When we win and are comfortably up it seems so easy. Our brains trick us into thinking that actually it’s quite easy, we’ve made some significant profit so keep going and there is a great chance of increasing the profit further. Besides as we are so far ahead of the game we can take some hits and still be up.
Conversely though when we are down it’s vital we make the loss back so as at worse we break even. We can’t possibly go to bed that night knowing we are down, even if it is a tenner. So the loss gets chased and we try to win the initial loss back quickly, in and out job. But the chasing bet loses too and now we are a little further behind than is comfortable but our bad luck can’t last forever. So we go in hard to get the loss back and then we can quit, but we lose again and now the panic sets in because of double trouble, we are now down a lot and we are starting to understand we are mentally a little out of control. So now logical thinking goes through the roof and we put on a crazy and ridiculous sum all holes barred to get it all back in one go . It is now real Russian roulette. Do you remember those occasions when it worked, against all the odds our crazy reckless gamble came off and we got it all back? How relieved we all were as we logged out and thought oh my god, the sweating, the heart rate...we will NEVER put ourselves in that position ever again. We escaped! And let’s be honest, when the heart rate returns to normal, although we scared ourselves silly...boy what a rush! That’s the dopamine hit in your brain rewarding you for all the excitement.
But we are sensible intelligent people of course. So we don’t go back to gambling for a short period of time because we really did scare ourselves...but we also remember the buzz and our brain wants to give us another dopamine hit of excitement. And after all, we didn’t lose a penny last time so we could go in small and look for some more profit.
And the whole thing begins again. We recycle the whole experience again but eventually, second or third or fourth time around we do not get out of jail and we log off from the sites with that gut wrenching feeling of severe loss and incredulity as to how we could possibly have put ourselves in this ridiculous situation which now affects your every waking hour and often those of the people we are supposed to love.
Sounds familiar? We have all been there. We know how you feel and it is awful but time does heal. You probably need to put some blocks in place now to assist in your recovery. Everyone suffers losses. Even professional gamblers lose from time to time but they have the mentality to take the hits knowing they have the skills to win the long game. We don’t have the mentality to cope with losses. We don’t look at the bigger picture. We don’t like losing even if it is a fiver or tenner. Barney Curley is a famous professional gambler in horse racing. People used to see him at the course and would know he had a bet on but would never know from his facial expression after the race if he had just won half a million or lost half a million. This is because he was a guy that knew what he was doing, trusted his judgement, but also he played the long game and looked for the profit at the end of the year not from race to race. He never ever chased a loss.
And then there are us! We can’t cope with a loss and we therefore have to chase and it is chasing losses which explain why the majority of us are here.
We are what is known as The mug punter. The bookies rely on us in order to make their annual accounts look good and encourage shareholders. The bad news is if you are reading this then you are likely a mug punter. The good news is with hard work, concentration, an understanding of why we did what we did, and never having a bet again...we can revert from a long-standing mug and become a smart cookie. Bookies hate smart cookies because there is no money in a smart cookie! Be a smart cookie and enjoy your life and families. God bless you all in our continuing recoveries.
Interesting post.
The golden rule I suppose is that if you do not respect money it does not respect you back. The whole ritual to win for you to loose for you to chase and win back your losses surpasses the interest of keeping it because it is to easy to win new money. I know I have done it more times than I can remember. But why? The intelligence as you speak of seems to be willingly thrown out of the window for madness ( The only way I can explain it) We don't feel mad when we do it but are overcome by shame and guilt of our stupidity when we have done the deed.
It is reachable through some good therapy. As long as you know what that ritual does and you can not address it with confusion then you have a good chance of moving on from the stupidity but you need to understand that you can not move on from this point without addressing the why otherwise you will just be repeating the obvious. "I spent soo much money"!
All the best
C
I am determined to be that Smart Cookie as for too long I’ve been the mug! Everything you say certainly does ring true....I’m now on Day 3 and although early days I’m feeling better about myself! It’s just the debt I need to tackle but I know I will get there!
Interesting post.
The golden rule I suppose is that if you do not respect money it does not respect you back.
Absolutely. When we hit that zone where nothing in the world matters more than retrieving our initial losses we completely ignore the fact we are dealing with real cash. We persuade ourselves that they are just digits on a screen. We must find ways to ignore the urges or at least challenge those urges and understand if we give in to them we are committing to probably adding to our current debt. Sometimes just finding the ability to wait for five minutes when the urge hits and have a think is sufficient to recover ourselves.
I am determined to be that Smart Cookie as for too long I’ve been the mug! Everything you say certainly does ring true....I’m now on Day 3 and although early days I’m feeling better about myself! It’s just the debt I need to tackle but I know I will get there!
Every night you go to bed without having gambled and put yourself at risk of extending your debts further... you are tackling your debt. 3 days is a great start. I just passed 50 days and it feels great but I take nothing for granted. It has been really beneficial for me to try to educate myself as to what is actually going on in our brains when we gamble. It is an addictive behavior and we have to put the effort in to overcome the addiction just as a smoker or drug user would if they wanted to give up and recover their lives. Keep up the great work.
I think the best comfort for me was when I got so far down the road that I didn't feel the pain anymore from the losses. When you do this stuff long enough it erases feelings. I could spend a grand and go to bed and sleep with nothing more than an elevated heartbeat and I could and still can not afford to lose a grand in a night but my mind seemed to think that I could. The win was and is knowing what is happening to you. There are so many people who get stuck in the loss and get so desperate that they decide to end it all and that waste is to me the worst in this decease because they never get to see how they could have made the difference to themselves and their families. But I also appreciate how stuck the mind can be in the insane mode and that is something everyone here should be aware of every day. The best win you will ever get is staying alive and seeing what happens next. I promise it will beat any sum of money you could imagine because this decease was never about the money to start with. It was always to do with something else.
Regs
C
I feel better today than I’ve felt for a while....I regret not coming on here sooner but guess you have to be ready and I wasn’t! Better now than never!
We are available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. You can also contact us for free on 0808 80 20 133. If you would like to find out more about the service before you start, including information on confidentiality, please click below. Call recordings and chat transcripts are saved for 28 days for quality assurance.
