I started realizing the joys of winning at games of chance when I was young. I would play games like Mahjong with my relatives, and enjoy them immensely. Little did I know how much luck had to do with winning these games. Every time I won a round, I chalked it up immediately to skill. That's probably when the seed was planted in my mind that I somehow had the ability to manipulate chance in my favor.
My father was (and still is) a big gambler, and I remember how he would lose thousands and thousands of dollars on blackjack, paigow, and sports betting. I didn't understand what table games were when I was younger, but I did understand that you could bet on sports. Whenever a big event was on tv (I was a big basketball fan in my youth), I would bet a dollar or two with my friends at school on the outcome of the event, and I always paid when I lost. I didn't understand the idea of a spread. I was betting with kids on things I knew nothing about, and in retrospect, I wish I hadn't learned any new information on how to "improve", because that's when I dug myself into a deeper and deeper hole.
Around 16 or so, the poker boom had just started. I remember watching the World Series of Poker on TV in 2003, and thinking to myself how cool the game was. I loved the fact that you could get into someone's head and bluff them off a big pot. Though I didn't really understand the strategy of the game then, I was hooked immediately.
Over the next few years, my love of poker grew exponentially. Friends of mine started having tournaments every Friday, and I would go and play to my hearts content. Sometimes I'd win five or ten dollars, and sometimes I'd lose the same amount. I was already a compulsive gambler and I had no idea. I thought I was doing something harmless to pass the time, but really what I was doing was that I was wasting both my time and my money on something completely asinine.
After reading several books on poker (as many as I could, actually), and losing $50 here or there online, I decided to make it out to the casino. I would drive two hours both ways to Jackson Rancheria, and play NL Holdem ($200 buy in) to my hearts content. I was also smoking quite a bit of weed at the time, so basically my life consisted of nothing but getting high and going to play cards. Thinking back on it, I hate feeling like I was probably one of the loneliest people I knew, and that the only thing I could do to feel good was get high or go gamble. I probably made that drive up to Jackson twenty or thirty times, and whenever I did win, I'd end up losing most or all of that money back the following week. If I didn't lose it at the casino, I'd inevitably lose it online.
When I moved to Montreal for university, I was pretty lonely too. Suddenly I was in a whole new place completely alone. The gambling thing started to reign over me. Casino de Montreal had just opened up a poker room, which meant that players all over the province would come and lose a bunch of money just because the novelty of playing poker legally was so great. Up until then it had been illegal to host card rooms, which meant that not only were people willing to play, people who had no idea how to play the game were willing to play. I made a killing the first month I was playing, and slowly built up a bank roll of about five thousand dollars.
I remember I hardly ever wanted to focus on class (and even if I didn't gamble, I'm pretty sure I would have filled my time with something non-academic related. I pretty much think being in class is pure agony), so I would spend most of my time locked in my room, smoking doobies and playing poker online. I always lost online, and I seemed to do very well in live games. I think the reason for this is that when I'm all alone and left to my own devices, I'm very susceptible to cave in to the pleasure centers of my brain that release the most euphoric chemicals. Or rather, I was addicted to the highs and the lows of gambling (and drugs), and didn't have the self control to limit myself. When I was in the poker room with other people in front of me, I was scared to do anything stupid, but when I was at home all alone, I took chances I never would have since the only person who knew about them was me.
And even when I did win money live, I remember it was hardly ever a positive experience. I remember one night after winning a thousand dollars out of a drunken Russian man who had no self control himself, I came home to an empty freezing apartment and slumped against a wall and started to cry. I'm not sure if I was just tired from the lack of sleep, or if I was genuinely lonely as all hell, or if I just felt bad I had taken money from someone as depraved as I was, but I knew I didn't feel good. But the next morning I went right back to the tables. It was all I had for a while during those Montreal summers. Not a friend in the city, the only thing I liked to do was play cards.
This continued on and on for a while, and I eventually ended up not going to the casino as often, and started to do harder and harder drugs. Ketamine, GHB, and Coke (coke being the big one - I was addicted to that for a few years to be honest). It was terrible, I mean really awful. If I wasn't gambling, I'd go buy a six pack of Alexander Keiths and do a bunch of coke just to get through the night. I recognized I had a problem, but I didn't actually stop doing drugs until my last month in Montreal. Though I'm happy I quit, I'm forlorn at the idea that I missed so many social opportunities while I was in that city, and that all I did was stimulate the neurons in my brain telling me that I was supposed to feel good (which stopped happening after about a year or so of this).
Anyway, so I just moved back home a couple of months ago, and I realized quickly that my degree in Creative Writing was not going to get me a job anywhere. I had this dream floating around in my head that I could play poker to finance the production of my first film, so I started to deposit money online. I've probably lost $800 - $1000 since I've been back. I've been to the casino twice, losing $400 and $300 respectively. The last time I went to the casino, I looked at all the dreary faces around me and came to the realization that that was the last time I'd ever go play cards again.
I just didn't want to end up like any of those people, and I knew that I was young enough to stop going. It's been a couple weeks now since I've gambled whatsoever, and to be honest, after that day, I realized that it's such a worthless sinkhole of time and effort, and it fucks with my emotions in such a negative way, that it's not even worth pursuing anymore. I have too much time left in my life to squander it all on something as stupid as gambling. Even if I did make money (which I probably won't since I'm so emotionally fragile these days), it probably wouldn't have been satisfying work in any regard.
These days I'm writing in the mornings, exercising in the afternoons, and finally living my passions of playing music at night, watching the films I like, and trying to stimulate my mind as much as possible. I've realized that when I'm not doing anything to stimulate my mind, it's difficult to do anything I enjoy. It's hard to be creative. Though my social life could use some improvement, I'm taking strides to improve in those areas as well, signing up for different classes in my community, and taking the time to call old friends.
The reason I mention these things is because in order to quit gambling, you really have to change your lifestyle completely. You can't live for the short-lasting feelings of happiness only to feel miserable for most of the time. I wanted to fill my life with things that made me feel good about myself, and one of the things that makes me feel good about myself is knowing that the money in my savings account is no longer in jeopardy due to my stupid vices.
It's been a long journey recovering from addiction of multiple vices, but I think I'm finally on the way to living out the life I've been wanting for myself for so long. In a way I'm happy I made all those mistakes in my youth, and although I wish I could have that time back, it makes me happy to think that I'll never (I really mean that actually) be tempted to do binge on these stupid vices again in my life. I'm still only 23, and I have a lifetime of making positive choices ahead of me. Some people aren't so lucky, and I feel very lucky to have the opportunity to really make it right this time.
Well, that's about it. If any of you have questions or comments feel free to post them at your leisure. Best of luck and have a wonderful rest of the week.
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