Here’s something I think a lot of us have done: sell stuff on ebay, or what ever (local) auction / 2nd goods website you’re using, with the very good intention of putting the money towards paying bills, but as soon as the money comes in you find yourself going of track and to the betting venue of your choice, or a new one you just discovered, because if you’re an online gambler, there seems to be a frakking new site every day, right?
Now what’s so logic defying about this is, that in my case when I’m selling stuff I always come to the conclusion that many of those items don’t really mean all that much to me. It’s just stuff. But then, what would you do if you would hit the jackpot on one of the slot machines? Surely one would buy a lot of stuff. If I don’t feel like I need it, then why do I feel I need the money?
I guess it is because I like the security of having money in the bank “just in case”. What a joke! Because of this gambling problem I haven’t had money in a savings account for over 2 years.
There’s also the fact that with the money, I could visit my family and friends more often. For those of you that haven’t read previous posts, I live alone abroad, which is Sweden and my parents and friends live in Belgium. It’s 1600 km drive plus a short trip with a ferry or about 2 and a half hours flying and then I need a rental car to get to my parents place, so it takes money to get me there.
So maybe it’s not all that logic defying that I go looking for extra money by trying my luck in the online casinos… But the thing is that during the last months that I have been playing on and off, I find myself going in with the fatalistic feeling that I’m going to lose it all anyway. That’s crazy right? There’s always some hope, but while I see the money in the gambling account go up, I would feel myself thinking: “any minute now I’ll have set of 10 automatic spin of this slots that gives me back nothing and I’ll try to pull it back up at the black jack table but it’s all going to go down hill from there.” How crazy is that?!
I hope I can hold on to this piece of logic: what’s been harming you for over 2 and a half years and has been harming other people for decades is not all of sudden going to do me any good.
This is day for of being gambling free, but there’s hardly any money in the bank and no new “interesting” site at the moment, so it’s not that hard. Does anybody have some good tricks up their sleeves to suppress those panicky feelings one gets when making up your balance sheet and seeing just how little you’ll have left to last you the month after paying all the bills? For those of you that are familiar with the Harry Potter books and movies: I’m looking for my happy thought to help me perform the patronus spell 🙂