Gambling is my love, do or die.

Breaking up is hard to do. Even when that which you love is destroying you.

My love affair with gambling — the slots, solely — is one of the most intense of my lifetime.

In one way, it is a simple passionate love affair. No human being on the other end to muck up matters. No human emotions of the other to have to deal with, fight off or survive. No complications of another human and his/her baggage.

It is simply me and the machines and the act of gambling itself.

It doesn’t get any better than that!

Being a loner and more powerfully inherently verrrrry different from most people to begin with are perfect fodder for the sport of gambling. Being with slot machines for hours is WAY WAY WAY easier than being around people for the same amount of time!

Long as there’s money, I can gamble for 5, 10, 15 hours at a time. When I was younger, I could gamble 24 hours straight “no problem-o.” Lack of sleep – pffffshaw! No food – big fucking deal.

Having to break for peeing — you can’t fight Mother Nature — that’d piss me off, no pun intended. Everything else in basic body needs didn’t matter, were quickly cast aside while I was submerged in the sea of slots.

I am still like that though at age 60, those all-nighters are harder to pull off and the recovery time, 3-4 days, is much harder than in my younger days.

Still. With slots and gambling, I jump in full on with both feet. If the water’s frigid, doesn’t matter. Still or stormy, doesn’t matter. Only thing that keeps me outta that sea of slots is not having money.

Were that I felt this boundless all-in passion for something else in my life! Or, even better, something POSITIVE in my life!

I don’t know what that would be at this age! With eras of “youthful indiscretions” and abundant wild ways behind me, at 60, I ask: What excites me now.

I’m tired. I’m old (or certainly no spring chicken at the very least!).

Gambling rocks my world — like past lovers but different, obviously. A love affair with machines, rather than individuals, is a whole other universe.  It is so much simpler. Until I run out of money.

I had a lover once. He was violent. I got hit. That wasn’t unfamiliar. Love and physical abuses went hand in hand since my childhood.

It was a very passionate relationship and NOT A HEALTHY ONE. I learned and grew my way out of it in time.

My love of gambling is a lot like that. Destructive, ultimately, but oh so pleasurable.

I can’t help wondering what role my relationship with my father (bless him), the underlying violence and destructiveness and such, have in my gambling. My attraction to it and ability to “withstand” its terrible destructiveness. I’m certain my childhood primed me for it. Not fated me unto gambling. Primed me.

Ultimately, it was my head and feet that led me through the casino doors. Free will.

Even though as any addict will tell you, there is no feeling of free. Our poison controls us, not the other way around! — when the addiction is active.

There’s a saying in gambling recovery groups when you’re clean — or trying to be. “My addiction’s in the parking lot doing push-ups.”

It is always there. Waiting to take you into the casino and take you down.

So true it is. So very true.

Stopping gambling is losing something I love. I have to be willing to process that, endure that, willfully remove myself from the act of gambling that is my passion for … something else, a life that doesn’t include it.

How willing am I? Not in head but in heart.

This is the question into day 2 — approaching 48 hours without gambling. Gambling is my love, through thick or thin, do or die, heaven or hell.

That is one ferocious bone that dog’s holding onto! Can I coax that bone from his mouth? This is the mission, should I really choose to accept it. Bidding goodbye to my love … not gambling is grief.

 

 

 

 

Christmas at the Casino.

A gambler’s descent into hell and back … one day at a time.

Eons ago it seems that I penned that subhead for my blog’s title. Oh the days and nights and dollars that have passed away since that time.

I went back out. After some three years clean of gambling. The reason is pretty simple actually. The facilitator of my local GA group did something that was wrong, unfair, out of keeping with GA practice and the needs of recovery.

I had to quit going. And the longer I stayed “quitted,” well, the more vulnerable I became to returning to the slots. My sole poison in the universe of gambling options. That two casinos are but a 10-15 minute drive away … oh the temptations right in my face.

I could talk about triggers — but am not going to.

Could talk the rage I felt/feel toward that meeting facilitator for so fucking up that I no longer felt safe going to GA.

I could talk about the many things that have occurred since I stopped going (had to stop going) just over a year ago.

I could talk of the HUGE amount of money I’ve lost to the slots. The damage I’ve done to my finances and my self.

What I most need to talk about is my utter passion for gambling — precisely, only the slots.

That, combined with the lack of support via the facilitator that so turned things ’round for me (in a bad way): a perfect mockup for going back out.

I love to gamble. Love it. It is hand’s down the very best drug! Escape. Distraction. Salve for unbearable emotions and grief. Nothing but nothing, save for sleep, quiets the RAGE and anguish and LONELINESS that are my life like the slots.

Nothing.

No one is here. I am so alone. Isolated. Slots are my friend. Gambling is my comfort. I loved gambling even before I became an ardent addict.

Therein lies the problem. What the fuck do I replace gambling with?!?

There is nothing that CAN replace it. That’s the cruel joke, the knife in the side. Nothing substitutes for or replaces the thrills … excitement … risk … sheer visceral pleasure of gambling and slots.

Even when I’m losing, I’m happy … just to be in the game. Excited: just to be spinning the wheels one more time.

NOTHING else in my life replicates or comes close.

I could write that it’s time to commit to recovery — solo, unfortunately. Much harder to do it alone than with a GA group. Compared to a dysfunctional GA group, however, better to do it solo.

I wish I never had to stop gambling. Wish I push the SPIN buttons and enjoy the bonus rounds and bells and whistles and close calls but no cigars for the rest of my life.

However, gambling is my shovel into destitution, possibly an early grave.

So question becomes:

How much do I REALLY want to live.

Or perish – and at what cost.

What value is my life, really?

I do not know. I can’t say what value my life holds. And that is why gambling is so easy. So riveting. When my life holds no value, when I have no value, gambling is the most fun way to go hastily to my end.

My reflections this Christmas Day … celebrating these some 12 hours of not placing a bet.