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.