"Is Anybody There" by Ample Angst

Character Study

Gambling addiction presents many illusions. It may present itself as a form of excitement, comaraderie, escape, or the promises of monetary reward. Otherwise why would we be tricked into repeating over and over a behaviour with no end game and one that we despise?

When you attend Gambler's Anonymous (GA) you learn about the 12-step program (if you hang around long enough). You also hear about character defects, those weaknesses within us that lead us or make us susceptible to gamble.

Every human being growing up develops character to some degree or another, and much like physical development, our total character depends on how well we paid attention to developing specific traits. If you want to be a good swimmer, you have to develop arms, legs and lungs. If you leave any of these out, you will not succeed as a good swimmer.

Much like physical development, if your character development is incomplete, you will still be able to get along in life, just as you would if you were not a good swimmer. You don't have to be Michale Phelps or a saint to get along in life.

But sooner or later life will test you and the mettle of your character. You will come to the river and find out if you are strong enough to swim across.

When life test us, we either have the character to meet it head on or we shrink from it using excuses. We lie, cheat, blame, manipulate, impersonate, hide, feel sorry for ourselves, and do anything but take responsibility. And for me, gambling was the big escape from accepting that responsibility. Gambling and all its shape-shifting illusions was enough of a drug to allow me to duck from life's punches and hurts.

I can see that I conned my way through life not wanting to accept responsibility for myself and my gambling addiction was the perfect diversion to seeing this character defect.

I could find a fraternity of men and women gamblers who, like me, lived life on its fringes, getting by without ever confronting their character defects. Some still do, other crashed and burned and or now recovering and rebuilding their lives one strand of character at a time, one day at a time.

Just as I am.

Treadmill To No Where

Compulsive gamblers face a unique and daunting challenge. They think that the problem is the overwhelming satisfaction they receive from winning money that leads to the addiction, therefore, to them, gambling is the behavioral means to the end to which they become addicted.

If you can realize anything about this baffling and insidious illness, realize this: Even if a genie granted your wish of winning every time you gamble, and thus you had all the money you could ever want, you would still be consumed by gambling.

Think of it as any form of compulsive behaviour, such as obsessive hand washing. If you had such an affliction, and the Dean of the Harvard Medical School told you that washing your hands once with Dove soap was sufficient to clean them, you would still wash your hands endlessly even though you knew logically and rationally they were clean after the first washing.

Thus, even if you found a system to beat black jack, the horses, and poker, you would still be consumed by gambling because of your compulsivity.

For compulsive gamblers the only solution is to stop. There is no in between. For the addicted, gambling even once trips the compulsive switch in the brain and we are off and running -- it doesn't matter if we win or we lose. In the long run it is a no-win situation/activity that will ultimately destroy us, because in any compulsion there is no end-game. Unlike eating and sex, you do not get enough to where the brain signals that your are satisfied.

Compulsive gambling is a trip on a treadmill that ends when you collapse emotionally, psychologically and financially.

It's a terrible but truthful scenario. The compulsion does not play by the rules of the mind, the heart and the soul, that is why addiction is so tragic: good people are destroyed.

So realize that the allure of gambling/excitement/money is only a cruel trick of the compulsive mind, and that in and of themselves they mean nothing to us except they are the vehicles we use to play out the compulsion.

Logically and emotionally, I know that people can play cards for escape and relaxation, much like a person can have one glass of wine. And like the alcoholic, I cannot gamble recreationally just as he or she cannot drink casually; we suffer the same affliction. We are not in control and never will be.

Falling Down

I fell off the wagon. I went on a gambling spree. Got lucky and made money. I should be happy, after all, I had my fling with the gambling whore without being left for dead. But what is amazing is that when I was on the spree, I didn't feel high, I felt numb. It was like I was in a state of suspended animation. It is as though I checked out from the world while life went on around me. I stepped aside while real people continued to negotiate the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows of life. Except when I gamble, I see none of that. I don't want to feel any of that. All I want to do is coordinate my life sitting around the card table for hours chasing the high. Well I got lucky and got the cheese, but it did not add to my quality of life. If I said anything when I walked away flushed with cash was "this is not reality."

I've come to realize that I am a "maintenance" gambler. I don't gamble myself into oblivion, rather I gamble because it helps to "get me through the day." If I know I can gamble then everything else is tolerable. Issues with my wife, work, and this absurd world are not as critical, because I know I am going to be "high" at some point during the day. During this last spree, I literally planned my day around gambling. When I was doing it, I thought this routine was perfectly rational. Now that I am sober, I think how insane insane it was.

Gambling for me isn't the "road to ruin" as it is for most who are addicted - it's even worse. It is the adoption of a lifestyle that puts every other priority in my life second. I don't want gambling to be the most important thing in my life or the elixir with which the bitter pills of life go down easier. Yet every time I gamble, I realize that is exactly what it is: I am losing myself in the haze and compulsion of gambling.

There is nothing wrong escaping every once in a while. But for me when I escape I lose the map with the directions on how to get back. It is a slippery slope: take one step and I am tumbling down the stairs of gambling oblivion.

Real life requires participation, getting into the game, not running from it. Fortunately, my bottom this time did not require scrapping the remnants of my self esteem and dignity off the floor. Still, I have some amends to make and miles to go as I fight this addiction and illness.

Labor Day- No Rest for the Addicted

Gambling is such a powerful drug that we chase the high despite the countless financial losses, the unmeasurable guilt, and the loss of self esteem.

It is not any different than the crack addict who risk his or her safety, financial ruin and personal collapse to chase down the next hit for the intense high it brings. Gambling is more dangerous in that the denial of its destructiveness is more institutionalized because of its economic impact. Politicians are the pimps and the gambling institutions are the whores waiting with open arms into which we run. But it is legal. Casinos, race tracks, card rooms and lotteries exist as though there are no problems. But we all know that underneath the fragile smiles of gamblers lies an an uneasiness. It is as if the gambler knows he or she is walking on a narrow bridge when at anytime she can fall into the abyss. Scratch the surface of any gambler with small talk about their gambling and you get the nervous laugh or cavalier response which belies the denial.

Gambling, like any addiction, will find the chink in your emotional armor. It's a strong drug for the uneasiness with which we all live and the daily struggles. I realize that now, but still breaking the addiction and resisting the attraction of that powerful high is hard. It is so easy to get on that merry go round of chasing the high, and God forgive you if you go on a winning streak, because the addiction grafts that much stronger to your emotions.

The longer you stay away from gambling that is one day less the addiction has hold of you.

Good luck on this Labor Day.

Wasted Days And Wasted Nights

Given the choice of being bored or gambling what would you do? I know what I'd want to do, which is why my life is much less fulfilled than it should be. Because over the years, instead of honing my skills as a singer/songwriter/musician, I gambled. Instead of publishing my novel, I gambled. Instead of finding out what it takes to accept life on its terms, I gambled. Instead of sitting with the emptiness that we often find ourselves in, I gambled. Instead of accepting my limitations, I gambled.

In short gambling was my drug of choice. It is incredibly mood altering. Sometimes in the afterglow of having good sex, I would feel the same tingle down my spine as I did when I anticipated gambling.

Gambling is not a moral issue, any more than problem drinkers have a moral failing. If it was a moral failing, than does that mean all those people who drink "responsibly" have a stronger moral compass?

Life is messy, and I am not one of those who believe unless we feel empowered in life, we are failures. I belive the opposite. I believe we are all imperfect. And the faster we accept that, the more we are able to be at ease with ourselves and have compassion for others.

I have been indignant many times by others who have lied to me. But how many times have I lied because of my gambling? Am I a bad person? No. So that is how I use my imperfections to be compassionate to others and not take things personally. And it is how I am able to sit a little longer with myself when I am uncomfortable or anxious about something, rather than follow my urge to gamble.

A Million Dead End Streets

"A gambler with a system must be, to a greater or lesser extent, insane." -George Augustus Sala (1828-95) English writer and journalist

Put another way, a gambler with a system is nothing more than a fool. The immutable facts about gambling is that it is detemined by streaks. Because the percentages are in favor of the house, over the long run the gambler will lose.

Card players think they are in more control, but don't fool yourselves. Winning and losing is largely determined by luck. The cards are random. The human factor plays a small role, but it is not the determining one.

So with the incontrovertable evidence that gambling is a fool's errand, why do we continue? Because even the slightest hope of winning justifies the excitement felt by the act of gambling. But let me ask you this: If you knew that the attactive and hot person before you that had you all lathered up was infected with HIV, would climb in bed with him/her? Of course not.

Yet, we walk away from the gambling whore not with HIV, but with our teeth kicked in or our noses smashed. And as bad as we feel, once we are on our feet again, we go back for more abuse.

We don't gamble because we are masochistic, we gamble because we have no control over the impulse. The promise of pleasure and excitement we feel totally obliterates the previous experiences of pain.

Let's not forget that compulsive gambling is a habit and like all habits it must be broken. The emotions and the moods that trip the urge and compulsion must be recognized and replaced with something else, another behaviour, another way of thinking. When these new responses are strong enough, then the habit can be broken.

It's like the old saying goes, "Nothing is going to change until you change it."
In no way am I offering a solution to gambling, but only an insight.

And there are other spiritual and emotional gifts to breaking the gambling addiction, gifts that allow us to live more fully and compassionately.