That is a very unfortunate situation your elder brother is going through, especially now during the Holidays. We can tell here anything we want to express how irresponsible he was to have put so much money at risk without prioritizing his investments, sources of income and professional career in first place, but the damage is already done and everything we should care from now on is encouraging him to rebuild his financial life, with the learnship in mind of the mistake he commited and that must not be repeated! What happened was useful as a lesson that will prevent him from wasting money in gambling futurely, but now the focus has to be in finding a job, making money and growing his patrimony.

I believe it's being hard for him to deal with all the negative emotions and possibly regrets hammering his mind day and night. He needs support from the family and friends to start again. Give him strength and hope that the currently obstacle can be overcome and that futurely he can achieve much more than 18,000$ if he struggles towards this objective. If you have health, you can keep fighting and trying, but if you give up, besides not achieving anything, you will also lose your health, because that is what happens when we are consumed by negative emotions on the long run.