Eva's house warming / relapse

Did I mention that I played on Wednesday night and Thursday night? My legs cramped up right at the end of Thursday night's game, so I think that is a pretty good sign the games are taking its toll on me. On Friday my legs were sooooo tired.

Anyway, yesterday we had to go to Eva's house warming, as she has now moved out after separating from Michael L. I wasn't sure of what time we were going, despite me asking Shuing earlier in the week. It was only after some fb messages that we decided to go at around 4pm.

My parents were out with the car, but they came back at around 2pm. I had decided to go donate some clothes, but I would still have some time to kill before 4pm. Having been gamble-free for four weeks, the urge had re-surfaced and my mind naturally thought about having a quick gamble.

I drove my mom to the laundromat and then went to the Wick to drop off a suit for donation, then......with $900. I was going to withdraw a grand but the 'good me' said to just do $900 in case I lost.

I then quickly drove to the casino. I had the rush, not only of the thought of gambling, but doing it in such a tight time frame. I figured I could get an hour in then meet up with G and Shuing. My plan was to win back the $300 I had spent seeing Bibi.

I parked near the casino and went in. All the tables were pretty full, but I managed to squeeze into a spot. I put down my money and off I went. I won one game and then lost everything else. I thought I could stick to my 'system', but both the time frame and the bodies at the table made me lose it and rush things. I practically flushed $900 down the toilet in a matter of minutes.

That feeling of losing the last spin is pretty hard to describe. It's like everything happens in slow motion, and it's the moment you realise fate has called you to an end. Even if you wanted to have another go, you literally can't because you're now out of cash. I felt ashamed, dirty, and guilty as I walked away from the table, heading towards the exit.

I also couldn't believe I had given into the urge to do something so stupid. What if there were people from work doing surveillance? How would that look? Your reputation would be gone.

I felt so stupid as I walked back to my car.

Why had I done this? If I hadn't of come, I wouldn't be down $900. Why were you so greedy? What was wrong with just staying at home and waiting for 4pm to roll around?

I drove home feeling like shit, but at the same time I knew I didn't have much time to absorb too much of it in as I would see my friends soon and would need to pretend like nothing had happened. G was already outside my place 15 minutes early. I went upstairs to use the bathroom, and then we went to pick up Shuing.

We all went to Ikea to look for house warming gifts, and we ended up picking out some glasses and this thing used to hold/display cakes. When it came time to pay, Shuing asked if we should use his credit card or mine. Even though I initially offered, I wondered if withdrawing $900 earlier had made me reach my limits, so I then suggested to use his one, and then paid him my share in cash.

I shouted both of them to the $1 hot dogs, and it was quite enjoyable as we ate that while walking back to the car.

We then went to an Asian grocery store in the city to pick up something for Eva, and then drove to her place. We found the wrong place at first, and then took a bit more time finding it. When we eventually found it, I was dumbfounded for a moment - the layout of the yard was almost exactly the same as the one I had been to when I met that girl from the dating site and ended up getting a blowjob. I almost wondered if I would bump into her, and had to remind myself - "that was in Liverpool, this is in Atarmon".

When we went in, we saw that a couple were already there, a guy called Lifi and his wife Thuy. We had hot pot which lasted a while. It was good to see Eva away from Michael L, I never liked him anyway. Sometimes I wondered if I would go for Eva. I just can't bring myself to be with a divorcee.

I thought the dinner went quite well, but G kinda annoyed me a bit. First, he was putting in some seafood into the hot pot when Thuy asked if he could put in some beef. He said "nah, we've already had enough beef" and she asked again, only to have him say the same thing. She gave an annoyed look, and I thought, seriously, how hard is it to just put in more beef?

Secondly, he is always chewing with his mouth open and blatantly sticks his fingers inside his mouth to get food out from his teeth. Then when he had to sneeze, he just turned away from the table to sneeze openly without covering his mouth.

I guess part of me is jealous because I wonder how he has had more girlfriends than me with table manners like that.

After dinner we played poker. I got knocked out pretty early in the first game, but ended up winning the second game. After that we played Dixit which was a lot of fun. Thuy indicated she had to go because it was past midnight, but the game was so good they stayed for a second game, and we all left at like 1:30am.

After dropping the guys off, the thought of going to the casino crossed my mind. I mean, this was technically a new day and my withdrawal limit had been reset. But I didn't.

Today, I gave into that urge. I just felt like I had nothing to do before my game, and I really wanted to win back some of the $900 I lost. Yes, I knew I could lose another $1000, but my mind seemed to dismiss that thought pretty easily. Sometimes when you're in this mode, it's easy to think there's nothing else to do but gamble, because the disease just focuses your mind on that.

Vacuum? Nah.

Gym? Nah.

Wash the dishes? Nah.

Watch an NBA playoff game? Nah.

The only thing you can do is gamble! That is the only thing you can do to pass time! Nothing else!

A serious case of tunnel vision indeed.

So I caught a bus out to the city, withdrew $1000 and went to the casino. All tables were packed again, I walked around for a bit before spotting a space at the end of one table. I went there and bought $500 worth of chips, then an Indian guy had lost and walked away from the table. I quickly took his spot in the middle of the table.

The dealer was a young Chinese kid, whose attitude showed he couldn't give a damn and just wanted his shift to be over. I was pretty even but then on one spin won kinda big, pocketing $400 in gains. Then there was a dealer change. This guy looked a bit demented but I don't think he was. He spun a streak of like eight spins not in my sector, but I wasn't betting in the beginning of that streak, and even managed to ride it a bit by betting on the inverse sector.

After a while, going up and down, and at one point being close to having to take out the other $500 from my wallet, I finally won another big one. Now I was about $500 up. There was another dealer change, and this time it was a tall young Asian lady. I noticed she had a really shiny engagement ring. I also realised I was only about $10 from another stack, so kept playing. I lost at first, and then slowly completed my stack, and finally cashed out when I had made a $600 gain.

I figured, this was good enough, especially given another possible outcome that could've really played out in reality - losing all my money. Winning $600 meant the loss from yesterday was just $300. I can cop that. That is a lot easier to swallow than $900. Not as devastating.

Throughout the whole time I was playing, the pit boss seemed to be hanging around. Not sure if he was watching me, suspecting me, or even if he was wondering how I managed to stay at the table for so long. But that last one would be my best bet.

I cashed in at the cashier, careful to avoid the guy who previously overpaid me. I then caught a bus home and got ready for bball.