Spent the last 9 years with my gambling vice of choice- options markets. I worked all my savings up to a million dollars at one point and as of last Friday have lost over $900,000 of that. In the past 3 months alone a frenetic stretch of trading cost me 2 separate 25% losses and then a 40% loss last week. Meaning I lost over 70% of the money just since June.
Now I’m early 40s and about 0 net worth- just a bit of money for living expenses for perhaps 5-6 months- and given that I spent my 30s on this gambling addiction (yes, this was my sole “employment” as perhaps 1/3 of the $900,000 in losses went to living expenses, charitable donations, etc) I see no hope of finding gainful employment.
Not to mention I have to live with lighting a million dollars on fire because I was mentally weak. It got bad enough that I had a very lengthy conversation with my mother trying to convince her it was “OK” if I killed myself to leave the life insurance money to a good cause (I have a fairly large 6 digit policy).
Tried repeatedly to explain to her that there’s no getting past this, ever. She wasn’t buying. It isn’t being dramatic. I can’t handle that my own stupidity put me in this position when a lot of people could have done great things with that money.