Looking back, I'm grateful that I had a gambling problem early in my life

Sorry, I don't know if these kind of stories are welcome here- will delete if not.

But when I was around 19-22ish, I had a pretty bad gambling problem. I worked a near minimum wage job as a waiter after dropping out of college. And I was thrilled about the idea of quickly doubling my money by betting on a sport that I knew fairly well.

But whenever I lost enough I would go into a spiral where I chased my losses and eventually any meager earnings that came into my hands went straight to a sportsbook's pocket. It was crazy to watch myself have zero control of my actions. I knew I was sabotaging myself- but whenever any money went into my bank account- it was like I was watched helplessly as a stranger immediately deposited my money into a casino.

There were times where I had to live weeks off of nutella, white bread and water because of this. I was really malnourished, and the only times I ate decent food was when the place where I worked at let us eat leftovers. Was always grateful for that.

Eventually I learned my lesson that I was up against an entity worth billions of dollars that employ a ton of smart analysts with high end tools that can know the outcome of a game much better than I ever could. And that it was a hopeless battle for someone like me.

Today, years later, gambling is now a thing of the past (though something I am constantly wary of) I have a much higher paying job- and I invest it responsibly and I vowed to never touch options. All in all I probably lost less than $10k in total (which was a lot for a 20 year old) but the financial lessons it taught me saved me so much more in the long run.