EDIT* This is a long rambling post. Read it at your peril, I am not sure how interesting it is 😉
Jansdad (I want to call you by your first name as have chatted on Facebook etc but not sure of protocol) you wrote an interesting post, which pricked all kinds of reactions in me. I had to re-read it several time so that I was sure I understood what you meant by what you wrote.
I have always understood, and I believe this to be true, that the actual amount of money each of us has lost over time is irrelevant. What is a small sum (less than what you spent on hookers) to you, was my life’s savings. Context is all important. What’s true is that I have not everything. Yet. And yes, I was playing micro but the fact that playing c25/c50 or c50/d1 tables for such a length of time meant I lost 25K over 1 year (1K a month while running a business making 7 short films in 2012) shows how much time I was losing to it.
You cannot put a price on the damage we have wreaked on our psyche’s, families, futures. That is priceless. My wife has no had enough. I have to move out AND pay the rent as well as rent somewhere else.
You say you never took my gambling seriously. That really got me thinking deeply about what just happened. I have spent the last 2/3 weeks in a deep funk. I lost a tiny amount of money previously, but tons of time and self respect. But after reading many of the posts here (and what I am about to write is meant in no way as critical except with regards my own faulty thinking) I felt I was not a real CG like everyone else. My losses were small, I wasn’t reduced to penury, I didn’t know what it was like to gamble serious amounts of money. Last night started innocently, but I believe it was the really childish part of me that wants to do what others do that took over. What started off as £10 with £20 free (which when I realised I would have ot gamble 40 times to access any winning I cancelled) and then through careful playing built up. But as I was playing i realised I wasn’t going to stop. A part of me WANTED TO BE A COMPULSIVE GAMBLER IN FULL FLOW. WINNING BIG, BETTING BIG, LOSING BIG, CHASING DESPERATELY. This was very different from POker.
I think I suffer from obsessive habits, though I have never been diagnosed as OCD in any way. But I had no interested in roulette as you have no decisions to make there. That is PURE chance. Blackjack is a game I have always enjoyed. You believe you have some choices to make based on the information available.
As I was playing I got deeper and deeper into “action”. I loved it. I have not had a rush like that since doing really good coke about 10 years ago, or really good pills. I was ALIVE. The money was numbers, I was up, I was down. I was round and around.
Last night I lived the life of the CG as I have read it. PUtting 1K on a single hand of Blackjack and hitting Blackjack was intense. 1.5K winnings plus stake.
At some point I believed I had mind melded with the algorithm and was timing small bets of just 10 or 20 when I though the dealer would win, and then timed bigger bets. Obviously this is insane, but sometimes that paid off and I am a lucky bastard to have come out with a 10 loss. I am astounded and grateful to the world and the universe.
Last night I managed to combine all aspects of CG apart from walking away with a really big win. I have thought about this. Part of me (a small childish part) wishes I could have walked away with 1 or 2K up. But I know that would be BAD, as it would encourage me to think about it again. I am very HAPPY I did not end up 4.5K down. I ended up £10 down – after a 7 hour spree. I do not know how that happened, I am just grateful.
ALl us CGs are the same I do not think I thought I was the same. I think I needed last night to confirm it. INterestingly I have no urges anymore. I do not feel sorry for myself. I have not been wailing like a 5 year old. Something resnapped in my head. The best analogy I can make for me is to compare it to a night almost exactly 4 years ago and I spent 7 hours all night consuming Nitrous Oxide on my own. I went through 600 cannitsors with huge balloons that could take 4 or 5 cannitors as a time. I have never hallucinated like that night previous or since – and I believe that night broke me. I encountered parts of my mind that should never had been encountered. I think last night fixed it. Don’t ask me how.
I showed myself that, yes, I understanding what gambling is now at larger stakes. Still nothing compared to some people here, but it gives me a glimpse of that reality.
I want to help people, as well as help myself. My gambling is symptomatic of something in my life, but last night I needed to prove to myself I am a CG. Because I don’t think I believed it.
My final point is this, and this is something I have just learned. I loved the rush. It was like drugs. I was in another world. Playing poker never really put me in the same world. That was something else. What scares me truly is that I have never been in a casino, and there is a part of me that wants to do that, as an experience. Like a holiday. Go in and suck it up. It’s terrifying, but at least I am coming to terms with how this illness affects me.
I think what I did I did to be like others, and that is sad. I have psnet my life acting in ways that I think are cool when others do it. NOt doing it for myself. This is a ghost of a childhood that I realise is haunting me.
JD, I thank you for your post. I could read the love in there, also the cynicism and the casual acceptance of your degeneracy (no offense). I appluad you and want to see you and everyone here get better. You are very honest.
Please accept my love and thanks for taking the time to read y post and offer advice. It really means a lot considering you know nothing about me.
See you soon soon
M