Brief but Costly Stint into Gambling Addiction

What the readers want, the readers get. Thus, the embarrassing explanation of my cryptic comment two posts ago:

I LOVE going to the casino. The casino, with its bright lights, frenzy of activity, random shouts of joy and sorrow, and free drinks, is a veritable wonderland to my little ADHD brain. For many years, I'd go to the casino once every four months or so, play penny slots for several hours, and come home plus or minus about $30 each time - which was well worth it for the entertainment value.

Then, several months ago, the most dangerous thing imaginable happened. I won. $7000 + bucks, playing a $1 machine with a minimum $10 bet. Three days later, I won about $1600 doing the same thing. I set aside $1500 to pay property taxes with, purchased and installed new tires for my car and finally got the maintenance done that it needed, bought a new washing machine and computer, and had some left over to throw at bills and such.

Then, a friend called and told us that she needed help. She lost her primary employment and had to move out of her apartment. She wanted to buy a small toy hauler to live in, but couldn't qualify and didn't have a down payment. We tried to get the loan for her, but weren't able to qualify either. The brightest idea of all hit me: I could take the approximately $2500 I had left over from my winnings (which included the property tax money) to the casino and would CERTAINLY be able to win enough for a cheap toy hauler, especially if I played the "big investment" machines like I had been doing. Of course, I would also come home with my original $2500, too.

Well, you can guess how that turned out. Not only did I lose the whole $2500, I also lost about $1000 out of our checking account trying to "win it back."

I can hear you groaning, you know.

And then I was REALLY in trouble, because I didn't want to have to tell MSU that I had lost the money, nor did I want to tell him that we wouldn't be able to cover our mortgage that month. That's when I sold my guns. And after selling my beloved guns and paying back the checking account and paying the property taxes, I had a little bit of money left over. Which, of course, I took to the casino.

Okay, enough with the groaning already!

And, yes, you guessed it: I won about $1200 with that money, but I didn't take my winnings and run. I was convinced that I could turn it into even MORE money. So convinced, in fact, that I lost the $1200 in winnings, the money I started with, and more of our mortgage money.

That's when I took half of the money out of my Employee Savings Account, an account I set up in order to save money each month to pay our property taxes. And after I paid back the checking account again, I...

had some money left over.

You know, pounding your head against the computer desk is uneccessarily dramatic. You could get your point across equally well by just pointing at me and laughing.

This time, I lost it all. ALL of it. And there was no magic I could pull of that was going to allow me to avoid owning up to what I'd done.

BUT WAIT! My 401(a) account!!! (I'm guessing that many of the blogs from the past few months are starting to make a little more sense now). I "borrowed" money from my own retirement - from "Old Daughter" - and was able to cover the most pressing of the bills. But so many more had to go unpaid.

I couldn't keep MSU out of the loop any more and 'fessed up to the whole thing. Needless to say, he was less than happy with me. He's forbade me to set foot in a casino ever again (which means that I killed one of my own fun pasttimes with my own stupidity). And we are still recovering, but we ARE recovering. Not quickly, and not without a lot of sacrifice (and guilt and remorse and self-incrimination).

Money is an issue at my house because I am an addictive idiot.

Hi, I'm Daughter of Night, and I'm a gambling addict. (Hi Daughter!!) It's been 34 days since I last gambled, and I am trying to reanimate my dessicated finances.