Christina Cook hosts the podcast “The Broke Girl Society.” For PS’s Radical Honesty issue, she discusses overcoming gambling addiction. Read more radically honest stories here.

I started gambling when I was 28. I found myself, already at that age, married and divorced. I wasn’t somebody for the bars or anything, but they had just opened up a casino a few miles from where I lived, and I’d gone a few times before for girls’ nights or date nights. I just thought it seemed like a safe place to grab a drink and entertain myself for a little bit and then go home. That’s where my relationship with it began.

At the time, it just felt like a way to get out of the house for a little bit. It felt safe. It’s weird saying that now, but it’s just something that I casually did for the next five years, maybe once a month. Then I changed jobs, got into relationships that were harmful to me, and I started to use it more and more as a coping mechanism. Trying to escape the stress of life.

For the next seven years, it became this battle of gambling. By 42, it had become really destructive financially. It had impacted my life in so many ways that I finally had that dark moment of, “This is going to take me. I don’t want to be on this planet anymore.” I was just a shell of the person I used to be. And then I had a really bad night at the casino; it devastated me financially and it devastated me mentally. So I talked to my mom the next day, and she said, “We’re going to figure this out, we’re going to get help.” I started Gamblers Anonymous and therapy the next week. That was March 6, 2021, and that was my last bet.

Early on, I wasn’t coming across a lot of women who had struggled with this. When I was going to GA meetings, I was in a room full of men. I could connect on behaviors of my gambling addiction with the men in the room, but I had so many other issues going on. I knew I needed women’s support; I knew there were other women who had gone through this, because I remember sitting there at the machine, looking to either side, and I was surrounded by women.

So I started doing some research. I started reaching out on social media and I started blogging my experience so I could maybe help someone who was in the same position as me. Then, an amazing podcaster reached out to me and wanted me to come on her podcast, and it just felt really, really great to be able to have that conversation and connect with another person who had been down a similar path. She’s one of my closest friends now, and after that experience, I thought, “I could podcast about my own journey and maybe it’ll help somebody.” So I started putting myself out there, and then other people started reaching out to me, and the community started to build up around “The Broke Girl Society,” and more women started sharing their stories.

At first, it was really, really hard to get other women who wanted to share their experience — the stigma and shame all played into it. But I think because I kept sharing my own journey and the journey of others, it made it feel safer and safer and safer. So now, I have all kinds of women coming forward and sharing their stories.

By now, I’ve shared my story quite a bit, and sometimes I wonder if that’s the only thing that anybody’s ever going to know about me. It’s always really hard to be that vulnerable. But I do it because I hope the person reading it knows that this isn’t all they are. Gambling is something we do, it’s not who we are.

Yes, shame is a hard barrier to get through — especially being a woman and with the stigma associated with gambling. But I feel like the more people hear that somebody else was able to move through that fear of the unknown, of wondering what will happen if I share my story or ask for help . . . I just feel the power in that.

So many people say I’m brave for putting myself out there. But if I could change the narrative, it would be that I’m brave for getting away from something that’s harmful to me. I feel like when we tell someone they’re brave for sharing their story, we reinforce the stigma — like I should still feel shame. Bravery and courage are amazing things. But we’re doing those things to better our life. I’m not brave for sharing my story; I’m brave for changing my life.

Lena Felton is the senior director of features and special content at POPSUGAR, where she oversees feature stories, special projects, and our identity content. Previously, she was an editor at The Washington Post, where she led a team covering issues of gender and identity.