The first 72 hours

The decision is the hard part. The next three days have a plan.

Three windows, in order. Nothing in this plan requires spending money or giving your name — it's just the honest arithmetic of stopping, one day at a time.

1. 1

   Day 1 — today

   Lock the accounts and self-exclude

   Remove the option while the option is loud. Self-exclude from your province's operator (casinos, online, lottery), block gambling app installs behind someone else's passcode, remove stored payment methods, and ask your bank to switch on a gambling-transaction block — most Canadian banks will. Make the settings hard to undo at 1 a.m.

2. 2

   Day 2 — tomorrow

   Tell one trusted person the real number

   Secrecy is the engine of the whole thing. You don't need a family meeting — you need one human who knows the true figure, not the softened one. It doesn't have to be family; it has to be honest. Saying the number out loud once takes most of the power out of it.

3. 3

   Day 3 — this week

   Sit with a free credit counsellor before you borrow

   Before any consolidation loan or family bailout, get free advice from a non-profit credit counsellor — the debt left vague is the relapse waiting to happen, and paying it off fast can backfire. Free provincial credit counsellors see gambling debt every week and won't be shocked by yours.