Please excuse if this was posted before- I looked back a few pages, didn't see it

Former LSU star, current NFL player opens up about his addiction.

Glad to see him fight hard vs these issues.

Once again, sincere apologies if this was posted before and I simply didn't see it.

Kayshon Boutte

I fell in love with gambling.

I know that might sound crazy to some people, but every addict out there is nodding their heads, like..… Damn, that’s real.

You really feel in love with it.

I was 20. I was at LSU. Full ride. Whole future ahead of me. And I didn’t care at all.

Some people hit the slots, the tables, the apps, spend what they can spend, and go home — or put the phone down. Not me.

I’d wake up early in the morning, and the first thing I’d do was bet. I’d stay up late and bet. All day. All night. I had insomnia, so if I woke up in the middle of the night, phone next to the bed, I’d bet. Any little money I had, it was going straight to FanDuel.

I knew I was addicted. When you lose, and you’re an addict, there’s this voice in the back of your mind like, No, no, no…… I gotta get my money back. I GOTTA get it back.

But even when you win, it’s never enough — you aren’t satisfied just winning $1,000. Don’t get me wrong, a bag is nice. But nobody gambles for that kind of money. Gambling is about the dream. Everybody’s dream is to go to the casino and hit for $100K … $300K … $500K. And a lot of gamblers think that if they quit, it would end up being right before their biggest hit, before they would have tripled up on some parlay. 10x, 20x. Why not? That could be me. That’s the mindset that always kept me hanging on. What if I do quit, but one day, I would’ve hit this, and we’da been on a boat somewhere, living off it?

Gambling is a complicated thing, dawg. Especially with the apps.

You know how the casino don’t got no windows, or clocks? It’s all a mind game. They don’t want you thinking about the outside world. They don’t want you to look out the window, see the sun done gone down, and realize how long you been gambling. Well, the phone is like that, too, in its own way. I’d be in my own world. Laying in bed, in the dark, in pain, with the light glowing on my face. It was a lonely experience. Like you in an empty casino, alone at the blackjack table. Adding more money to the account, and more money, and more money, with the press of a couple buttons. You lose touch with reality. It gets to a point where it feels like the money ain’t even real. But it is real, because in the real world, I was living paycheck to paycheck. Waiting on NIL checks to clear.