gambling timeline
2009 - started gambling
2011 - risk appetite escalated to $1K-$3K per casino trip.
2012 - experienced huge losses (up to $5k per trip). I can’t compute my total loss and I don’t want to.
2014 - hopeless, restless and depressed, I finally banned myself from casinos. Even if I went overseas and there are casinos around, I had 0 urge to play.
2016 – I have $40k savings in the bank and am expecting $20k more by end of the year.
I’ve been sober for 2 years and finally saved money in the bank. But my nightmare started again when I went to overseas casino with a friend, I won $1k and then another overseas trip I won another $1k. I thought I was on a winning streak so we planned to go another casino trip. In my mind, the goal is to take home at least $4K or $10k if I really got lucky. But of course the opposite happened, I lost $4.2k and I was devastated than ever. After that, I was already planning my revenge game plan! And contemplating to revoke my self-exclusion in the local casinos. I was convincing and promising myself that I will be more in control of my emotions in my next game. But I haven’t gone back and it’s been 27 days since I lost that $4.2k, I may still have money in the bank but that $4.2K is a huge dent on my savings. I shouldn’t have gone there in the first place. I know that the best thing to do is never go back to chase my losses but it’s killing me! The itch! The addiction came back! I cannot believe it, I’ve already gone through this and now I’m back in this misery. I know that the house always wins, it’s math and science I cannot argue with. But still, I believe in what I wanna believe in; that I could win my money back and win some more. I also think that I’m experiencing withdrawal, sometimes I would watch casino games on you tube as if I’m the one playing. #help
Replies
The addiction did not come back, it never left. Addiction does not go away, one learns to live in recovery without engaging in your addiction. Believing that I am cured is firstly, not possible and secondly part of the "magical thinking" that comes with addiction of any kind.
It is your inner gambling addict that is clinging to the idea of getting ahead by gambling. For me, near the end of gambling, even if I did win, it was mostly all played back within the same night or over the next couple of days. I did not really want to the money, I just wanted the action and the dopamine. You likely are going through dopamine withdrawal. There is also something called Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome (PAWS) that can last up to a couple of years.
It sounds like you know the math, intellectually, you get that your fantasy of winning big and getting ahead is just that, a fantasy. Once I decided to change that very FALSE belief, I could change my behavior. (I know now, that I cannot get ahead by gambling.)
Watching gambling does the same thing to your brain that actual gambling does. You will not get your brain off of dopamine if you continue to allow your brain to gamble, even vicariously. You will continue to make massive amounts of dopamine and flood your brain with it, as if you were actually doing the gambling. This will continue to be a nagging dopamine triggered urge and will build until you find relief. Life can be much calmer, more joyful and kinder without the anger-making, dopamine making, full blown addiction biting at one's ass all of the time.
You cannot be cured of this addiction but you can arrest it's progress. Hang in there.
thanks Qwit4Good that's enlightening. i was able to sleep well last night. youre right, the addiction never left. i do wish i could tame this monster in me, ill take one day at a time.. wish me luck
Good luck and good thoughts coming your way. You have the thread you just need to follow it.