Unfair Fight

I ran into a poker playing friend of mine, who visited the same card room I did. He is retired military, having served his country during the Vietnam war. He lamented he was losing too much money at the card room, expressing it in a way that betrayed a hint of desperation. I understand what he was feeling, I didn't need to be standing in his shoes. I know the feeling all too well, the tight hold gambling grips you with in that brief moment when there is a flash of reason urging you to get up before reaching into your pocket for another hundred dollars. But you are pinned under a superior wrestler and it is hopeless.

You lose and regroup at home. Reason makes a valiant charge to try and take the enemy's other flank: next time I will only lose two hundred dollars because that is all I can afford and when it is gone I will get up and go home. Such a neat and tidy strategy, except in the full force of gambling's fury, your spitball of a reason hasn't a chance. And after being made a liar to your best angels, that is when you know it has nothing to do with reason or willpower. On the contrary, on this battlefield the best you can do is throw down your weapons and surrender.

There are many who gamble who do not fight the war that we do. To them gambling is not the enemy. It does not bewitch them as it does us. To them the gambling whore is just a flirt, passing in the night. To us she is our mistress, we follow her in the early hours of the morning when we should be home nurturing our bodies and minds.

When we are at the card tables or sports book, it is too late. Our dick is already hard and there is no turning back until we climax or lay exhausted attempting to.

My friend is still in the throes of his passion and will turn himself inside out trying to figure out how to cool off the raging volcano. The inferno usually wins, consuming us until our egos are immolated and we are nothing but spirit, which ironically, is when we are finally liberated.