I still haven’t gambled, drank, smoked pot at all. It’s good. I am finding that when work is very stressful for me, like it is right now, I tend to get anxious. Duh, right? So I have been checking my breathing, and it is shallow, and my chest is all tense, which is not good. So I need to do some deep breathing, some light exercise, watch some comedy on tv, and do the things that truly get me in a relaxed state. That’s called listening to your body, and I am learning how to do it now.
In the past, I would let this situation build up a lot, and actually make it worse by doing adrenaline inducing activities like video games. And of course drink and smoke to try and smother out those anxious feelings. And then, if I could get the chance I would escape and gamble with the false thought that it would erase the anxious feelings too. I know now that every last thing I thought gambling would help me with (reducing stress, give me a happy feeling, get to hang out with a bunch of “friends”, get a thrill) all were false. Even the getting a thrill part. What I get from the gambling is a rush of adrenaline due to fear, after really thinking about it. If I had a huge bet out, and a big win or loss depended on the next card the dealer flipped over, my heart would race, because I was scared! It was only a relief if I won! Now that is a really demented and masochistic form of excitement! Gambling is a huge CAUSE of stress, not a relief of stress. Just a few examples of the complete perversion of truth that we are brainwashed to believe as gamblers.
The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get about how much of a fool I was to ever believe that gambling is anything good! It’s all a load of crap, and I fell for it for sooooo long. Oh well, live and learn, and never again to gamble shall I go.