A Vicious and Stupid Cycle

I was enjoying a winning streak in both poker and blackjack. In two weeks I’d won well over $1000 and then one morning at Chips Casino in Lakewood I hit a royal flush jackpot worth more than $800! I was stunned! The first words out of my mouth were “I’ll be damned.” Another $400 was to be paid to me if my hand held up until noon as the highest hand and since there is no hand higher than a royal flush, the waiting was pretty much ceremonial, but to kill the time I wandered over to the blackjack tables where I quickly got myself into trouble… losing a little and then a little more and then a lot. At one point I started winning several hands and came back up almost to where I started. If I could win $90 more I would break even on the blackjack tables. I probably should have walked away then and enjoyed my $1200 prize money from the royal flush, but something took control of me. Something sinister inside of me that determined I would win back my $90. A few minutes later I was reeling with huge loss after huge loss. When I finally left Chips I only had $300 left of the prize money. On my way home I resolved to give up gambling. I told myself I was still a winner for the day. At least I hadn’t lost any of the cash I’d walked in with. But before midnight I was at Freddie’s Casino in Fife losing at poker. I wasn’t playing my best game either. I mean at first I was playing smart, but when that didn’t work I was playing with a desperate need to win a hand and consequently losing much more than I should have been. I left the table down $500 and tried to win it back on blackjack where I quickly lost another $200. Despite my unprecedented royal flush I ended the day $400 poorer than when I woke up. On the way home I once again made up my mind to quit gambling. And this time I stuck to it. For one day. But then two days later I was at the Emerald Queen where I went on tilt and lost $1200. That’s when I made up my mind for real that I would never gamble again, but as usual it only took so many hours before I devised a new plan for gambling that would be far more successful. It involved the idea of playing smart and not playing crazy just because of a little bad luck. And it worked. In one week I won about $1200 including about $470 in a single day. Then yesterday I went on tilt again and lost $1100 and now I’m determined that I will never gamble again.

Have you ever seen a more vicious or a more stupid cycle? Even while typing the above paragraph a part of my mind was busy sorting out my strategy mistakes and attempting to perfect my approach so that I could be sure to win perpetually from now on. The sinister part of my mind is regrouping for another assault on the good part of me that just wants to be happy with what I have. I know it won’t be easy so I always try to find a new method for quitting, but sometimes I feel I’ve tried everything already. Once I posted on MySpace daily updates of how long it had been since my last regression. Another time I attempted to quit simultaneously to a friend giving up alcohol so we could compete for the bragging rights (he’s still not drinking). I even went to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting once and thought I would continue going forever, but then the next week I inadvertently went to a casino instead and lost some amount of money the total of which has dropped off the edge of my memory. If I had to guess how much money I’ve lost in casinos since moving to Washington nine years ago, I would estimate about $60,000. And you know what? A lot of people will read that total and not believe their eyes, but a lot of other people will say they’ve lost that much gambling in the past nine months. And some have lost much more than that. Regular people.

One fellow at that GA meeting made a huge impression on me. He had been trying to quit for more than 40 years and he said he wasn’t sure if he was going to talk that night because it was so hard. And he left early. Had you been there you would have supposed he left because he was so upset and distraught. But there was a more powerful motive. I know without anyone having to confirm it for me that he left early to go play poker. I said to myself I didn’t want to be that fellow in 40 years and still wishing I could quit.

I’m better off than lots of folks. I’ve demonstrated some abstinence. In 2006 I went 86 consecutive days without gambling. In 2007 it was 142 days and earlier this year I made it to 152 days. I’m interested in breaking that record beginning now, but first I have to withstand the relentless desire to win it all back.

The new twist I’m implementing this time is to contact a different person each day to report on my progress. These are the folks who can expect to hear from me:

Day 1: Mother
Day 2: Tricey
Day 3: Travis
Day 4: Jason Wilson
Day 5: Jenny Alyssa
Day 6: Father
Day 7: Ivy
Day 8: Rasmey
Day 9: Lindsay
Day 10: Joel
Day 11: Ricky
Day 12: Julie Nastri
Day 13: Joey Rositani
Day 14: Ken Lonseth
Day 15: Paulina Soria
Day 16: Jack York
Day 17: Noelle
Day 18: Verity
Day 19: Brian
Day 20: Papa Ken
Day 21: Jeris
Day 22: Kellisima
Day 23: Marianne
Day 24: Tamara
Day 25: Sarigo San

That’s the new part of the plan which will help me to keep in touch with people that care about me, but at the same time I won’t overburden any one person with too much information about my quest for freedom from this insatiable vice. Once I’ve gone through the list I will begin again with the first person with the result that each one can expect to hear from me every 25 days.

The second part of my plan has to do with routine. Routines tend to break down when we lack sufficient energy. I know regular exercise will enhance my self-discipline, but all it takes is one night of restless sleep for me to abandon my plans for a strenuous workout, but in order to get better sleep I think I have to dismiss caffeine and excessive sweets from my diet.

No sweets + No Caffeine = Adequate Sleep = Regular Exercise & Sufficient Energy

When I’m successful at gambling I can win hundreds and thousands of dollars and there is an undeniable high that comes from this! So even though it’s a habit that renders me utterly miserable at times, it’s also something that I enjoy and it does leave a void which must be filled. Therefore I’m going to watch more movies and dine at restaurants more often and visit new places and do new things.

Furthermore I’m going to become religious about my expenses. I will certainly be spending money, but I want to be more meticulous in keeping track of exactly how much I’m spending on what. What happens when I’m gambling is that so much cash piles up in my wallet it becomes disorganized. I try to get rid of smaller bills by converting them into larger. This tendency desensitizes me to the value of a dollar. My goal is to relearn the appreciation for smaller amounts of money thereby sabotaging the appeal of a recreation that will potentially (absolutely) be financially wasteful. I need to be at the bank all the time depositing money as quickly as it’s earned so it hasn’t time to accumulate into a decent gambling investment. During spans of abstinence in the past I’ve really enjoyed how much more money I’ve been able to save than I really know what to do with. I have the potential to lead a life very nearly free of financial stress.

I want to be more meditative and more in touch with my own attitude toward gambling. I am familiar with the phases. Right now I’m in the baptism phase where I want a new and sinless beginning. Eventually I will merge into the liberation phase whereby I can honestly say that I’m not gambling and will go home after work each day and not even think about stopping at a casino. But one day I will have so much money sitting around that I’ll descend into the speculation phase and begin thinking about how much I could probably win if I tried my luck and (more dubiously) skill. When the temptation returns I want to confront it valiantly whereas in the past my guard has slipped too much to put up much of a fight. It’s a hell of a thing to resist something you desperately want. In order to emerge from this dungeon I have to communicate with myself frankly about what’s going to happen if I start gambling again. Not that I might forfeit my happiness… but that I will forfeit my happiness.

There is an anguish that comes from losing hundreds of dollars and having no one to blame but yourself; an anguish that comes from inflicting that upon yourself and feeling helpless about it, as though you were literally incapable of making a better choice when there were dozens of better choices all around you. My objective is to leave that kind of unhappiness forever behind.

My Light Will Still Burn

My weekend draws to a close. Tammy Coon found me. I went to school with her for one year in 1984-85 and fell for her completely. I was 13 when I met her and 14 the last time I ever saw her. This is the second time we've communicated with each other since the 7th gade; this latest courtesy of Facebook. She posted a comment today asking what I've been up to for the past two days. I answered I've been busy with picking up Mason at the airport. Mason is a magnificent longhaired black cat. He has belonged to my brother Travis in Alaska, but the situation became complicated as his voluminous demands for attention detracted from the tranquility required for sleeping in that household, especially critical because my brother and his wife are the proud parents of a beautiful son only four months old. Mason arrived in a little portable kennel and I brought him into my apartment where he patiently ignores the hissing of my other cat, Senorita Magdalena Marseilles.

My friend, Jenny Alyssa, having learned of this upcoming expansion to my feline family helpfully advised me to keep them in adjacent rooms where they could gradually get used to each other without risking any violent animosity. I followed this method for a couple hours, but learned eventually that Mason is a hider. He hides inside the recliner in the living room or under the bed in my room. I don't think he's the least bit afraid of Senorita. Rather it seems he simply prefers to avoid confrontation with her. Ideally within the next ten days or so they will be cuddling up with each other and forging an intimate and longlasting companionship.

Meanwhile Jenny has been battling a tenacious flu and it's given me the opportunity to remind her often that she's important to me. When I'm sick I always appreciate immensely the attention others invest in me. Any little concern for my misery benefits my soul in just the same way antibiotics do the body. Keeping this in mind, I tried to show Jenny that I care about her by bringing her flowers and checking up on her each day to see how she feels and she's indicated this manifestation of compassion has accentuated her recovery as well. I wouldn't do this for just anyone, but sometimes I think of Jenny as being a little like me in her solitude. We both live alone and neither of us have family anywhere nearby so I find myself sometimes endeavoring to supplement elements of her life that might otherwise be deficient... in other words I don't want her to be alone during holidays or neglected when she's sick. We could be well on our way to establishing one of the greatest friendships ever conceived on the internet.

My weekend was also accentuated with a book discussion at Borders featuring The Winter of Our Discontent by Steinbeck. It's a story about a good man who feels pressure from his family and community to reclaim the prestige that his heritage dictates should be his. Unfortunately the only way to do this effectively compels him to use unethical methods resulting in one person drinking himself to death and another being deported out of the country. In the end he finds he can no longer demand his children live by higher standards and principles. In other words he's betrayed his own soul. Steinbeck drives home the tragedy with these words in the final chapter:

"My light is out. There's nothing blacker than a wick. Inward I said, I want to go home--no not home, to the other side of home where the lights are given. It's so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone."

My Christmas Manifesto

I've said it before. When I was a child my favorite food was my mother's lasagna. My favorite place was Disney World. And my favorite day was Christmas. Not much has changed.

What makes these things so sacred is not just their quality, but their infrequency. I haven't been to Disney World since 1985. Christmas comes "but once a year." And my mother traditionally makes lasagna on Christmas, but I've not been home for that holiday since my big brother spotted me the airfare to do so eight years ago.

The sanctity of Disney World and my mother's lasagna are currently unassailable. They require no manifesto. But Christmas is being flayed alive.

Not many winters ago I was a passenger in the back seat of someone's car and I was looking out the window at a neighborhood in Tacoma. Someone's front yard featured an evergreen tree that had been carefully sculpted and groomed and decorated with white christmas lights. Somehow it made almost no impression on me. What's wrong with me I wondered. When I was a child a scene like that would have inspired my most mesmerized awe. I supposed perhaps it was just a result of growing up. Perhaps when I have children of my own, the enchantment of Christmas will be restored.

We had an unofficial holiday tradition in my family. Several days before Christmas my mother would always gather us kids together for a solemn announcement, "We can't afford a lot of presents this year" she would say. "We wish that we could get everything on your lists, but we simply don't have the money. So each of you will get one big present and one small present." She would tell us in advance so we wouldn't be crushed with disappointment. But somehow my mother could never follow through on that plan. I'd go to bed on Christmas Eve and toss and turn fitfully the entire night. Sure that it must be light outside at last I would get out of bed at approximately 1 A.M. and wander downstairs through the deserted areas of the house and come into the livingroom to discover dozens and dozens of presents spilling out from under that beautiful tree and my heart would leap with the thrill of it.

We used to leave a stereo playing soft Christmas music around the clock. There are so many good Christmas tunes and for as far back as I can remember I've designated a different one each holiday season to be my favorite. While typing the above paragraph the lyrics of Why Can't Every Day Be Like Christmas drifted through my consciousness and without objection I will accept it as my song of choice this year.

When you're a kid your mother knows what you want for Christmas. You put it at the top of your wish list and it's in big huge capital letters and you underline it and scrawl out countless bold exclamation marks after it along with a repetitious refrain of please please please. And then when you're at the department store you find that precious toy and you hold it in much the same way you would hold your mother's hand if you thought you may never see her again. And your eyes water ever so conspicuously as you set it back down on the shelf when it's time to go and you basically look down at the floor as you leave the store to confirm that without that toy life will certainly not be worthwhile henceforth. And in my case the toy was always the Lone Ranger.

Every Christmas my dream would come true and my stepfather would spend the afternoon assembling the intricate saddle gear for the Lone Ranger's horse, Silver. Typically my younger brother, Cheyenne, would be equally thrilled with his brand new Tonto and we would engage our heroes in the most action demanding adventures our young imaginations could conceive of with the inevitable result that we were in need of replacements long before the following Christmas had even approached the calendar's horizon.

But when you grow up, presumably, you have a job. You earn an income and if you want a new Lone Ranger you don't have to wait until Christmas. You can order one off EBay like now. Instantaneously. And if your mother still requires a wish list (as mine does) you have to remember not to aquire on your own any of the items you've listed.

So the first part of my manifesto dictates that for the last two months of each year I will abstain from purchasing any unnecessary and/or cool things for myself.

But this reminds me of another holiday concern that demands desperate measures. One of the two months at the end of each year is November and it has a holiday all its own. Thanksgiving is basically the redheaded stepchild of holidays. You don't get presents on Thanksgiving. You get a fine meal, but no better than the one on Christmas, and any child born and raised in a capitalist nation will be happy to explain how useless food is compared to toys. The food is gone in a matter of minutes whereas the toys may stay with you for years if you're a girl and until you've utterly destroyed them if you're a boy which, on average, takes longer than a few minutes.

But as if Thanksgiving were not already sufficiently debased, you have department stores and malls marketing for Christmas before Thanksgiving has even been celebrated. And the pathetic truth is that Halloween is being infringed upon too. We all agree that the salivating greed of retailers is offensive the way they begin earlier each year to tempt you with Christmas shopping so now the second part of my manifesto stipulates that I will not commence Christmas shopping until December.

Finally because I want to guard the infrequency of Christmas I will not even talk about it until December. If someone asks me today or tomorrow if I'm ready for Christmas I will look at them as though they've grown horns out of their head and then disregard them until such time as they ask me a more pertinent question. I won't talk about Christmas, I won't listen to Christmas music, and I won't put up my Christmas Tree until December!

Why can't every day be like Christmas? Because if it were, then Christmas would cease to be special. I want to wake up on the 26th of December and feel overwhelmed with the impossibility of waiting 364 days for the magic to return. Hopefully the implementation of the precepts of this manifesto will systematically undesensitize me.

Dyscombobulated Blues

The elevator opened and I stepped out onto the seventh floor of the parking garage. This top floor is actually on the roof and it's difficult to say what time it was. Usually it would have been 3 A.M. but we just set the clocks back so I guess it was 2 A.M. Either way the sky was dark and the air was extremely fresh. So fresh it made me stop. I stood there on the roof and allowed myself to bask in the freshness and the silence, but then I noticed there was a certain smoky fragrance as though a chimney were at work somewhere not so distant and there was the sound of traffic on wet pavement issuing forth from Auburn Way only seven floors down and a thousand feet to my right. Nostalgia enveloped me... something about this fragrance in the air... not that of Spring. And not that of wet muddy summers in New England. But the crisp fresh nostalgia of November... a romantic nostalgia. For some reason romance begins in November. But not this year. This year it's only the nostalgia of Novembers past. I look down at the pavement under my feet and it glistens with last night's rain. Glistens so brightly it makes my squinting eyes water. Will I text her today? Will I send her a message? It could say, "After the election maybe we'll begin talking again." But I won't. For six months she's not had my number. So that, instead of dying a little more with each moment she neglects me, there is a part of me that can fantasize she's trying desperately to reach me and she's wishing I would finally relent and call her. And I tell myself I won't send a message. Still I'm standing there my feet planted on the wet pavement staring into the bright reflection of the street lamps towering above me. And I know I will write this blog. I hear a far off train whistle and hope I won't forget to include that detail in my writing. I would begin writing as soon as I got to my car if only I'd brought my book bag. Usually it's sitting in my trunk with tons of books and comics and my memoirs. I could have begun recording these musings instantly, but the book bag was left at home. So when I start my car I turn off the stereo and all the way home I focus on this nostalgia so I'll remember what to write. I'll remember that denying myself the permission to contact her during this romantic season leaves me empty. There are superficial concerns that help me forget how alone I am. The election just two days away. Or the football games later this morning. Or my palpable disgust with my job. Or the varying degrees of success or failure associated with a seemingly endless parade of opportunities to flatter the pretty girls I encounter every day. Such things seem important until you're forced to stop and endure the waves of fresh air and silence and tear duct agitating brilliance of wet pavement at two and/or three o'clock in the morning. Then I'm reminded that I am lonely and hollow. And there is not the love of Christ to save me. No, that is not my lifeline. And I have no children to dedicate my life unto and to live through vicariously. No, there is still just me. Me to make happy or me to be sad. It occurs to me that I drank the night before. And I subscribe to the notion that alcohol is a depressant and so maybe these blues can be blamed on drink. And tomorrow I'll be fine. It helps to remember: such sentiments can and do pass. I'm not anywhere near the zenith of my contentment with life, but then too I'm safely several thousand leagues above the darkest chasms of my past. And yet this is not meant at all to be a feel good happy ending look on the bright side blog. It's a cautionary blog. If you have your Christ in your heart. Or if you have your family which means everything to you... then do not let go. Otherwise I fear daylight savings time shall never find quite enough daylight to save.