Just as with all decisions, I make my decisions based on the information available. I cannot in good conscience tell anyone who is willing to self-destruct a multi-thousand dollar bankroll that continuing to gamble is a good idea. The words you use suggest that he should follow those impulses. I think you're wrong in a way that has the potential of being extremely harmful.

I admit that I can be completely wrong. But I don't have evidence that points me towards believing that statement. Until that evidence appears, I will continue to hold my belief and advocate for what I think is healthy.

This is getting pretty meta but it's quite obvious from how he's responded that OP is not going to quit poker right now. If you keep hammering that point, your conscience may feel more clear, but in reality you will be tuned out and all pieces of good advice rejected. Sometimes it's best to concede a battle to win the war. An addict usually doesn't stop engaging their addiction by telling them to stop. I blame tv and movies for erroneously depicting that interventions are effective.

Also, I'm well aware that revealing your strategy of how you are trying to influence someone usually causes you to be tuned out as well.

My response to Lucid is directed at Lucid and is for Lucid.

----

I don't anticipate OP will change at this time, either. That's not the goal I was pursuing. A random person on the internet will also not stop him, and this isn't an "intervention." There's literally no way for me to step into his life and stop him from pursuing the decisions he has made.

The long game is merely the planting of seeds of ideas for the future. Whether I tell him that this is what I'm doing or not will have very little bearing on that outcome. This isn't some sort of inception thing. Someone needs to say it the first time.

I don't usually get involved in these types of threads but for some reason I'm replying to this one. I'll throw out some random suggestions/thoughts.

1) I feel very sympathetic for you and the life you've grown up in because of the bad choices of your family members. I commend you for not making those same choices and looking to get out of a bad environment and improve your life.

2) You obviously come from an immediate family that has been consumed with life threatening addiction. For you to become a professional gambler (i.e.oker player) is akin to playing wth fire.

3) You may not agree with #2 and you may honestly believe you won't get burned. That hope is always there but it's a slim hope. You have well intentioned people (strangers but still....) giving you solid advice to choose another path but refuse to consider it. That makes #2 seem even more valid.

4) Since you have already made you mind up, how about this compromise.... Get out of the bad situation immediately and go get a regular job. It's 100% guaranteed money with no risk which is huge compared to a professional gambling career when extremely under rolled and because of it, setting yourself up for failure. Once you have the new job and new living conditions you will be at a better point it life. You can save up money for emergencies, as well as slowly saving a roll. In a couple months you can start playing a few times a month recreationally with very strict stop losses in place. If that works well for a few months and you are winning, you will be building your roll through work savings and poker wins. You will also be building discipline in poker skills, bankroll management, normal money/bill management and building confidence in your new state in life.

I see that as a fair compromise that seems like a wise decision while still allowing you to do the 2 things you want....play poker and improve your life situation.

5) This is the religion forum so I can't help but suggest you go find a good Bible believing church and hear the Bible being preached. I have no idea what your beliefs about God and Jesus Christ are but as a Christian myself, I must make the appeal to you to listen to the Gospel being preached. I know these statements will be mocked and ridiculed here but you asked for advice in the religion forum and I'm offering mine. Also, even if you think my religious advice is laughable, it doesn't immediately make all my other advice laughable.

Good luck

Why is this in RGT?

OP mentioned soul

Surprised it took 28 posts for the bible to come up. You're getting some great advice here OP, for free (I think craig1120 is a psychologist or works in that field?), you shouldn't dismiss it simply because you don't agree.

Then you don't know this forum. Hang out, get to know people here, you'll be surprised. If anyone does use mockery or ridicule (but without being able to show why your views are worthy of ridicule), ignore them, chances are good that they'll be a new poster and they won't be around for long.

1. I'm up from poker in life.

2. First serious "shot" I took, went extremely well, until I lost contact with mom/sister. Father died of O.D. I tilted because I needed to make sure they were okay every day(obviously extra anxiety, because of my father dying from an o.d.). I feel worrying about your immediate loved ones dying, is possibly the most tilting of worries.. My sister did o.d. 2 months after I came home, so my extreme anxiety was well warranted and a good excuse and I do not understand how anybody wouldn't agree with me on this, I do not know what else to say.

3. I needed to go home, but I didn't just throw a huge bet down without thinking it out in depth. I explained already that if the warriors lost(btw-best record ever in history of nba and won it the prior year) I would lose weight for the next year(I've lost 20lbs so far) save money and possibly go back to school and than decide whether or not I wanted to buy a house and continue with school or give poker another shot. Thus, the money wasn't that important to me and I had a home to go back to. It was my first sportsbet ever and I have played table games a handful of times in the 11 years or so of playing poker. Again, I am up from "gambling" (poker) in life.



3:50
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVkDcn-k5Uo

No one is questioning your anxiety, but bets made from justifications that arise from great need, or questionable mind states are not necessarily going to be logical. You even state that it's "possibly the most tilting of worries" and then expect people to accept that you thought it out without that anxiety affecting your judgment. Then why mention it?

The fact that you are losing weight, or that you promised yourself something if you lost, or that the money "wasn't that important" to you are all completely irrelevant to whether or not the bet was a good idea. You sound like someone with a gambling problem when you try to justify it like that.

Much like your OP, everything that you are saying is just tell tale "I have a gambling problem". Hopefully you don't. But you do. You need to quit, and you need to find help doing so.

Last night.. In for $300.

http://s1376.photobucket.com/user/Sp...g.jpg.html?o=0


P.S. Wink.

Agree with this please consider it.

If anybody truly cares... please say a prayer for my mom and sister. That's all.. ty.

Also praying your gambling doesn't crash. I know someone who went down that path. It's not pretty. All the problem signs are there. You have a chance to figure it out before it happens, and I hope you are able to do that.

You are willing to share your upswings, but are you also willing to share your downswings? It's the closest form to accountability that you're likely to get, and it will be useful to keep yourself grounded in the reality of how you're actually doing and not in the illusion of how you think you're doing.

(Are you telling us you're up now because you just got up after a month of being down and you want to feel justified about your decision? This is not an unreasonable speculation.)

That's what I am also wondering.

I am not into any gambling whatsoever.

I came to this forum with searching for forums to exchange ideas with fellow humans, to test my ideas.

If you care to test your ideas about religion, God, theology, perhaps you would be interested to visit my thread, http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/13...logic-1623068/

No, no, no, I am not into bringing anyone to God.

But I know for certain that God exists, in concept first and foremost as the creator and operator of the universe and man and everything with a beginning.

I know that for sure by thinking on truths, facts. logic, and the history of ideas with mankind.

Why did I read this thread? because the OP says he needs advice and I also need advice, namely, how to think even better as to come to more answers to ascertain God exists or not.

But it turned out that the OP is into advice whether to what, to stop gambling or what... guess he needs to talk with people to experience some kind of echoing to his self-knowledge, whatever.

Someone says that the thread belongs here because there is a mention by the OP of soul.

From my part, I put my thread the one I am inviting people to visit, originally in the board on math science philosophy, when I returned I noticed that it has landed in religion God theology.

If anyone wants to pray for me too, that'd be cool as well. Thanks.

I'll gladly pray for you.