“No turning back”

Hi, my name is Michael; my friends and gambling colleagues at the time called me “Guru”. Just like them, I was a gambler. Or rather, as I preferred to see myself – I was a winner on the fast lane. But then things did not turn out as planned. Due to the gambling, my life became more and more troubled. But suddenly everything made sense because the inevitable was bound to happen. The gambler fails because of his own thoughts on why he is gambling. It was for this precise reason that my life as a gambler was bound to fail from the very beginning. Unfortunately, many years passed until I made this bitter and yet most important realization. I became one of the most effective, authentic and successful counselors for gambling addicts because by means of targeted questions I reveal the gambler’s reality and simultaneously I propose a solution. This cannot always be done with a lot of sensitivity, but the truth is generally not easy to bear. The main thing is to accept, process, and learn from that. Positive events will not make you stronger, but negative ones will. You grow with experience and not with the memory of better times. Anyone who lives in the past, cannot start successfully into the future. Gamblers contact me and ask about when it is the right point in time to get out. – Now and on every following page: it is always the right time, but you must recognize it and adhere to it. At the same time, you need to learn that the adhering does not require as much strength as the letting go does. Look ahead and don’t look back. All you need to do now is to read and not to start gambling again. Because you have already stopped gambling. In fact, the only thing is that you must not start again. In the case of a fight, anguish, stress and the daily rat-race, you cannot just flee and gamble away money at a machine. No, you need to face reality and this is precisely what you need to learn. The fastest way is not always the best way. Sometimes we must overcome unpleasant things in order to then enjoy the good things in life.

The gambler spends a lot of time downplaying and concealing his addiction instead of just accepting it. From the point of view of the gambler, the acceptance takes very much longer than one would ever suppose. Addiction does not have a fixed standing in our life. We see it as a balancing valve for everyday life. However, we also have to be able to master the day without this valve We do it every day; however, at the end of the day, we already decide that first thing in the morning we will persevere for the wrong thing. We see everyday life as a kind of punishment and gambling we consider to be a kind of reward where really it should be the other way around. Everyday life can become a gift if you spend your time with something meaningful. Time is not retrievable. Every minute spent at the slot machine – every hour, every day – is inevitably lost and will not ever come back. Today, you possibly waste 100 dollars at the slot machine and in a month you will have forgotten about it; but in twenty years’ time, you will look back and realize that you spent your life only at the slot machine. What is the point in losing or winning money if the stake is higher than you can ever pay for? I boasted with large winnings, but the realization that every winning would only extend the time of my misery did not come to me. It was because I did not want anybody to badmouth my winnings. It is not a winning - it is only lost time which was gambled away. You as a person are more important than a place of work and you are worth a lot more than a slot machine. It is not the slot machine which gives you that feeling of perfection. You have this feeling inside of you already. Unfortunately, you have only ever been able to let out this feeling when you were able to open up at the slot machine. A lot of people who play at the slot machines report that even severe depressions, anxiety states and even a deep lovesickness felt as if they had suddenly been eliminated. But gambling did not perform a miracle healing – gambling and/or the addiction only taught them not to think about the important facts any longer. Addiction does not heal – on the contrary – the addiction causes us not to care. After many years of self-destruction, gamblers become unfeeling, unemotional and sluggish. Are these three characteristics familiar to you? I would think so because after a number of years every one of us adopts these negative characteristics. Addiction is not a valve, it does not cure anything, it makes you die. We appear hardened, but we are able to whine on demand. Sometimes we appear tough because we want to be seen in this way and other times we appear tough because we have already turned off all feelings. But finally, it will be seen how tough you really are - not one bit. At this point, a lot of us panic. We feel misunderstood and at the same time we start believing that we cannot actually talk to anyone. The psyche of a gambler becomes quite complex in the course of the years. We want to talk and open up to other people; but we cannot find the right words to even begin describing our life. We are silent and simultaneously we hope that somebody listens to us. I know this feeling of powerlessness only too well, I know how it feels when your whole emotional world collapses. But I can assure you that you will survive this period of time when you have made the decision that something needs to be changed. I was never very good with words and to this day I wonder how everything could have happened the way it did. However, finally it all made sense and I found the right words as well as the correct and decisive way of thinking. I took this one path out of the addiction. I went with resolution, knowledge and many new realizations. There is more to us than the addiction, WE ARE WE. You are the person who can liberate himself from these clutches and you will do this. I am not telling you all of this so as to sugar-coat paradise for you. I am stating this because I am truly convinced that you will walk away from the addiction. I overcame my addiction and there hasn’t been a single day when I have even come close to regretting it in any way. Thousands of gamblers leave their addiction behind them and none of them ever have regrets about being allowed to go through life without gambling. Don’t wait any longer. Don’t hesitate and wait to do the right thing. Stop gambling! You will never regret it!

The decision to give up gambling is more than a simple decision. It is the direct realization of concluding the life you led to date. It entails making a 180-degree-turn – in the positive sense, of course. Withdrawal from the addiction is difficult to put in words, because with the withdrawal, the pack of cards will be reshuffled. Everything you ever hoped for in life, comes within reach again. Everything will be within your grasp. As a gambler, you wanted to be somebody else for many years and by withdrawing you realize that you can be whatever you want if you set yourself a relevant goal. Suddenly failure is no longer acceptable; you analyze your mistakes and restart. Without an addiction or compulsion. As a gambler, you unfortunately adopt the negative characteristic of not admitting to your own mistakes – of not even regarding them as mistakes. The addiction to gambling is a disease and its targeted downplaying is a major part of this disease. This is precisely what you must admit to. You cannot continue to make up excuses because that is exactly what you have been doing for many years as a gambler. You are not the American dream, you are not the work-place, you are more than that – you are a human being. A person with feelings, with strengths and their corresponding weaknesses. Stop being ashamed of what you are because then you can start working on the present and/or the future. Draw the negative as well as the positive conclusions from your deeds. The addiction to gambling must not be downplayed in any way. Your problems started with the addiction and they will also end with it.

We come into the world empty-handed and we leave it the same way. It is just that between these two empty states we believe that we must gather possessions. We strive for them every day, every hour and every minute. You can achieve everything, any goal and you can take whatever path you want if you choose the right perspective. One thing is clear – I cannot make the decision to stop gambling for you. You decide where your path ends. But in the end, a gambler is not free to decide because the addiction takes over your thoughts, emotions and actions. The longer you delay your withdrawal, the stronger the addiction will be anchored in your everyday life. Even in my closest environment, depressions are more or less considered from the outside. Reproaches were made, “You have no idea how terrible depressions are”. Unfortunately, I know only too well how dangerous depressions are. I am a gambler; but not one of those who lose a bit of money, get annoyed over it and stop gambling. I was one of those gamblers, who continued to gamble even, when I didn’t have a single cent to my name. I no longer got angry or disappointed over losing money – I was desperately unhappy and frustrated and finally I actually gave up. I did not want to change my life, I did not want anything any longer, and I just wanted to die. And here is the bitter truth; I did not just suffer from depressions. No, I was convinced that my death was the only right way to straighten things out again. This is what the gambling addiction does to you -regardless of the consequences- and it is for this reason that I want to save you from this suffering. I am not a writer who learned about life from books. I experienced it, I have had to experience poverty. I gambled and lost my money...