Of course things like gambling addictions can be overcome and it can become possible for it to be a thing of the past, but thats easier said than done. In reality most people need some kind of outside help when overcoming their gambling problems. Self help is really only going to bring you so far before you realise that you lack the discipline (as most people do) to go through with it.
Addictions are unfortunately a long term brain hormone disbalance. So "forgetting and moving on" is reallly just a fairy tale. That takes years.
If you want to help yourself, you must have a strong awareness that you are having a gambling addiction problem to work towards overcoming it.
But the problem is, most people will not realize that they have become addicted even though they have used a lot of money just to gamble.
This makes it difficult for them to start overcoming the problem of gambling addiction.
And this is why they really need the help of others but without any intention from within us, it will be very difficult because we do not tell in detail what happened to us.