This is day 3… no update yesterday. Been busy the past couple days at work. Feeling good still, but the first few days are never super challenging. Have been working on my mental state and trying to see the end goal. With it only being day 3, the light at the end of the tunnel is shining bright, but still far away. No shortcuts. Constant reminder I’m trying to give myself. Upcoming weekends will be the hardest times. As far as goals go… I’ve been trying to come up with some. Have some pretty big expenses coming up to pay and not sure exactly how much they will end up being, but I will figure it out and post some more accurate goals. One of my goals if everything plays out how I am thinking is to obviously stay disciplined, and fly out for Wsop, play the mini main and maybe one other event with a 5k bankroll to fire at tournaments. However… if I am not feeling comfortable and trusting in myself being around the pits, I just won’t go. If it doesn’t happen, so be it. I’m not in a rush to get back to the poker table… I’m in a rush to establish discipline in my life and poker will still be there after I do that. Another goal is to have a 40k bankroll by the end of the year and start playing 5/10 again and build back from there. Very reasonable and realistic goal(s) for myself short term and long term. Will continue to update. Hope everyone is doing well.

What’s up guys. Name’s Dustin. I’m currently 27 and was feeling lost for years. I had a 50k roll 3 years ago and found a way to torch almost all of it. Casino, poker, sports betting, investing, drugs, you name it. Almost everything in my life that I enjoyed to do from age 20-26 bled me out. I always found a way to spend money instead of saving, I never quite really “understood” how important saving and stacking was until I pretty much lost all of it. Here I am 27 years old with $2,000 to my name. This isn’t intended to be a sob story, but perhaps the beginning of a real rebuild. For 1 month I’ve been sober off drugs, which doesn’t sound impressive but for me it’s fucking monumental. I’ve cut unnecessary spending completely (besides girlfriend expenses lol), I haven’t played poker in about 6 months, haven’t placed a single bet in 4 months, and I honestly have no intention of looking back at the moment. I’ve had a serving job where they allowed me to work 1 day a week and that’s literally what I did for years, because I had it in my mind that gambling would reward me far more than waiting tables ever could. The upswings were pretty nice, but the downswings? Absolutely fucking brutal. You could see I set myself up to fail, I was just too blind to realize it I told myself I was gonna make a change and 2 months ago I’ve been picking up more shifts and set myself a goal to work 4 days a week (at the very least) and put in 10-12 hours each shift to get me back on my feet. I’m doing well in following through so far, just this week I’ve put in 43 hours By the end of 2026 hopefully I’ll have at least 20k from honest work. I’m really aiming for 30/40k but after bills, groceries, gym, and girlfriend, I think 20k is much more reasonable. If you’ve made it this far I genuinely thank you for reading my story, and by the end of 2026 hopefully I’ll have something good to tell you guys. Until then, I’ll just be grinding.

Hi my name is Landon, I’m 27 years old. I am a poker player trying to break the cycle. From the time I was 19 to current day, I have been playing poker regularly and grinded my way from 1/2 all the way up to 25/50 stakes playing mostly NLHE and branched out to PLO over the past couple years. Through my poker career, I had been pretty disciplined until the past couple years. Took a trip to Vegas with some friends that didn’t play poker and ended up playing blackjack with them one night. Ended up playing for 5 days straight with only sleeping less than 10 hours over that span. That was the start of the end. Instead of playing poker, I started torching it all in the pits. Online mostly. Even started playing games I didn’t have the bankroll for. Spending so much time in the pits, I have let my poker game go to an extent and don’t have the edge I once had in some of the bigger games. I want to get back to being a disciplined player and loving the game like I once did. Today is day 1 for me. Hoping this group will help encourage me to break the cycle and get back there.

Roll call for WSOP? Who’s going? Gauging interest for a Break the Cycle meet up! I should be there for the opening week to fire the Mini Mystery Millions bracelet event.