I AM SICK! I AM NOT OKAY

Today I worked hard the whole afternoon and early evening and delivered avocados to clients, I payments of around Ksh. 4500 other payments are still pending. The only thing I have purchased with that money is a litre of juice, the rest I put it all in sports and virtual sports betting and I have lost it all. My account is Sh.0 as I write this.

I have requested a prepayment from a client who just placed his order this evening so as to use the cash take care of my expenses of tomorrow morning — cash that I had more than I needed. I would say it is pathetic but that sentiment coming from me is insincere, I do not see it like that at all. I am not in a position to condemn myself — I do not possess that inner authority at this point. Admitting that this habit has beaten me down to the rocks is boiling within me but it hasn’t reached fever pitch. There is still this hope, the maybe, this I can still hide it in plain site, this I will be lucky, I will double the stake and place and well analyzed odds of 2, this let me just win back and quit(which has never true for my case) the only time I truly quit gambling was when I lost to the point where I saw it was not acceptable for me to lose anymore, when the threshold was reached, when I could not belief in the hope that I could win anymore, when the attempts to convince myself were not appealing to me anymore. Right now I am not in my right mind, I have kind of lost it, I have become an illogical creature totally, I have gotten to a point where I ignore my rationality, I am accepting to be stupid, utter foolishness — I have lost the eyes to see it as stupidity and foolishness. I do not know what it is…

I mean despite all evidence against it I still continue to play, I have had multiple time where I have ‘analyzed’ games for hours and still lost, many times, I would say 80% of the time. Analysis gives me the satisfaction that I placed a ‘safe’ bet, a thoroughly analyzed bet but I still lose…many times when I have lost with one game. This week alone I have had three main ones, the mind says it was close. The truth is all or nothing. Close is a myth. My mind does not see it that way, if it sees it doesn’t resonate deep enough to shake up something, to peel off some cataracts for sight. It is a dead intellectual say…

Even as I write this article, I flip to the scores tab to check who just scored, I am hooked. I have totally become an illogical creature because of this habit. I make money and gamble it all away — the way my mind see it is that it is not throwing it away per say ( I just switched tabs again, unconsciously ‘)…it sees the ‘one day I will win’ the ’I was sloppy in that bet, if I only analyzed this way and that then I could have got it,’ such mental justifications keep me going back to it.

I went for a session of therapy, within myself I knew I was not really sincere about wanting to stop. I knew that I would not stop despite it. It was pacifier for my mind and for when someone asks ‘what have you done about it?’ I would say I went for therapy blah blah blah…going for therapy is not bad or good it is about finding out if one truly needs it. It didn’t stop me only because I wasn’t sincere in the quest.

Betting is problem because there seems to be no threshold point when I will reach and find it unsustainable to finally quit or that it might sink before getting there. My mind knows that there is money coming in from my business so it bothers not with a threshold. Another problem is that I have sophisticated methods of coping that renew my hope e.g. meditation, exercising, watching YouTube, social media and movies. Finding a different angle to convince myself back, e.g. be positive, all winners had a losing streak, you only need to win big once etc…so many caveats have me trapped almost from all angles.

One of the other reason that I stay is the belief and the wait for the day that I will truly want to quit, when the desire is strong enough etc. That day might never come.

I am thinking of paying my rent 3 months upfront then not touching money for the next 3 months to sensitize my brain again to the pain of losing hard earned money because for now it is blurred.

I pray the desire to stop totally arises before I am usurped by this…