Quote:
Originally Posted by beebs
wp NWB - great thread have enjoyed throughout. GL in the future and with the BRM - keep off the rebuys.
Thanks man. And yeah the rebuys have cost me a lot when handled incorrectly, good advice mate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hardhard
Since it is almost time to end your epic journey into the depths of farmaceutical hell, and back, it seems to me to be about the right time for some reflection on the whole time spent on the 'inside.'
So OP, what have you learned from it all? Will life be different post guinea pig? Is there an estranged relative that you can come to terms with in the near futurue? Will the small things in life suddenly fascinate you to no extent? In short, will day 43 be the first day of the rest of your life?
What I've learned may become clearer when I have access to sufficient oxygen levels, I've been breathing recycled hospital air for over a month :P
But seriously I think this whole time has been very beneficial to me. It's been a rehab clinic, a financial investment, a social event, and a holiday all in one, and I'm even helping medical science. I have never mentioned what the disease was that they're working on; it is Multiple Sclerosis. I know a guy with MS, and it's not very nice. The fact that I'm contributing to a better life for sufferers of the disease is a good feeling (although my primary reason for doing this was money).
Anyone interested in how this experience will affect me in the near future can subscribe to this thread and follow the updates.
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Originally Posted by WestSideVB
NWB treated that tourney like he will one to three lucky ladies upon his release. He went DEEP. Sorry I missed it, Congrats.
Glad to see that you are realizing missed shots at 10x normal buy in level will crush bankroll. BRM is the only way to fly. Keep profiting and move up in stakes GRADUALLY. When bankroll starts moving the wrong way....move back down. Also realize the larger the number of players in your tourneys, the larger the variance. So if you are sticking to larger MTTs, you need more bankroll behind. Say you need 20-30 buy ins for 27 man SNG, better at least double those numbers for large MTTs. Be smart and I suspect you'll never deposit again.
Hehe, thanks mate. I think impatience is a big factor in playing beyond your BR. But every shot not only puts too much of your roll at risk, it also makes it harder to grind the lower stakes; it's like being unsatisfied with your wife because you've been fooling around with some kinky piece of ass on the weekends... it's a mistake. But a mistake that is not uncommon. We're human and we make human mistakes, but we should also learn from them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by philobrian1
Why not just avoid drinking? You say this is your longest period of sobriety in years, keep running with it! I don't know what your previous habits were like, but it couldn't hurt at all just to keep it out of your life, at least until you have your plan straightened out, you know?
I know how hard it is to break free of detrimental habits, to throw the crutches away and be happy with your sober self. Life is suffering, and although the alcohol (or weed or coke or whatever) lessens the suffering in the short term, it can compound it like a mofo down the line.
Simply put, your sober self is way less likely to make the same mistakes that led you here.
I was thinking about that just yesterday. I have a friend that I used to live with a few years ago. He used to have a terrible drinking problem. He treated his friends and his girlfriend badly. He had created a hideous reputation, both here and in other states. His name was in the books in every pub in town for fighting and vandalism and you name it (I know coz I've
seen his name there). Today, he is over 12 months sober, rides 300 km's a week on his bike, is fit, healthy, sane. It's pretty incredible, and certainly inspirational.
tl;dr drinking story:
My drinking used to be real f*cked up, and only recently was it eclipsed by poker as the biggest danger in my life. I'd lost relationships, jobs, friends, you name it from my drinking problem. But strangely, as my addiction to poker grew, drinking, like so much else, started fading in the distance. And drinking, like poker, is something I enjoy, and it makes me pretty upset at how much I allowed both of these things to take control over me. The lure of alcohol, though, initially came from a lack of a lack of confidence (as I imagine it does for many drinkers).
When I was young, in high school, all I wanted was a girlfriend, but I was absolutely crippled with shyness and a lack of guts. Even if a girl might have been interested I usually scared them away. When I turned 18, I'd been drinking for a few years already, but by now I had long hair, tatts, piercings, money, and excellent physical fitness from working a labour intensive job. I'd also traded my glasses in for contact lenses. I was also armed with a severe drinking habit, and was too young for it to have the debilitating effects on my health that would come in the years to follow. It gave me the confidence I never had, and the power to go after what I wanted. All of a sudden the girls came to me. You can imagine the impact. I mean I'd go to a metal gig and I'd be the one getting all the chicks, not the band. It was incredible, I felt like a rockstar. And alcohol was there every step of the way.
Things have changed a lot since then, those days are long gone. But anyway, that's how I got hooked.
tl;dr part two
Shortly afterwards I had my first real relationship. It was totally f*cking incredible, she was awesome - the girl of my dreams. We fell in love real fast and everything was amazing. We moved in together and played house and laughed and loved each other. Meanwhile, my drinking had not slowed down, just the opposite. My friends were just as bad as me, and we would drink for days, getting in all kinds of trouble. We would spend every cent we had on booze and would frequently make up to 5 trips to the bottle shop in one night. She hated it but that was who I was, and although I often wanted to stop I could not.
I had a lot of emotional problems, hell I probably still do but back then I was a lot younger, and didn't know how to deal with them like I do now. I had a lot of trouble coping with certain aspects of her past, aspects that should have been irrelevant, but they haunted me and plagued me and I could not get them out of my head. I found letters and photos of her with exes and I went nuts. As time went on I drank more and more, completely out of my mind.
One night we had a huge fight. My friend had knocked himself out and he was in an alley bleeding from the head. She wanted to leave, but I wasn't going to leave my mate. Looking back I wish I had, he turned out to be no real friend at all. But anyway, we fought, I was drunk, I said some horrible things to her, she left. I took my friend into a taxi with another girl who was going that way and we left. I was taking him back to his place, on the opposite side of town. She ended up coming back with us and she came onto me and I f*cked her. I really ballsed up, let me tell you. She was soooo not f*cking worth it. Waking up was the single worst experience of my life, no questions asked. I knew my life was f*cked. Instead of coming clean and getting sober, I kept drinking. I hid it from my gf for 3 months. When I finally confessed to her she was in NZ, and I wrote a huge drunken email telling her everything. Clicking the 'send' button was probably the second worst feeling. After that, it was over. She wouldn't talk to me again. I drank worse than ever, sleeping with girl after girl, hating myself, feeling nothing but misery at being without the girl I loved. I lost my job, lost my car, lost my friends, moved back home. All in the year 2005. What a year. Nothing is even close to how bad it was. Today she is with a guy who at the time was my best friend. Neither speak to me. I'm alienated from every one of my friends from that time. The years since have been tough, but despite the money lost on poker I have dealt with my issues extensively and have made a lot of progress.
I have shared this in the hope that it perhaps discourages someone from making the same mistakes that I did and ending up where am now. There was no-one to slap any sense into me back then but I wish there was. Living like a maniac can be exciting but rarely does it end well. I'm a bit older now and have a had five long years to deal with the outcome, and it hasn't been fun. It is almost completely behind me now, and I'm just looking forward to a more positive future.
