I was just having a look through my local paper and there was an
article on gambling. It stated that people ion my area poured $88.5
million into the pokies in the last 12 months.... that is CRAZY.
I
know all about those damn pokie machines because I to had a gambling
addiction many years ago. I am not sure at what age it started but I
would say about 19 or so. At the time I was dating a guy who liked to
have a bet on the horses and of course that would lead us from the TAB
to many trips to the casino. I don't even want to think about how much
money I wasted doing this. It wasn't just in the evenings either as I
remember at this time I was working at the local supermarket and even on
my lunch breaks I would make my way to the local Taberet along with
fellow work mates and would pour coin after coin into those damn
machines. During some of this time I was living out of home and although
I always made sure I had money for rent and bills I would have not much
else. My parents were very worried about me and numerous times they
would spy on me and confront me whilst I was pushing that damn button
and most probably taking a drag on my numerous cigarettes.
There
was one night when my parents and I went out for dinner to the local
pub and coincidentally I happened to leave my jacket there. Then of
course later that evening I just had to go back and pick it up and of
course have a gamble. On this particular night I had a big win of about
$5000. I was pretty excited and made up some story to mum and dad when I
got home that I just put in $5 and JACKPOT. With that win I went out
and bought myself a piano. God only knows why seeing I could afford the
piano but with my gambling how in the world did I expect to afford
lessons???? My gambling continued until I got myself into quite a bit of
debt and to help me out of it my parents offered to buy my piano off
me. This I am sure was just an excuse as they helped me out of my debt
but they never took the piano. Anyway as time went on it got worse and
worse. What I think I enjoyed was the fact that I could just sit at a
machine and all of my problems etc just vanished and it was just me, the
machine and my cigarettes. Although this is a weird thing to say but
in my opinion what cured me from my gambling addiction were in fact
cigarettes. When the laws changed and smoking was banned in pokie venues
I just wasn't interested in going anymore as It just wasn't the same.
Leaving a machine to pop out for a quick smoke wasn't as enjoyable as
when I could just do both at the same time.
I would never have thought I would say this but THANK GOD FOR CIGARETTES!
Now I should think about trying to quit those........
.JPG)