Confessions of a Small Time Gambler

 Here's a series of Instagram posts we've written during our self-initiated withdrawal from our addiction. Yes, it’s fun.. It’s exciting.. It’s addicting. That's why we had a hard time stopping ourselves from coming back. We were hooked since 2014. Now, we are just taking chances on whatever happens. Hopefully not inside this 24/7 establishment, but in life in general.

8/17/2019:

I can’t even remember when was this. Can you imagine how many hundreds and thousands of Pesos we’ve lost to have redeemed these?! It’s crazy! Just thinking about it, we no longer want to come back. We’re glad we had the courage to say no and resist temptations.

8/18/2019:

OK, so today our friends went to RW. We really wanted to go too!!! But we know we have low self control and if we win, there’s a 101% chance we’ll come back and be hooked again. If we lose, well, we don’t want that to happen. So instead of going out, we just stayed at home, cooked 2 dishes out of cream dory, and satisfied our cravings. Win-win! Let’s eat! 😊

8/21/2019:

Question: If you play just for fun, can you call it not gambling? Just asking.. because.. I’m getting weak and tempted right now and would like to say yes and go there. Help!

8/25/2019:

We used to spend our weekends in the casino. Every week, 24/7 until our feet hurt and money lost. It was fun at first until it no longer is. But now, we spend it watching Netflix, we get to cook our meals at home or order a delivery and get sleep too! If we decided to go out, instead of being stressed, we get to have a massage or go to mall or buy groceries. Glad we decided to change how we spend our weekends. ☺️

9/1/2019:

If there’s a casino in a place where we travel to, we ensure we go there, sign up for membership and play 😄. Not sure how we’ll do next time. We might sign up for membership still, but play? We hope not. 🤞🏻

9/2/2019:

If there’s one good thing that happened to us because of gambling.. it’s that we became more giving. When we give to our families, we give what we can to them. If someone needs our help, we no longer hesitate to lend a hand. (Of course only if we know it is not a made-up story.) We became more giving even to ourselves. If we want something, we no longer “tipid” ourselves to save money.

It came to us that if we can afford to lose money, we can definitely afford to give it to others, help them, satisfy and pamper ourselves and make them/us happy. 🤗 We are grateful that we are able to help and provide for them. We are grateful to be spending for ourselves and our loved ones and not losing money for the benefit of the banker. 😊

9/8/2019:

We just decided to stop. That’s true. Did it affect our health? Maybe. We didn’t have enough sleep.. We sometimes went there straight from work.. It’s open 24 hours, why not? We don’t even know what time it is.. or day it is. It’s also a non non-smoking place.. Second hand smoke? For sure. But it’s not actually the reason why we stopped.

Before, there were times we go home as winners.. and there were times we aren’t. It’s not that we’ve lost a big amount of money. We lose, yes. But not that a lot that will make us broke. Thank God it did not come to that point. We’ve heard stories like that so it really happens, you know. And we don’t want that to happen to us.

But in the last few visits with our friends, we were no longer winning. Our strategies were failing us. And I don’t think those really worked. Of course, who can beat the house?! Then the excitement was replaced with sadness.

And so at that last moment that we went there, once we stepped out of the door of the casino, we just decided to STOP. To never come back ever again.

And since then, we are fighting the urge.. to go there.. the feeling of how it feels to win.. to feel the excitement of waiting on the results of the next flip of card or roll of dice or spin of the wheel or press of a button. But also, since then, we had more.. We feel we have more.. more time.. more savings.. better health.. and healthier mind.

9/14/2019:

Today we hit the mark of our 6th month of casino-free lives. Today is also where it ends. 🤭 Sorry we broke our promise not to go back. Sorry we’re weak. Sorry we failed. Sorry because we think we’ll go back again soon. Let’s see what will happen. Hope we don’t just earn points to redeem freebies.