Issue #6 · April 22, 2026
Heavy week. Three new original research articles, a full rehaul of the user auth and settings experience, and a big speed pass on the Research page. Below is the changelog.
Original Research
- NEW The Border-State Problem: What WalletHub's 2026 Gambling Rankings Really Measure — a methodology breakdown of the viral 2026 state rankings, and why the per-capita math misrepresents who's actually being harmed.
- NEW Old Ways: Tame Impala and the Sound of Relapse — a musical review of Kevin Parker's 2025 track on the cycle of addiction relapse. Includes embedded audio.
- NEW 9 Months Free From Gambling: What It Really Took — first-person testimony from inside the GAMeetingFinder community.
- Added the WalletHub 2026 ranking, the Yahoo/KARE11 federal-funding piece, the NYT story on the New Haven police chief's $4.5M gambling secret, and NPR's teens-and-sports-betting coverage to the In the News section.
Clean Time Dashboard
A dedicated /dashboard page that makes your clean time the centerpiece of the logged-in experience:
- NEW Four visualization modes for your clean time: Slices, Circles, Streak, and Start.
- NEW Milestone celebrations for every day of the first 90, then calendar months and years.
- Latest-milestone card always surfaces where you are right now.
- Accessible from the nav dropdown on every page.
- Cross-device dedup — celebrate on your phone, no repeat on your laptop.
User Auth & Settings
Expanded auth and a robust settings suite:
- NEW Customizable avatars — upload an image, or get an auto-generated initials chip. Shown in the header on every logged-in page.
- NEW Display name, phone, meeting groups, and "why I'm sober" fields on your account.
- Redesigned settings pages: Account Details, Security, Preferences, Notifications, Subscriptions, Identities, Close Account.
- Zoho-powered transactional emails: verification, welcome, password reset, and a branded 24-hour follow-up.
Performance
- Research page image bundle: 14.5 MB → 2.1 MB (−85%). All raster assets converted to WebP.
- Off-screen sections now defer layout/paint until scrolled near. Scroll feels noticeably smoother.
- Research page desktop performance score: 62 → 82 on Lighthouse.
- Added a `404.html` error page so bad URLs return a clean 404 instead of a server error.
Polish & Fixes
- Unified all hover tooltips to the brand green‑on‑white style (country flags, heart buttons, meeting-type badges, social-proof numbers, GA Sanctioned shield).
- Research-article figures are now click-to-zoom.
- GA Sanctioned badge tooltip no longer clips on top-row meeting cards.
- Donate buttons on /about now work end-to-end (external-link confirmation modal had been intercepting itself).
- Mobile: bigger tap targets on the header avatar, single-click image upload, and assorted card-tooltip fixes.
What's Next
- GAMeetingFinder's own data-driven research on effective recovery from gambling addiction.
- More OC pieces in the pipeline.
- Ongoing: verifying user-submitted meetings, adding peer-reviewed studies, and partnership outreach.
Join the Street Team
Want to be part of our Street Team and help grow the mission? Email [email protected] to learn how to support the cause — whether that's sharing the site, contributing content, helping verify meetings, or anything else you'd bring to the table.
Want to support GAMeetingFinder directly? Contribute by making a server donation. Everything you give goes to keeping the lights on.
If this helped you or someone you know, forward it. If you need a meeting right now, find one here — available 24/7, no signup required.
Feedback, bug reports, story ideas: tap Report a Bug or Share an Idea on the homepage, or email [email protected].
Have a Good 24.
— gameetingfinder.com