One of our members described the conversation his gambling compulsive brain has with itself like this:
Compulsive: You are way behind on bills. You need to gamble and it will solve everything because you will win a jackpot.
Me: yeah I wish.
Compulsive: Right?! Come on let’s go. Do you know how happy your husband will be if you win a lot of bill money?
Me: But what if we lose money instead
Compulsive: you’ve lost so much the last few times. It’s definitely time for you to hit a jackpot.
Me: that’s true
Compulsive: Just take $xxx from the bank. If you can even double it that will help.
Me: we always say that but we always play everything back.
Compulsive: This time you won’t.
Me: How do you know?
Compulsive: Because you really need the money.
Me: I want to but I’m scared we will put the money back.
Compulsive: they have that good restaurant you like and it’s free!
Me: I do like that restaurant.
Compulsive: You have to pay back that money you “borrowed” from person before person finds out you “borrowed” it.
Me: we had enough to pay that back 4 times over and we never cashed out.
Compulsive: but we will now.
Me: I don’t know.
Compulsive: remember that time you walked away with $xxxx. You can do it. Just be strong!
Me: yeah and what about that time we broke the gambler’s box to get money out
Compulsive: it was a rough night. You will win today though. I know you will. Don’t you want to get these bills caught up?
Me: it’s gonna take 10 years to get these bills paid off.
Compulsive: not if you win a jackpot.
Me: daydreams of winning big jackpot
Compulsive: exactly! We could pay so many bills.
Me: we’ve won a lot of jackpots and we rarely keep them
Compulsive: we will today.
Me: so many bills. What if we did win a jackpot and we cashed out?
Compulsive: let’s go get bill money.
Me: all these bills are because of you.
Compulsive: YOU ARE GOING TO WIN A JACKPOT TODAY!
Sigh.
These are the thoughts I have to conquer daily. Anyone else?
