BENGALURU: A software engineer who lost Rs 70 lakh to online rummy, prompting his wife and children to abandon him, underwent seven months of counselling, kicked the habit and won back his family after vowing to never go back to his old ways.

Vikas (name changed), 40, was on cloud nine last Tuesday as his family returned to his home in CV Raman Nagar.

For Vikas, gambling was always a weakness.

Starting with placing bets on local cricket ties in his village in Tumakuru as a teen, his gambling turned into an addiction as he graduated and became a successful software engineer with a top IT firm in Bengaluru.

In 2014, he met his partner, also a techie, online and they tied the knot soon after.

They had two girl children.In mid-2022, Vikas' 36-year-old wife accidentally found that he was hooked to playing online rummy and wasn't concentrating on work and family matters.

"In October, she was shell-shocked to find her husband had lost Rs 70 lakh from their savings to online gambling.

It was the tipping point for her, and she took her children and left for her mother's place.

Wanting to take up the matter legally, she approached KR Puram police station with a complaint against her husband's online rummy addiction and the huge losses due to it," said Rani Shetty, head of Parihar, Vanitha Sahayavani (women's helpline) of city police.

Parihar, seeking to reconcile the differences between the couple, invited the woman to discuss the matter.

She explained the gravity of the situation and the financial burden and emotional trauma she and her kids were going through.

The husband was summoned to Parihar at Malleswaram police station towards the end of October.Result after seven months "Initially, he was indifferent and irritated by his wife's complaint to the cops and insisted that she and the kids return home.

But with her standing her ground that she would not do so unless he kicked the online gambling habit, he gradually started to come around.

He broke down and said he wanted to win back his family and put an end to his addiction," said Shetty, who conducted numerous counselling sessions with Vikas and even sent him to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences for tech de-addiction therapy.

"The wife was extremely happy about his improvement over the seven months and the husband finally declared himself free of online gambling addiction as he walked into my office this week, hand in hand with his wife," the senior counsellor of Parihar said.

The man has now converted his bank account into a joint one with his spouse, empowering her to stop him if he ever relapses.