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AMBy

AMBy

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Muddy, this is something that I have wanted to ask you for quite a bit. I know how open you are with your addictions and how candid you are in general and I think all of us here appreciate that you are such. Anyways, getting to the point, Do you ever feel that you replaced your drug/alcohol addictions with gambling?

I know that you are a fairly sharp gambler but it was just something that I was thinking about because I know it is common for people to replace one addiction with another. For example drug addicts who then begin to have sex with everyone to keep their mind of the drugs. I don't know just wondering...
 
It is a good and astute question.

Personally, I do not have any addictive reaction to gambling. There are no compulsive feelings whatsoever. Just the opposite, I would almost go so far as to say, my discipline is perfect. I never place a bet without a mathematical reason.

So in that sense, I would not say gambling replaced my substance addiction any more than I would say music replaced it or movies replaced it or any of the other things that are big parts of my life now.

But you could not be more correct about the fact that addicts will often substitute addictions when they get clean of one thing. In my case I started smoking cigarettes like crazy, drinking coffee like crazy, going nuts on chocolate. Fortunately for me, all those things eventually settled down to reasonable levels and I quit the cigarettes completely ~19 years ago.

I have no idea why gambling compulsion did not kick in for me. I consider myself very lucky. I have known many people for whom it did. Someone very close to me that I met in recovery had all kinds of problems. Fortunately she made it to GA - because gambling addiction can be easily as devastating as drugs/alcohol.

I go out of my way not to talk about what I do for a living at recovery meetings because I am so aware and concerned about this cross-addiction effect. I hate the thought that a newbie who may have had a few gambling problems and be vulnerable to big-time compulsions kicking in might look at me and think, 'Hey, I don't have to avoid gambling. Gambling can work! Gambling can turn my life around!'

Of course once I get to know people better, what I do for a living is bound to come out, and so we talk about the stuff we are talking about here.

I appreciate the question. I enjoy discussing this stuff.
 
mmike032
What was your drug of choice?
Click to expand...


Not to evade the question but - everything.

Alcohol was a constant through the years - and weed was pretty constant too - but other things had the main focus at different times. I remember times of intense acid use. I remember prolonged cocaine binges. One of the worst situations I ever got into involved pharmaceuticals legally prescribed by a shrink (mainly Ativan). I have had big problems with opiates all the way from OTC Tylenol w/codeine to heroin.

But basically, you name it . . .
 
I cleaned up in 1990 before internet gambling became big. So my gambling during my original time of heavy drug use was mainly just football pools and bets with friends. Small potatoes.

I played a fair bit of poker and actually did quite well. Probably because all my friends in those days were waste-products like me.

I got my first Bowman's phone account in the early 90's after I had already sobered up.

Now I had a big relapse that lasted from ~1997-2001. During that period of heavy substance abuse, I did have the means to gamble on sports all I wanted. But I didn't. I just gambled a bit when I thought of it. I was quite bad at it and so I didn't push it.

The thought of what could happen now if I relapsed gives me the heebie jeebies. I imagine myself placing all kinds of stupid bets in blackouts and losing huge dollars. But the fact is, that's not what happened before. I don't know why.
 
Trainspotting is one of my favorite books. I am a big Irvine Welsh fan. I think they did a very good job adapting it to the big screen and it is one of my favorite movies as well.

From what I know, it is very representative of the authentic heroin experience. I was never as deep into it as Renton and the gang but I often talk to people who were and there is nothing in Trainspotting that makes me say, "No way that would happen."
 
Yeah I have many times heard people say that cigarettes are the hardest addiction to give up. I don't buy it at all.

Cigarettes don't get you high. There is a great quote from Trainspotting . . . lemme see if I can find it . . .



RENTON: People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid. Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near it.


Okay the bit about the mega-orgasm is taking it too far IMO but that's the idea. You can't say that about cigarettes. Sure, there is some low-key ritualistic pleasure in cigarettes. But people trying to get off drugs have the memory of that extreme pleasure pulling at them from the back of their mind - forever.

Maybe in terms of physical addiction there is a case that can be made that cigarettes are more difficult. But even that, I don't think so. I found opiates more difficult physically.



In summary - this thing about cigarettes being one of the toughest addictions to kick - bollocks, IMO.
 
Yes. I quit cigs for good ~19 years ago.

I would not say quitting cigs is easy - I was physically tense for a couple days and irritable for maybe a week - but it does not compare to some other shit I have had to get off. Cigarettes never gave me the turbo-shits or hallucinations or alternating sweats/chills or caused me to break out in tears at random unexpected times for no apparent reason.

And as I said before, there is nothing about cigarettes that you look back on and say, "Oh my god I wish I could recapture that amazing intense physical pleasure."

Ativan was by far the worst I ever had to deal with kicking.
 
I've kicked both a serious meth habit and a serious heroin habit at different times in my life, and I'm hear to tell everyone that neither cigarettes nor heroin has anything on the sheer monstrosity that is a crystal meth addiction. I've never relapsed on opiates, but meth is still an addiction that I have to be very mindful of, because I doubt I'll ever be free of it. I've slipped back into it at least half a dozen times, and the amazing euphoria combined with limitless energy and free weight loss is just too good to ever forget. Heroin is a rough one, but the pain of the withdrawals left a very bad taste in my mouth. Meth on the other hand didn't produce many physical withdrawal symptoms, but the obsession with recapturing its high was all-consuming for almost a year. I wouldn't wish that experience on anyone, and yet if somebody asked me for a recommendation on the best psychotropic high in the world, I wouldn't hesitate before I said meth.

Anyhow, I just wanted to interject my own subjective experience with kicking various drugs. Cigarettes don't hold a candle to either of these two.
 
Same thing happened when I was high. When the cops chased me out of Oregon for cooking the stuff, the reason I decided to get clean instead of setup shop in another state was the fear of being truly stupid for the rest of my life. Even under such a powerful high, I could appreciate the fact that it was too high a price. I'm not pretty, I'm not all that friendly, I'm not independantly wealthy, and I don't have important friends. If I gave up my mind, I would've ended up an old tweaker with no mind and no teeth, and I'd never bed another twink again. No high is worth that price.
 
I consider myself lucky that certain drugs came along after my heavy using time. Speed has been around forever and I have done it, but the crystal meth craze came along after 1990.

In my ongoing dealings with addicts, I see how bad it can be and how fast it ages people (if it doesn't just kill them). It would have been an extremely dangerous situation for someone like me.

Same with crack. Never did it. Never did ecstacy (not that it is in the same category of devastation. Just saying it came along after my time).



I know guys who are in Narcotics Anonymous and they say they virtually never get older people coming in. People abusing the drugs of today don't tend to become old.
 
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