lock your block so that you can’t toggle it OFF whenever you wanted to. I highly recommend using the “Timer” option and selecting “As long as possible” (apx 16 years) from the dropdown menu. Then click Save -> “Lock for 16 years”. Congrats, you’re all done!

As you play around with Blocker, you’ll see that it has a lot of useful features and can be used to effectively deal with other addictions as well. Moreover, for some of us, time management/self-control may be things we never developed when growing up. That’s true of me, as I grew up playing video games all day long and never did my homework. If you’re like me, Blocker can drastically improve the trajectory of your life beyond just helping you with your gambling addiction.