Falling Down

I fell off the wagon. I went on a gambling spree. Got lucky and made money. I should be happy, after all, I had my fling with the gambling whore without being left for dead. But what is amazing is that when I was on the spree, I didn't feel high, I felt numb. It was like I was in a state of suspended animation. It is as though I checked out from the world while life went on around me. I stepped aside while real people continued to negotiate the ups and downs, the joys and sorrows of life. Except when I gamble, I see none of that. I don't want to feel any of that. All I want to do is coordinate my life sitting around the card table for hours chasing the high. Well I got lucky and got the cheese, but it did not add to my quality of life. If I said anything when I walked away flushed with cash was "this is not reality."

I've come to realize that I am a "maintenance" gambler. I don't gamble myself into oblivion, rather I gamble because it helps to "get me through the day." If I know I can gamble then everything else is tolerable. Issues with my wife, work, and this absurd world are not as critical, because I know I am going to be "high" at some point during the day. During this last spree, I literally planned my day around gambling. When I was doing it, I thought this routine was perfectly rational. Now that I am sober, I think how insane insane it was.

Gambling for me isn't the "road to ruin" as it is for most who are addicted - it's even worse. It is the adoption of a lifestyle that puts every other priority in my life second. I don't want gambling to be the most important thing in my life or the elixir with which the bitter pills of life go down easier. Yet every time I gamble, I realize that is exactly what it is: I am losing myself in the haze and compulsion of gambling.

There is nothing wrong escaping every once in a while. But for me when I escape I lose the map with the directions on how to get back. It is a slippery slope: take one step and I am tumbling down the stairs of gambling oblivion.

Real life requires participation, getting into the game, not running from it. Fortunately, my bottom this time did not require scrapping the remnants of my self esteem and dignity off the floor. Still, I have some amends to make and miles to go as I fight this addiction and illness.