Pimp My High

Allright, gamblers, this is how it goes: money is the drug and it is what we abuse to get high. It is as intoxicating as sex, food, drugs and alcohol. The problem is like all addictions, it really doesn't satisfy you. Even when you win a bundle you're are really not satisfied until you come back for more action. Money means nothing, it is a pimp pushing dopamine to the pleasure/reward part of your brain. Play cards for a twenty-five cents and you're likely to fall asleep before the "river." Play cards for twenty-five dollars and you're lit up like Christmas tree.

I worked on the race track as a jockey's agent, turf writer, and PR official. During that time I was like a guy hooked to a dialysis machine. The track was my life. The money I made legitimately only supported my addiction to betting the horses. That's where my motivation lay and that's where I kept score. How much money I brought home from my job, my savings, my money for vacations was subordinated to how much I won and loss at the track. In my mind, that was where my success and failure rest. It was also in my brain where I was seeking to repeat countless times my dopamine rush. Since I am not a neurobiologist and really don't understand the neurochemistry of my compulsion, I gave meaning to my addiction by keeping score with the money. If I was losing, I obsessed to get even; if I was ahead, I would fantasize about winning more. That was the only way I could make sense of the compulsive life I was living.


Of course there is a huge infrastructure and institution set up for people to gamble. Casinos, off track betting, card rooms, and online gaming provides opportunities to gamble anytime and anywhere. So it doesn't take much for someone with faulty wiring of the brain to become obsessed, abuse it and attempt to rationalize it.

But in the end, you understand it's not the money we are after, but what its pimping.

(I'm on vacation. Pimp My High is a reprint from an earlier post)