A Trap for the Pure In Heart

Q: Dear Preston, I haven't been to "the casino" since September 23, 2007.

In January, I filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy, in part because of the credit card debt I ran up by taking cash advances so I could play the slot machines.

Sometimes I get the itch. Sometimes I really want to play "Double Diamond Run," "Cleopatra" or "Hot Flashes," but I've somehow been able to resist. It's been very difficult lately, though. I've been wanting to go so I can win enough money to buy my friend a concert ticket for her birthday. One of my other friends talked me out of it, thankfully. Another friend thinks I should go and see if I can only gamble a "certain amount" and make sure I can't get more by leaving my ATM card at home.

Well, I just finished reading your book.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

S.

A: Thanks for your email, S (named after one of the characters in the novel, LOL), and thanks for reading ALL OR NOTHING. I hope that it helped in some way, though I know that the only “dependable” and “trusted” ways for a gambler to be helped are to seek it professionally from a mental health counselor or to go to GA—and even if you seek help in one of these manners, you will feel the itch for the rest of your life. Sadly, they can teach us how not to scratch, but they can’t teach us how not to itch.

Therefore, the friend who advises you not to return to the casino to “win” money to buy a concert ticket for someone you care about is right. What many fail to understand about us gamblers is that we are usually good people at heart—we have wonderfully generous and altruistic plans for what to do with the money once we win it. We want to save the world with all of that money, and we would, if we could just win it. The casino is a trap for the pure in heart. You go there to win money for a good cause, and instead you become addicted to the most dangerous vice there is: the vice of throwing your money to the winds for enjoyment. If you go to the casino to win money for that concert ticket, you will lose the money for your rent and for other essential things.

I have been a lucky gambler at times. I once went to the casino to win money to help bury a close family friend. Was God watching me? I hit big on the first machine I touched upon entering—I hit more than enough to bury her and then have a few hundred left over. Then as I was waiting for them to review my ID documents and print me the check, I fooled around with another machine, and hit again! This was not so much as the first time, about half as much—but it was still nice. This amount was small enough for them to give it to me in cash without checking my ID, which I did not have because they were still checking it for the big amount I had hit previously and was still waiting to be given the check for. Of course, I put this money back into the machines and hit again! I was on a roll that night. By the time they finally brought me my check, I had won almost as much in smaller increments on random machines. So that was a good night . . .

But the problem is that the few and far between nights like that helped to create in me the twisted logic known as “magical thinking”: i.e., when I need money, instead of working I will go get it from the casino. Thinking like that leads to disaster. I have too many examples of disastrous nights like that, as I am sure you have.

Our habit is not in the making of money or the winning of money—our habit is in the ritual of risking money. Winning encourages us to take more risks (because we incorrectly feel we are lucky); losing encourages us to take more risks (because our financial situation has been destroyed by our habit and we need to get our money back and ironically the only way to get it back is to . . . gamble more and harder).

But you know all of this already, I am sure.

And the friend who tells you to go to the casino to see if you can gamble only a small amount is in gross misunderstanding of your addictive condition. You are trying to see if you can control it . . . but we have already determined that you are a gambler and therefore cannot control it . . . furthermore, did you do anything in the interim to “learn” to control it?

Did you go to GA? Did you seek counseling? No?

So here is your answer: of course, you cannot control it. That is not control talking to you. That is simply the monkey on your back talking. That is your itch begging to be scratched. You will tell yourself any lie to get back into the casino—including, “I want to buy a gift for my friend,” or even worse, “It’s my money and I can do what I want with it.”

LOL

But it is not your money anymore . . . really, it is not. It is NOT your money.

You have already spent all of YOUR money. You are now spending borrowed money—money borrowed to save your life!

Money borrowed from credit cards. Money borrowed (I am sure) from friends. Money borrowed from bankruptcy (a program that, despite its name and connotation, is really a system of consolidating and repaying your debt).

YOUR money has already been spent—you are now spending money that you OWE to other people.

No, by law it is not your money, and you cannot do what you want with it (not legally anyway). But you will gamble anyway . . . we will gamble anyway, because we are gamblers and we are ill. We have the worst kind of illness, a mental illness that tells us lies like “all we need is self-control to stop gambling” and “we will save the world and buy concert tickets for our friends with the money we will win at the casino” and “it’s my money and I can do what I want with it.”

Here is what you need to do:

1) Stay away from the casino forever—get help from a program like GA so that you can stay away from the Dante’s inferno called casino.

2) Find a new kind of thrill. Fall in love. Write a book. Take up sky diving. Here is something you may not have noticed, S. See, now that you are not gambling you have a lot more free time—a lot more—gamblers spend countless HOURS a week in casinos—countless. See, casinos not only steal your money. They steal your life. One hour at a time. When was the last time your played with your children? When was the last time you hung out with an old friend? It steals your time--and time, unlike money, cannot be won back. Suddenly all of your children are grown and they are strangers to you. Suddenly all of your old friends have replaced you with other friends. Like the song says, "Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking . . . into the future."

So when you stop gambling you have all of this free time, S, and . . . if you do not fill it up, you WILL eventually end up back in the casino. So why not use that free time to start a business? Help a charity? Do self repairs on the house? Learn to play the piano? Learn a foreign language?

Quitting gambling gives you back your time, so use it, S, or gambling WILL take it back.


Thanks,

Preston