Gamble on.............

Hi All!  It has been a while since I wrote in this blog. Yes I am still gambling, sorry to say.  I have had ups and downs.  Right now I am in the down side, and on vacation from my everyday job.  Pretty boring, one would think.  I actually have been working my line of jewelry on http://www.ebay.com/itm/121104594034
which will take you to one of the necklaces I have listed. Once there look under my name and there is a link to "seller's other items" follow that and it will show all the pieces I have for sale. Feel free to purchase any. Then on my Etsy site https://www.etsy.com/shop/Suestreasures2012 I have eighty items listed for sale. Etsy allows payment by visa and master card which makes it easier to purchase.  Ebay needs paypal.
I also have another blog which http://suesladybugjewelry.blogspot.com there are pictures and the links under take you to the sites. 
Right now I need the sales so feel free to purchase any of the items. This down side to the gambling has really hurt this time. Of course I have stories.  I was desperate and right now have nothing to loose. I worked at my real job on Tuesday and do not usually work on Tuesdays.  It is the day I hate working out of the entire week, I know weird but for my entire working life I have always been off on Tuesdays. So it always feels weird even now. 
To go on with the story:  I went to the casino and with nothing to loose I figured I could not get any worse than I was right then.  I was there for a few hours and kept loosing and loosing.  Of course I wrote checks to the casino so not only was I overdrawn at the bank from the last trip now I had added more which would cost me thirty-five dollars each when they hit the bank.  Thank God for overdraft protection! I cashed one more and said to the cashier when I got the money, 'this is it, I am leaving after this' and I had planned on it. It was getting late and I had to go to work early the next morning. 
I have certian machines which I really like and they are either hitting or they are not, usually not. Think I would know the 'usually not' is the statement there.  But, no I think I can tempt fate, always with a gambling mind, think I am going to be different and it will hit for me.  Yeah Right!!
There is this bank of machines they had just switched and two of my favorite machines are there.  I figured what the heck! and sit at one, not wanting to leave because reality will set in and I will have to face how much I lost in the two visits.  Sitting there hitting the button playing the minimum amount allowed thinking about how I was going to come up with the money to cover all the checks I wrote and the overdraft charges.  I was getting tired and really upset, scared, and all the feelings going along with desperate.  I decided to up the bet to two credits a spin.  Still not feeling very lucky I just kept hitting the button and wishing, lost in my own thoughts.  I think when I get into that zone the building around me could fall down and I would not know, almost like a trance of the machines.  Sitting there looking at the machine with my legs up pressing up against the machine. For some reason I like my legs up and rest my arm on my knee while I hit the spin button.  Then it happen, the three igloos, which signify a bonus, come up. I got ten free spins.  I sat there watching and nothing to speak of on spins one to eight, then on spin nine I was watching and an owl came on the first reel, the four wilds, another owl, then the four wilds, and as I watched in disbelief the last reel, almost like in slow motion, the last owl dropped into place.  Yeah!!  I had one over six hundred dollars in that one spin.  All my money from both days plus alot more.  In one spin I won over six hundred!  And I wonder why I gamble.......I wonder why anyone gambles.  The losses are so high but the chance of the gains are just as high.  Of course I cashed the ticket in.  Always the safety conscious person I cashed the ticket and went into the belly of the casino again.  I always walk around and play some other machines before I walk out with any large win.  I am usually alone and do not like to go into the dark parking lot right after I cash a big ticket.  Never know how desperate someone is and what they are driven to do.  So I play it safe and walk around for awhile.  I play a little and wait before I head to the door.
I am not sure if it is the thrill of the spin or the stress of the games.  Is it the win or just the symbols lining up on the pay line?  Yes the money won is exciting and thrilling specially after loosing and loosing for so long.  But to the true gambler is it the money or the lining up of the symbols?
I will leave everyone with that thought.
Is it really the money?  Or is it really the winning symbols coming up on the machine?  I really do not know. Maybe it is the thought of beating the machine?
Please visit my other sites and help this poor gambler by purchasing some of my jewelry.  Feel free to purchase alot and keep me busy so I stay out of the casino. 

Back again!  I still have not started another casino-free period.  This last week I went twice.  Yeah I know the worse things in my life are tied to the casino!  I wish I could somehow make enough money so that I could go there and not worry about loosing one or two hundred dollars.  Of course I will work for it but I am not sure how to make the extra income for it.  Right now I make bracelets and sell them on eBay at http://www.ebay.com/itm/121045750991 and on the
my Etsy   http://www.etsy.com/shop/Suestreasures2012  I really enjoy making them but now I have so many waiting to be sold it almost seems pointless to make anymore.  I have to figure another way to market them to a larger audience so there is more exposure.
 If I could sell four a day at eight dollars each I could generate over two hundred dollars a week. 
there is my gambling money.  Oh well all in due time.
My story for today is:
I went to the casino and had thirty dollars and nothing else.  Figured the longest I would be there was two hours at the most.  BUT no!!!  I guess it was a good thing I actually hit on the first machine.  It is an 'artic' looking machine, it uses igloos for the bonus rounds and of course you have to land on three of them to start the bonus.  There is also the Eskimo who pays the most.  The polar bear the second highest pay out.  Then there are other pictures like the wolf, the penguin and the ever present kings, queens, jacks, tens, and nines.  I think they are on all machines.  In addition to the symbols there are the wild card symbol.  Well the first high pay I landed on was the polar bears with two wilds, made the payout to be four times the bears. From there it just kept landing on the symbols I finally cashed out the machine at four hundred.  I kept three in hundred dollar bills and went to another of my favorite machines.  All the way on the other side of the casino.  Actually I was on my way to the bathroom and stopped at the open machine it is never available.  I never made it to the bathroom until much later it was on a winning streak also.  All told I walked away with over nine hundred dollars, not bad starting with thirty. 
that is what has started the trend again.  Right now I have talked myself out of going all day.  I am really tired and have so much stuff to do here I just wanted to stay home and pitter.  Hang out with my cats and pretend I am a cat today.  It has been fun and relaxing.  No people around.  No phone calls.  Just me and the cats.
I am trying to balance my urge to go to the casino with my need to stay home.  When I go to the casino everyone is there for the same reason--The Dream--- We all have a common goal in mind to win by any way possible.  I have tried to judge faces of the people leaving when I go in to see if they are sad or happy to see how the machines are paying now.  I have noticed on my worst days of loosing the cash machines are full all day so it must be a bad day for anyone to hit a winning combination on any machine.  Not that that helps my bank account, just my thought process.
Until next time enjoy those machines.....

Tomorrow makes 30 days

I just have to get through tonight and it will be 30 days, thirty days without going to the casino.  Some days are harder than others, Saturday was pretty bad.  Saturdays there is nothing on TV and to go shopping it is too crowded with the holiday rush out there.  I work with the public all week and really don't want to go out in it on my day off.  I prefer week days off because everyone else is working and everything is not so crowded.
I made it through Saturday, YEAH!!!  It really was pretty easy, and every day gets easier for me.  I have alot more time not spending my entire day in the casino.  Even when I win I still am sad about the time I spent there.  I could do so much more than sit at the slot machine.  Ironically, as much as I once enjoyed going and playing the slots, I now resent the time I spent there.  Looking back over the past I realize how much it has destroyed everything important in my life.  So much so that it became a cycle.  An unhealthy one but nevertheless a cycle.  I would go there and loose, which made me rationalize going again was to win back the money I lost.  The cycle was over and over again every week. 
Maybe just maybe I have broken the cycle in me which makes me keep going.  I know I can not go there at all.  Rationally I know there is a problem, but the wish full thinker in me thinks I will be lucky and win all I have lost back.
How do I win back all the relationships I have destroyed in the process?  How do I win back all the lost years?  I do not!  All I can do is go forward and build again.  I hope beyond hope I will be able to keep up this cycle of not going.  I can say I enjoy coming home and writing in these blogs.  I also have bracelets on eBay at http://www.ebay.com/sch/spovio/m.html?item=121033434270&ssPageName=STRK%3AMESELX%3AIT&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562  and at Etsy http://www.etsy.com/shop/Suestreasures2012  They keep me busy and actually give me something to do.  If I am really lucky I sell a few and have extra money.  So 'surf' on over to the two sites and shop a little, purchase something or just look around and leave comments on this blog about the sites.
Have a lucky day and understand gambling is not the answer to anything.  Just like any addiction there is no positive end to any of it.

24 Days

Yeah!!!
It has been 24 days since I went to the casino.  Which is the longest time span in the past twelve years.  How am I doing it?  Every time I think about going I look at the time I will spend there and try to do something else I really enjoy. 
One of the which is laying on the couch with my cats and watching TV, they enjoy it also.  Now, they are used to having me do that they are waiting for me to turn on the TV, soon as I do they are waiting by the couch.  Now even if I wanted to do anything else on the couch like read or crochet they don't let me.  Funny but I really do not mind.  I am just happy I did not waste my time at the casino.
Another of the things I do is make bracelets which are in another of my blogs.  Follow the links to see it:  suesladybugjewelry.blogspot.com  I have sold a few and just today I am mailing out "prayer beads" someone bought last night.  I really enjoy creating them. The links on the blog are to my eBay listings and are available for purchase there.  My products are also on Etsy at: http://www.etsy.com/shop/Suestreasures2012  All purchases are shipped in one day and are 100% returnable (less shipping) if not completely satisfied. I am working on a beading pattern for breaking addictions, they will be something physical to hold and remember why we need to break the pattern and habit of addictions.  Sounds odd but I do believe most addictions are a habit.  I believe they are a habit which 'we' are able to break, just identify the trigger for the habit, and it can be broken.  I think any habit is able to be changed. 
For me the trigger to go to the casino is when I am upset, bored, or worried.  For the most part it is not about the gambling, which is fun when I am winning, it is more about going some where alone and not feeling odd.  I can go there and be around people and not talk to them if I do not want to.  When I am not sure of what I wanted to do I would go there and waste the entire day, then rationalize it by saying there is no one to answer to, no one waiting for me at home.  Almost like I was feeling sorry for myself!  I also went when I felt hopeless and thought it would help, it did not.  Sometimes I would go because I did not know what else to do.  There were times I would really want to stay home and I would get dressed and go because somewhere in the back of my mind I thought, as ridiculous as it sounds, it was expected of me.
I still want to go at times, however, now I don't want to break this 24 day streak.  I think I may drive to Atlantic City and go there, I will say it is not to gamble, and in my mind I believe that.  I can say I do enjoy looking at the Christmas decorations the casinos there have.  Everything is bigger! Brighter! 
Maybe I could go there and just look around at the lights and decorations is what I will tell myself.  Of course I will look at them and feel all the Christmas spirit.  I will also think back to fifteen years ago when I went there and walked away with nine thousand dollars.  I will not look back and see all the times I lost all the money and felt really crappy about myself.  I will not remember the total desperation I felt driving home and how was I going to make back the money I had lost!  How was I going to get into the bank the money I cashed checks for.  All that is remembered is the fun part the winning part, the cash in hand part not the losing part.
 And that is how we can break the 'habit' of gambling remember the bad parts.  Consciously pull into my mind the bad times.  Rationally look at the times I felt disgusted and beat.  Look at the awful times and think about how that felt.  Then look at how good it will feel when I do not give into the habit, do not make that long drive to beat myself up... I can stay home and lay on the couch with my cats and then beat myself up for doing nothing!  HA but that is much cheaper!  I will remember how good it feels not to spend the money I do not have on a wish.  I will stay home and create new and better bracelets. 
I can do this!  I will do this! and I will make more money selling my bracelets than winning at the casino in the long run.  Maybe, just maybe, I will make enough to go to Las Vegas in April to celebrate my mom's birthday. 
That is all for now.  Stay tuned and see if I can continue the streak........