Hello Steemians,

My name is Riku Forsell. I'm 30 years old guy from Finland.

I'm recovering gambling addict. Now I have been in recovery about 13 months. I have played different games: sport betting, slots, internet casino, internet poker, bingo etc. My gambling "career" started when I was about 12-13 years old. We have those slot machines in everywhere here in Finland. It doesn't matter if it is big or small shop there is atleast one slot machine in a shop.

When I was young, age limit was 15 years to bet or play slot machines but oversight wasn't very good. So it was easy to play those machines as underaged kid. So I gambled most of my weekly allowance or any money I got before I turned 15. I remember that I had craving for the slots when I was 15 years old. Craving is one of those signs that you are addicted to something.

After I turned 15 years old I continued playing those machines and started sport betting and betting on horses. After I turned 18 years old I started playing internet poker. First I played freerolls and got every no-deposit bonus which I could find out. When I got to my first summer job I lost almost all of my salaries to poker. At that time I had my first attempts to quit my gambling. I managed to be without gambling about year or so. After that my gambling continued. It took some years when I only played money I had. When I was maybe 23/24 years I first played with my credit card.

After my first attempt to quit gambling I tried to quit many times and managed to be short times without gambling. When I was 25 I managed to be 6 months without gambling because I wanted to travel Rio De Janeiro. After two months in Rio De Janeiro and coming back to Finland, I relapsed again. I continued gambling. I played when I was drinking or when I was sober. Those times were very frustrating. Games controlled my life.

And couple years after playing with credit card I started to get loans for gambling. I managed to pay my debt back always until last time. Couple years ago I managed to get over 50000 euros debt because of gambling addiction which I couldn't pay back. Now I have over 60000 euros in debt.

Last summer I did also day trading with cryptocurrencies and noticed that it resembles my gambling addiction so I had to quit it.

I am also martial artist. I have over 10 years experience in martial arts: 3 years in karate and over 8 years in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I don't train karate anymore but I train BJJ. I have purple belt in BJJ. I have taught BJJ for kids, beginners and more experienced people. I also have over 50 competition matches.

Mostly I will be blogging/vlogging about addiction. I will tell everything I know about addiction. I see that there is only one universal addiction, only target is different for everyone.

Best regards,
Riku Forsell