I had a relapse. It wasn't terrible financially, although I lost enough to be kicking myself. The funny thing is it felt as bad as the epic losses I used to sustain. The episode was triggered by a reaction to a loss -- an emotional loss -- and while I held off for a long time, I thought, oh heck, maybe a small, brief gambling "fling" would take the edge off the sadness. It did no such thing. A) I didn't win and B) Playing felt numbing.
The barriers I put in place to keep myself from an epic loss kicked in, which was the happiest moment of the sad brief affair. When I went to get cash back from a purchase so I could continue to play, I was declined. I broke out into a happy grin. I'll be honest: I was able to get a lower amount and did so. But I was so grateful to myself that I set that up. If you haven't done this for yourself yet, I hope you'll consider it.

A few thoughts occurred to me during it all: I need to live much more frugally than I used to (not that I ever lived it up -- whenever I had money it would go to the Maryland State Lottery) so the sums of money I wasted were much smaller by an order of magnitude. The crappy feeling at the end of it was the same. Because I'm living on a lot less, and some people know it, they've charged me less for certain services, etc. I was so grateful at the time, but I realize it was so incredibly disrespectful to these people who were trying to help me to gamble. Instead of using the savings to get things I really do need to move ahead in my life, I siphoned off a few bucks to basically feed a very bad habit. That felt worse than anything.