Crashing from the gambling high

A whiff of memory is all it takes or a passing gust of anticipation to invoke an appetite for gambling — in as little as 48 hours after a (destructive) bender.

Is there any other kind?

Amnesia is a marvelous phenomenon. It helps us forget temporarily horrible actions we inflict upon ourselves as gamblers.

It enables us to way way overspend, to forgo families, friends, sleep, nutrition, jobs, responsibilities, creative time, rest and more for another shot at playing.

Amnesia? Or denial? One in the same for gamblers.

Two days ago I went on a binge. What made this one destructive wasn’t the amount of my withdrawals, comparatively, rather the tidy sums in jackpots that I gave back to the casino: Because I wanted to keep playing rather than listen to the voice of reason that told me to leave while I was really ahead and think of all the good that money could do, like pay for imminent car repairs or rent.

Gambling is eviscerating to the self.

Then, the bloody sliced-up flesh sloooooowly starts sealing, scabbing and scarring itself with time.

Even the briefest passage of time is all it sometimes take for the demented gambler to return to the scene of the crime.

Earlier today I was tidying up my studio, doing laundry — task-y stuff that I really love.

Out of nowhere blasted this rush of desire to be at the slots anticipating … optimistic … the old crap from just 2 days ago behind me and “forgotten” … spinning wheels and betting big because the bigger the bet, the greater the rush.

That blast of desire didn’t include Big Winnings or dollar amounts, be they in wins or losses.

Rather, there was this rush of anticipation like a kid feels around Christmas. Completely outta nowhere, while doing housework!

A whiff of memory — of the casino environment, favorite slots, perpetual night, a womb of sensual pleasures, decadence and excitements … a gust of anticipation can be all it takes to compel me back to the casino … in as little as 48 hours after a bender that wrought self-punishment, loathing, hatred, frustrations, almighty unforgivenesses.

Any reasoning person would ask: Why do I do it?

There IS no reason to addiction and compulsion and relentless adherence to that which destroys. Addiction is immune to reason. That’s part of what gives addiction its unrelenting hold. Like the jaws of death, rather than Jaws of Life.

I felt that blast of desire to be at the slots, anticipation, optimism, “forgetting” the wreckage of merely 48 hours ago.

The power of denial … the power of self-induced amnesia … the power of compartmentalizing do me no good with gambling.

I didn’t act on that blast. This time. I noted it and continued with my tasks — which are inherently far more productive and positive than a 15-minute drive to a casino would be!

Dealing with urges is part of recovery. “Recovery.”

Does a gambler ever truly recover? I suspect not. One can’t remove the compulsion/addiction, only arrest it.

Shit. The price we — I — pay for being unable (or unwilling) to gamble within reason and temperance. “Recovery” truly is an All or Nothing endeavor.

Ticks me off that I pushed my passion for slots so far that I can only deprive myself entirely if I’m to live a “normal and healthy life” (ha! was never the case regardless of gambling!).

The early weaning away from slots / gambling is often the hardest part initially of “going clean.”

Anybody who thinks gambling’s not a drug is ignorant, uninformed, sadly and profoundly unaware, blind. For me, for gamblers, it’s as much a drug as cocaine snorted or meth shot into a vein.  Different effects, obviously, but as real a high — and crash.

Crawling through the crash is part of recovering sanity, restoring balance, ultimately honoring and respecting the self enough to NOT engage in destructive actions.

I’m nowhere near there. Baby steps precede adult steps. Feeling that sudden urge earlier and not acting on it is baby step sufficient for now.

Because boozing’s better than betting.

When the choices are stay home and get blotto’ed or go gamble — and boozing’s better — you’ve got a gambling problem.

I do. It’s big. Very big. And long in duration. Some 15 years, off and on, peppered with (GA) recovery approximately 3 years at a stretch.

But I’m not here to share my gambling story. Who has that kinda time?! Besides, it’s fodder for a book. Or chapbooks. Or speaking engagements at least.

No. I’m here at this old blog of mine that I’ve neglected along with so many other things — first and foremost my basic well-being!

I’m here this fine spring evening drinking on the front porch and writing so I DON’T go gamble.

So I don’t get into my car, switch on the ignition and drive the super-pleasant and short several miles to the casino.

10 minutes is all it takes.

That’s like an alcoholic living a stumble-y block down from some bar. Seedy or otherwise. Doesn’t matter to the alcoholic. Like an Indian casino (translation: shitty odds, way worse than Vegas!) that hardly pays doesn’t matter to a gambler.

Thing is, I know exactly why I so want to gamble right now. I could articulate the reasons in my journal. So clearly I’m not drunk — or drunk enough yet.

I’ve done that, btw. Poured my heart out into my pages after a gambling binge, the pain, anguish, self-hatred. I’ve poured illuminations and personal therapies into those pages, full-on realizations about WHY I gamble and HOW to stop.

Then 10 minutes later been in my car heading to the casino. As if none of that journaling happened!!!

Twisted. Fucking twisted.

Ohhhhh, I can smell it now. The smokey air hitting my nostrils soon as I enter through the dark smokey (no pun intended) doors. “I’m here. I’m home.”

Twisted. Fucking twisted.

I can see it now. Stepping up to the cashier window. Typing data into the pad. Easy cash since they’ve got my checking account. Signing. “How’d you like that? Big bills OK?” “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Practiced. Fucking practiced am I.

Then stepping ’round the corner to my favorite bank of machines. 1-2-3-4-5. Each different. Each I like a whole friggin’ lot. Each with decent payoffs when they pay off. Each money-suckers when they don’t.

Ya never know. That’s why it’s called gambling, dumbdumb! Risk. Win or lose. Win and lose.

Really. A casino — or two, in my case — an easy-breezy-lemon-peasy drive from home — is way. too. fucking. tempting. For someone like me. Emotionally devastated by the most intimate and biggest of recent losses (i.e., deaths).

I gamble NOT to feel. Sound familiar? It will if you’re a problem gambler.

The slots (I’m strictly slots) anesthesize better than any. fucking.drug. Better than this low-carb fruity beer at my side. Better than sleep. Better than Any. Escape. Route in life, possibly excepting madness/insanity or heroin.

Oh I can see it now. Slipping a $100 into the slot of whichever of my Fav 5 is available. Tapping Max Bet. You can’t win shit otherwise. Switching seats if one seems cold. Or staying put on the (mad) thought that it’s about to pay off big-time.

You gamblers know that one. “It’s about to pay off — huge! I FEEL it. I KNOW it.”

Tens or hundreds of dollars later ……………… you know that one. L-O-S-S.

Still. We do it. We meaning gamblers. Who have, would and do give their eye teeth for one more spin of a wheel. Even if it’s a measly minimum bet of 9 cents.

Been there done that.

But why does ALL that not matter when the urge to gamble strikes? Why does ALL THAT MISERY — **SELF-INFLICTED** I should add — go forgotten?! Shoved aside. Turned into amnesia.

Selective forgetting. Selective remembering. Ohmygod have I mastered that art! That madness. That self-destruction.

OK, at this moment, I still haven’t gotten into my car for the casino.

But then I’m not wasted either, a minor plus for impulse control.

Time for another drink. Because boozing’s better than betting.

Slots are fun. Recovery, not so much (or at all).

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.

Van Morrison wrote that lyric. {BTW, it’s also true for me.}

Sometimes I feel like a petulant child. When gambling’s involved.

Recovery’s hard work and I don’t want to do it. Sometimes I’d rather do what I want to do (gamble) even if it kills me.

Gambling’s more fun than recovery. Way more fun sometimes.

Some days are easier  — lighter — than others. Some days gambling doesn’t enter my mind at all.

Other days, it flies into focus for any reason at all: boredom, stress, anger, frustration, loneliness. Some days simply being alive and breathing are impetus and seeming reason enough to gamble.

Sometimes I miss the fun of gambling.

But not the destruction.

Sometimes I miss the passion of slots.

But not the subsequent drain of my wallet and bank account.

Sometimes I miss the excitement, anticipation, the sheer entertainment of slots games.

But not that feeling of utter despair and loss and the steely cold reality that splashes me hard in the face when I leave the casino.

That inevitable — and it IS inevitable — moment that strikes only when I exit through the casino doors of OH. MY. GOD. WHAT. HAVE. I DONE?

Reality crashing into the dream world state of the gambler. Crashing hard. Irrevocably.  I CAN’T undo what I did and spent in the hours in a casino. Thus begins the downward spiral of self-punishment.

That walk back to the car is worse than that proverbial walk of shame after a one night stand!

It’s a walk of self-hatred. Filled with remorse and regret through truly those words hardly describe it. I can find no single all-encompassing word for that walk back to the car except writhing self-hatred.

These feelings are easily forgotten — too easily forgotten — when an urge to gamble surfaces. It’s an urge with all the intensity of  “a calling to gamble.” It’s just that strong. That unyielding. That determined and resolute. That unshakeable.

Such is the nature of compulsion and addiction.

To my experience, when the urge to gamble surfaces, all else ceases to exist. All else. It’s obsessive. Nothing else matters except getting to that casino.

Or when can I next get to the casino?

The thing about recovery / GA is that I have to learn, firstly and foremost, how to breathe when the casino calls.

Breathing. Sounds so simple. So natural and obvious. However, I’ve spent a good part if not most of my life not breathing because of intense traumas of childhood unresolved and unhealed. Learning to breathe is a biggie.

By breathing, space enters in. When space flows in, the single-minded compulsion/obsession to get to the slots is halted. Not for forever. But for that moment.

And at that moment and only that moment, that space between breathing and obsession / compulsion to play the slots enables: choice.

How to respond to urges to gamble is a learning process. For me, unhooking from that laser and unrelenting focus on wanting to gamble is a huge teaching. That same intense focus that is so integral to my nature if put to positive use would be sooooo empowering and life-changing.

That incredible focus of mine when put to negative use … uh … becomes compulsive – obsessive addition.

With my focus, I have the capacity to move mountains.

Or to dig my own grave deep deep below that mountain.

Which will it be in this lifetime?

I’ve played the self-destruction to the hilt. My gambling addiction has taken me to a deep dark netherworld that only addicts can best and truly comprehend.

“But” I’m not gambling today. Exactly what do I do with all this energy and focus that I used to direct to the slots and direct so passionately and fully?

I don’t know. I don’t actually know.

And that’s the process of recovery. It awakens the beast in a way. A good beast. A creative beast. Recovery brings forth many questions in our psyches and souls (at least it does me). Questions that were once answered by pushes on the spin button.

The unanswered questions are no different than they were when I was actively gambling: Who am I? Away from the darkness?

Those questions haven’t changed a whit in all these years before I gambled and while I gambled. Just that the answer’s changed. The answer’s no longer the slots.

And that’s kinda scary when you feel that there’s nothing good within to hold onto, no God, no nothing but a Void and Darkness … and the walk of self-destruction to get there.

When down to the bare bones, saying no to gambling is simple. Yet it also so isn’t. Recovery IS work. Hard work. Because personal transformation is involved. Change is hard and it is painful, as any evolving person can tell you.

It’s a pain different from the pain of walking outside the casino to the car and the pain of addiction. Both are intense. The difference between them — the pain of recovery and the pain of addicted gambling — is this: the former contains hope.