Slots soothe savage beast (my mother)

Wow. Wow whee. The money I gave to the casino last night.

If that’s not the biggest bender cash-wise in a single night, it’s damn close, in the top 3.

I don’t mean to sound flippant. On the contrary, rage, shame, cruel attacking are roiling inside. For my own protection, I’m dissociating myself — dissociation, an immense ability and skill developed at a VERY young age due to traumas.

I refuse to FEEL the aftermath of a destructive expensive binge because I fear what will happen if I do. My analytical thinking detached brain has stepped in to make sure that that decidedly final outcome doesn’t happen.

Of all addictions, suicides are the highest in number among gamblers.

The knives flying at me metaphorically are so connected to my mother. She is not the reason I gamble but she is a very significant cast member in learned self-destructiveness and how I respond to “things I do wrong.” All attack. Not a droplet of compassion or kindness or caring. My father was cruel but my mother was vicious.

So I’ve no role model for self-care when the chips are down. No maternal figure except one who is dangerous and DESTRUCTIVE. I gamble for many reasons but the aftermath is on many levels even worse than throwing money away.

Gambling is fun (usually), instant pleasure, immediate gratification, an escape from life itself. Gambling is an adrenalin rush and a dopamine deliverer.

The aftermath is acknowledging and experiencing, if you dare, the field of waste, the ruins, the damage inflicted to the self “willingly.” Actions have consequences and the consequences of a binge are very rarely good.

Time and time again I’ve observed the pattern:

Binge. Go on a bender. Destroy self and finances.

Stop. Vow not to go back.

Three days of rage, self-hatred, acrimony, shame, horrendous name-calling, self-torture and punishments. Internal punishments are KEY, nee imperative.  I don’t know why exactly,  I just know that attacks and punishments and constant profound criticism are what I got from my mother and to this day they permeate my being.

Day 4: Cravings return, strongly perhaps or weakly but nonetheless they return. Urges. Missing the excitement, the rush, the good feelings while the bad “fade” in amnesia self-induced.

Day 6 or 7: Ready to get back on the horse and do it all over again. And again. Again and again.

Self-defeating actions follow self-defeating beliefs and thoughts.

A gambler can recover but can never become a normal person / gambler.

First is to halt the action — the gambling (or the drinking or drug or whatever the addict’s poison of choice).

Then begins the REALLY hard part … the internal emotional work. Without that, “relapses” are so easy so very easy.

No addict is EVER in the clear or free of risks of relapses. Look at Philip Seymour Hoffman (actor). He had, what, some 22 years clean then began using. HE went apparently from 0 to 80 mph and like that sadly he was gone.

This is NOT unusual. There are no small potatoes for an addict. Everything’s big, gargantuan, humongous — the quantity of the substance — and yes, gambling IS indeed one even if not ingested through the mouth. Nothing in moderation.

That’s the insidious and trickiest truth of an addiction. “Little” no longer satisfies. Bets get bigger and bigger and bigger. Gamblers can go through entire life savings, kids’ college funds, everything of value they own to place another bet.

Is it sad? Yes it is looking in from the outside.

But I’m not exclusively on the outside. I’m in it. As last night attests.

What a gawd-awful bender.

Bender, binge, spree … these words aren’t strong enough! They don’t capture the enormity and intensity of the hypnotic state that gambling is.

I’m disgusted, embarrassed, enraged, woefully and brutally critical of doing to myself and my finances what my “real self” knows to be wrong, damaging, unrewarding, unfulfilling and downright destructive.

Healing from a pretty wretched and destructive mother is going to be fundamental in recovery. I see this now as I’ve seen it before. I just dread the work. I’d “rather” be playing the slots. At least that’s pain relief (in the moment).

It’s no wonder I’ve had addictions most of my life, ingest things toxic and self-destructive. That’s my mother I’ve ingested. She’s the worst thing that happened to me in my lifetime, excepting her part in giving me life.

I am 1,000% certain that had I had a different mother, I would not have become a compulsive / troubled gambler. Might’ve dallied about some in casinos but nothing of this scale of enormity, intensity and power.

I’m sad I gamble; I’m sadder I got the mother I had. It was not for the (higher) good that I can see. If there was higher good, then seeing that might eventually bring healing and inner peace. Meanwhile, I remain “motivated” or “driven” to gamble to ice the rage, anguish, and hatefulness that came from her to/toward me.

Ultimately, I hope to learn that gambling is my self-destructive poison that’s covering up the true, real and much greater destructive poison that is my mother.

Slots soothe the savage beast and in my case her initials are mjm.

Thanks for listening whoever and wherever ye be. Talking / writing sometimes really helps.

Jackpot! A gambler’s monstrous opiod

Gambling’s not about winning and losing.

It’s about playing.

Ask any troubled gambler and s/he will tell you this.

“I can’t hold on to winnings. They go right back into the machines … or to the dealer .. back to the house.”

Doesn’t matter how much you win, it’s never enough. It’s never enough to stop you from gambling.

Sure, you might walk out with a wad of cash. Feel great. Swear that’s it, you’re up and you’re never going back.

Maybe you won’t for a while. You might put those winnings toward needed or desired. You spend them like a “normal person.”

Eventually, however, often sooner than later, the casino’s siren song returns.

The lure, the memories and sensations of the good times, the fun, the excitement, the rush, the opiod that is gambling grab hold.

Perhaps first they tickle. Soon they become an itch that won’t be ignored or denied and you gotta scratch it. You get in the car and you’re on your way, as if in a trance yet alive, anticipation pumping through the veins. The opiod that is gambling.

I’ve had big winnings, jackpots, stacks of $100 bills counted into the palm of my hand. Most are smaller jackpots. I’ve never hit one above $10,000 but once came close.

That cold hard cash in the hand … in the pocket … in the purse … even purposefully secured in the wallet so’s not to spend it (ha!) is an amazing feeling! Especially after a run of losses, angst-ing over cold machines and daily withdrawal limits, cash advances and their added costs.

A NORMAL person would quit while ahead. Pocket the cash, perhaps celebrate over a nice dinner or such.

For a gambler, that cash is MORE REASON TO PLAY even when reason dictates, demands and encourages you to walk away — perhaps because now you’ve at least broken even … or marginally trimmed your losses.

Money in the pocket is reason to play.

I’ve cruelly, brutally, unforgivingly, harshly, sadistically, monstrously beaten, kicked, berated and eviscerated myself inside for every gambling behavior … from driving to the casino … to entering one … to using ATMs when I shouldn’t … going to the cashier windows for more cash, regardless of the costs … to spending every last dollar and cent in my wallet and car … to forgoing health and sleep needs to play through the night … to giving back my winnings AND THEN MORE OF MY OWN MONEY.

Yesterday I happened to win a couple jackpots that together put me comfortably ahead of my “investment.” OHHHHHH the good things I could do with the money. Like pay rent for a couple months. Cover expenses on an upcoming long road trip. Ease money pressures.

Yet “before I knew it,” the winnings were gone. Whittled away by this machine, that machine, favorite ones, unfamiliar ones, ones that hadn’t paid anything and thus were due to hit now, ones that had paid and might hit again.

In the Zone. I was in the gambling zone for many hours.

And EVEN THOUGH my reasoning thinking mind recognized the benefits of those nice winnings … EVEN THOUGH it told me “now’s the time to leave, just make yourself go, take the wins and walk out the door, you’ll feel so much better …”

I COULD NOT DO IT. Or would not. I didn’t WANT to. I wanted to play. To keep playing long as possible.

The gambling rush supercedes reason.

And I beat myself up something FIERCE for giving BACK money. I beat myself up more for that than I do losing because I think about and imagine ALL THE GOOD THINGS I coulda shoulda woulda done with the money.

The good things I threw away. IF ONLY I HAD LEFT. Taken just that one small action woulda changed so much.

The shame and self-hatred are profound, invincible. I deeply and fully hate myself more when I win and give it back than I do when I lose.

Wins, especially those significant, are double-edged swords for gamblers.

Because gambling’s not only about winning. Or losing.

It’s about playing. Staying in the game.

Playing as long as possible. Playing until you can play no more, whatever the reason. Maybe you have to go to work. Or have run out of money. Or gotta be somewhere.

Gamblers leave casinos reluctantly and only when forced, because they have to, not because they want to.

And I, as a longtime gambler, am guaranteed to spend my winnings, one day or another, one way or another. And I struggle with that because it’s Just So Fucking Stupid.

That’s me. A fucked-up stupid gambler. If I were put before a firing squad, I’d say “go ahead, pull the triggers, guys. I am a stupid worthless piece of shit who can’t stop won’t stop gambling — don’t WANT to stop no matter what sums are handed to me.”

If that’s not the height of stupidity … I don’t deserve to live, indeed I deserve the opposite because I CANNOT DO NOT DO NOT WANT TO walk away when I’m a winner. “Winner.”

No problem gambler’s ever truly a winner. We may win in a moment but in the course of things, we end up losing …. so much more than the money.

I can’t get it through my stubborn and intelligent mind that simplest truth: As a troubled problem gambler, no matter the money in the pocket:

You Lose. I Lose.

Death: The Desired End in a Gambling Addiction

Do compulsive gamblers (and/or addicts in general) have a self-destructive side?

And/or a suicidal streak greater than that in the normal population?

When I was gambling (after having crossed the line from normal sane entertainment gambling into “gamble as if my life depended on it”), truth told, I never expected to Win and Stop.

Walking out of a casino with money, be it my own or the house’s, was never truly an option. Oh sure, it might’ve (and did) happen on rare occasion. But the deeper I got into gambling, the deeper became the desire and the need to gamble, the more certain it became that any money of my own and any winnings would be returned to the casino. If not that night, then the next day or week or month.

I wasn’t in it to win.

I was in it to lose.

And if I kept losing and losing and losing and losing — which was inevitable since I gambled until my last dollar was gone, if not that night, then the next! — eventually I’d have nothing left to gamble. I’d become so destitute, broken, impoverished — and turn into that destitute homeless person I knew and feared — that I’d FINALLY have the courage to kill myself.

Such harsh words. So harsh. So hard. So full of hatred and loathing of self that just seeing them here in print wracks my heart.

I was that person. And I could become that person again. And that frightens me.

+ + +

I could wax philosophical and/or tell stories of a very sad and lonely childhood, one of so much isolation and pain that it’s a wonder sometimes that I didn’t become schizophrenic or worse!

But how I GOT to become an addict to gambling tonight doesn’t interest me as much as … how to stay clean and on the road to recovery when My Own Self and Past still get me down.

+ + +

I’ve done much that I’m deeply ashamed of (not solely in gambling). Things I deeply regret or am remorseful of or, simply, punish myself for. Over and over and over and over.

And over. Just for good measure. Just in case those internal beatings didn’t beat the life outta me.

+ + +

I am not a forgiving person — toward myself. I am kinder to an insect crawling along the kitchen counter than I am myself. I will actually scoop up that ant or spider onto a piece of paper and free it outside to save its life than I am to act even a tiny bit kind toward myself.

+ + +

As much as I love the slots — the thrill, the risks, the excitement, the unknowns, the indulgences — I hated myself as much in the end. If not more.

At my worst of my gambling, I didn’t envision recovery for myself but suicide. That FINAL straw when all the money was gone — vanished forever into the casino’s coffers! — and nary a penny to my name when I’d finally get those guts to do what I’d yearned to do and feared I would do: Die at my own hand.

+ + +

Painful and personal are these words to write, these thoughts to express.

I might be really embarrassed were it not for the truths that they hold.

Ultimately, I didn’t expect gambling to make me a winner. I expected it to reaffirm the loser that I felt I was. Inadequate. Stupid. A failure who could never please or impress my father no matter how I tried.

And oh my god I tried!

+ + +

The roots of my gambling addiction are complicated, deep and pervasive. They are for me to discover and come to know over time.

Tonight, I see the enormous impact and role of my father played. It’s not for the first time, neither the last. I acknowledge that had I been raised only by my mother, the odds of becoming a gambling addict would’ve been nil or damn close. I would’ve had other problems instead!

The simple fact is that for a myriad of reasons, I adopted a gambling problem to ease the pain of life.

Relearning how to feel and be with pain without the sedation of the slots is my challenge. My work. My need.

Perhaps above all, learning how not to self-destruct through this life is a major ongoing lesson indeed!

It begins with the self-worth I wasn’t shown …  the self-love I wasn’t given.

And forgiveness. Of self.

For me, the hardest of that trinity.

And every day … or hour or moment where I don’t gamble … and choose not to gamble … offers a little more space to learn the Good of Life that I was not given … or shown … or denied within myself.

Recovery and healing are hard work.

But a gambling addiction is worse. It robs you not only of your dignity and self-respect — if you were lucky enough to have any — but your very life.

Today I choose recovery, gratefully. Just for today. Just for this moment. Just for now.

And in time, all those Nows form a chain … into a life present and a future of recovery.

Going back out is as bad as they say.

Fourteen days without gambling! Eight days clean in recovery!

I distinguish them thusly to mark both my last day of betting and the day that I re-entered Gamblers Anonymous, six days later.

Yes, re-entered. That’s both painful and celebratory to say and write.

I was in GA and stayed clean and sober — a phrase not limited to users of substances — for three years. I was a very active GA member in the fellowship. I led meetings very naturally and comfortably, embraced new members, supported members both irregular and regular, really got people communicating and sharing through various creative exercises.

Then I moved and shit happened and I moved again and more shit happened. One thing led to another … one “small” bet led to a bigger … one irregular visit to the casino led to regular visits …

In less than two years, I wasn’t right back where I’d started when I’d first entered GA in 2009. I was worse off, MILES  from that marker and on an even faster track to poverty and ultimate self-destruction than the first time.

Amongst addicts — be it gambling, alcohol, drugs and etc. — it’s been said that the time out after recovery is much worse than the first. That you not only pick up where you left off but plunge deeper and faster into the addiction. In essence, you fall harder in the second time around.

I’ve found this to be true.

And getting out and BACK into recovery is also that much harder the second (or more) time around than the first. Because of the additional shame of having gone back out. Because of the embarrassment. Because of the intensified self-hatred  and self-punishment and negative self-talk  that accompany having gone back out.

This tends to be true whether the addict’s stayed clean for 30 years or 3 years. Among addicts, shame and self-punishments seemingly know neither markers nor achievements.

I’m thinking just now of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who started drinking and put a needle — one that proved fatal — into his arm after decades clean. What was going on in his mind around breaking sobriety?

Was he like so many other addicts who “fall off the wagon” and think/decide: “I’ve ruined it now. I’ve blown it. I’m a loser. A piece of shit. I might as well go whole hog wild.”

And then you die. Or you don’t — by stopping.

I’d love to ask what was going on in his mind just after he first put that glass to his lips … were he still alive.

Self-destruction is a very active, and common, component in addictions. And if it’s not the “reason” we get into our addiction, it’s certainly a reason we stay in it.  The shame and self-hatred and feeling of being undeserving of life are relentless — for me; many others have spoken of this as well.

In my three solid years in recovery, I never thought I’d be that gambler who goes back out. Neither did I think I WOULDN’T be. Even in full sobriety, in the back of my mind I thought and feared that if anything were to send me back out, it would be the passing of my father.

And that is what happen.

And it just got really really bad.

I’m in a new town now, thousands of miles from where I first joined GA. I’m in a better place in all ways, shapes and forms. Not great. But definitely better and improving.

It’s a new chapter and I’m a changed person — in no small part BECAUSE of my three years in GA, not despite them.

So while on one hand I’m new to GA in my new chosen town, I’m not new to recovery … yet sharp pangs of regret, shame, fear and self-judgments accompany my re-entry.

Which begs the question: Is there anything positive I can do for myself that isn’t subject to self-criticism and harsh scrutiny?!

I mean, if a gambler in GA went back out, I’d not only encourage him or her to come back in but welcome him/her with open arms! I HAVE done that!

Yet when it comes to doing the same for myself,  I trash myself, I criticize my positive efforts, paint them with shame and unforgiving rehashing of all the money wasted, and I stone my good efforts as if I’m stoning a criminal on the plaza in days of yore.

Self-love is such the challenge for compulsive gamblers. And whatever the mind’s chatter and the inner turmoil, the conscious choice to bypass and ignore that and come back into recovery — even after going out, ESPECIALLY after going back out! — IS an act of self-love.

Even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time.

That’s all I have for today. 14 days without placing a bet and 8 days clean back in recovery!