This article is written like a personal depiction of the back that can occur by chance. It is not intended in any way to be moralistic or slow-draining, but simply depict my personal experience of gambling and addiction, and possibly get someone to think when one rarely hears on the other side of the game (except in various publications for the purpose of deter, and they are rarely particularly qualitative or factual). This text is also written in therapy purposes, then I always found writing to be a good way to help myself from assorted pickles.
I remember how I slipped in on online poker, but first a word about my background. I have previously had problems with roulette and blackjack, mostly drunk in bars. This I have long since been brought under control, stopped playing these games at the casino, play rarely more than a few hundred out this way. Anyway sat I got a CD from Ladbrokes with an offer to play poker.
I’ll put the CD and test. Ooops. Big mistake. Among the first things that happens is that I’ll find a 7 Card Stud table, type 3-6 or similar. Of course I have no idea what it’s for games and how to play (the only game I at least was able rules to on this occasion was Texas). First hand I play so I max out on every street and miraculously pulls me into a flush or straight on the final card and win a giant pot of type 200-300 dollars. Kickstarter which I felt was indescribable.
I do not know how it is with people who do not have dependent personality (which I strongly suspect I have), but either way, it feels something like this:
The heart beats like a man possessed. The cards are turned up, and the pot is pushed to me. A strange euphoria descends upon me. Joy hormones may crazies, but at the same time, I feel a strange calm, a sense of belongingness with the whole world. I live here, now, and I am God. This feeling disappears quickly, as well as money. From what I won, I had nothing left. What to do when a gambler? Printing more money chasing high.
Anyway, two or three days went by and the pay was only a memory. How much exactly I’m off the first 2-3 months I played I do not know, but it was no small sums. Luckily I borrowed no money for games (did however borrow to cover my living expenses), I did not commit crimes to get playing. Found to pokerforum.nu and began to read about the game, understand the game, learn the game.
Therein lay also the second mistake I made – to teach me the game. Before I began to understand that I could not win, but when you come to the realization that you can actually win at poker, and when the results go one’s way, well, then you are inside on dangerous ground. I spent hours and days in front of the poker client, luckily, I am so smart that my study did not suffer by countless poker sessions. Often, I won, Kickstarter soon began to disappear, except on rare occasions when I’m on the high table, or when I was drunk. These times I lost usually much of what I won together.
I also discovered live poker. The first evening (when the club opened), I made off with safely five salmon. Playing china poker for the first time in her life against syrrorna is not to be recommended! Anyway, I was hooked. Playing live is so incomparably much more fun. To sit and talk shit, herd the chips back and forth, bluff, call, raise, everything becomes a sort of fantastic symbiosis. That since the live games can often torska larger sums than online, that you get stuck in the game and will do anything to stay on, how full you are, how bad you are playing, well, that’s a recipe for disaster.
In recent months, I have had several huge (for me) loss sessions live. The most recent was now Saturday, then I backed almost 3000th Anyway, enough about how much I lose. What then is the reason why I play, lose and keep playing?
The main reason that I lose spelled alcohol (and given that I bends every weekend, even if I play, so it’s a great cause). The second reason is spelled gambling. I am of the opinion that no matter how well you play, then a game of cod never in the long run be a winning player. For a long time I was of the opinion that only I would have a sufficient bankroll, I would never lose in the long run.
This is certainly true for most, but for me it’s pure bullshit. What would happen? Well, I would of course get tired of playing at the level I cope, after all, what is the fun to play for $ 50 when you have 1000 in your account? Why not try 0.5-1? Why not play that tournament with a $ 100 purchase? Sooner or later it will tilt to strike. If ordinary players, without abusing orientation, tilt out, well, then tilts like me probably three times as often, and tilts away three times as much. When I read on the forum about people who complain that they tilted so I can not help but laugh. People who say they first won the 300, then tilted away 100th What’s the tilt? When I tilted tilted so I removed it I won, that I had on the account, the one I had in the bank, that I got through loans. That’s what I call a genuine tilt.
Why do I play then? Probably it is because of underlying psychological problems. At the gaming table, you feel a sort of quiet, you are in harmony. When I play my A-game (or tilts) so I feel some sort of affinity, an inner peace of mind. Strangely, it does not occur when I’m not playing my A-game, or tilts, except when I play live – it’s always fun. Once I sit down at a table, I almost did not stop.
To tear me from the game requires tremendous discipline, tremendous motivation. Why quit if I can continue? Why care about the consequences? I’m playing it, I feel good, oh – back in 2000? Oh, I’m all well and good, I play. Give me more. I want to play, I have to play, I feel good when I play, I stop, I get anxiety about flunking, I must win back, I want to continue, give me money. What do you mean deposit not accepted? Huh? No money in the bank? Never mind, someone who can lend? Good. Back in action.
Approximately so goes the thinking. I want to play becomes an I have to play. Finding inner peace, to have fun, to fuck everything else. Me and Game. It is a noble goal.
Then what happens then? What goes up must come down. Eventually, you wake up out of play fogs, notice that you have a few hundred to live on the rest of the month and half pay in debt to the next month. This has happened a few times, but it’s only now that I dared to admit to myself how things really are. I IS dependent, if I start I can not stop. Waking up on Monday morning, with vague memories of the weekend’s complete game, can be my alarm clock, a very unpleasant one than the one that rang in my ear 0745 this morning.
The problem is just that I deep down do not want to stop playing. I just want to limit my playing, screen me from tilting. To stop playing online, I learn not to have a hard time with, then I discovered the live gameplay so has online become more and more a pale poker substitute. I would play online to earn money will not be at issue. As I wrote above, I do not believe that someone with addiction problems in the long run can keep enough discipline to maintain their bankroll without the yellow.
Actually, I should like to say stop playing poker altogether, but I do not want either. Poker is just too funny for me to be able to put it down altogether. Well this is the only rationalization, the only illusion, which I still cling on to me. I play for the fun of it (meaning: I do not play because I’m addicted, I do not play to win money). This is obviously not a lie, I THINK it’s fun, but it is also, paradoxically, only another addict’s rationalization.
What should I do? Firstly, it will be total poker break to the next salary. Since when? Am I really going to expose myself to the risks inherent in poker? Because to stop playing online will not be a problem (I think anyway) so we only live gameplay left. Will try to make sure to get game ban when I’m drunk (unless it’s a home game, then’re drunk half the thing). Then I’ll tell everyone I play with that under no circumstances lend any money to gambling to me. The THIRD becomes well that only carry a sum you can afford to torska and leave ATM card at home.
Next month we will see if the above works. If it does not, so I get really scared, because then I do not know what to do with myself. I have, after all, far too many positive qualities to end up as a desperate game of cod that finance their habit by snatching handbags from old ladies.
