This could be your lucky day
On this date two years ago was the last time I gambled. It was one of the worst and best days of my life.
My mind is attracted to numbers, which is part downfall and part salvation.
I have a very accurate calculator in my head whenever my wife or kids need a series of numbers added quickly, I am keenly aware of dates and I am quick to make symbolic connections.
I’m not sure exactly when it was, but it was certainly within a few days after July 11, 2022, when I made the numeric connection that would help me eventually frame that date as not just one of the worst but also one of the best days of my life.
That day exactly two years ago was the last time I gambled, though it was not of my own free will at the time. A series of events, most notably some suspicious transactions on our bank account, forced me into a confession.
I had been gambling far more often than I had told anyone, with far more money than even I could fathom after it was all added up. It had been going on for months, and at various points I knew it needed to stop.
But I couldn’t stop – at least not until it all came crashing down.
That date was only the very end of one type of journey and the very beginning of another, but at some point my head went straight to the numbers.
I didn’t know much about the rules of craps, the casino dice game that I actually don’t think I ever played and of course never will, but I knew enough to make the connection to the lucky (and sometimes unlucky) roll of a 7 or 11.
July 11. 7-11.
That was very important to me in the moment, some sort of sign that this had all happened for a reason and that as painful as things were they could also get better.
One sentence has played in my head countless times when thinking about that date and the forward trajectory since:
This could be your lucky day.
I’ve been sure for a while that I would write about the anniversary, but I wasn’t sure until a couple of weeks ago how I would approach it.
Where I ended up: Though it is definitely about me, I also wanted it to be about anyone who has struggled or is struggling in some way.
My hope is that in talking about a low point in my life in the context of where I am two years later, it would serve as a notice or a reminder to everyone else: Things can get better. It’s not magic. It’s work. There are rewards along the way, but there are no secret doors to vault ahead in your progress.
Gamblers Anonymous meetings were a huge part of my recovery, particularly early on, which is why as I already shared a couple weeks ago I’m donating 50% of any new paid subscriber money this month to one online group that was particularly helpful.
But the passage of time helps, too. You stack some days, then it’s a week. You stack some weeks, then it’s a month.
Maybe you stop having weird and sweaty gambling dreams – dreams that don’t make you miss it at all but make you realize how much you are glad to be away from it.
Your everyday routine changes, and there are fewer fresh reminders of the parts of your life you are trying to leave behind. You still say “I’m sorry” a lot, and you mean it every time, but maybe the combination of your words and actions start to help the people you hurt believe it a little more each time.
You stack a bunch of months, and suddenly it’s been a year. You keep going and now it’s two years. You are further removed from how it used to be.
But it’s not just time. It’s perspective. I knew I needed to stop and I wanted to stop, but I tried and failed several times.
During those months of failed attempts, all on my own, my perspective was skewed. I thought that if I could just find something else healthier to do with my time, the problem would recede, and everything would be OK.
Had I succeeded in doing that – say, had I been able to start this Substack in the summer of 2022 instead of the start of 2024 – I might have partially healed. But without the reckoning of being found out, I wouldn’t have been confronted with the wider impact of the path I had been on.
I didn’t just need to stop gambling. I needed to re-engage with the person I wanted to be and the people around me that I love. I needed to stop working so hard on the perception of how I wanted to be seen and focus more on reality of who I was.
I think about the low times less now, which I think is healthy. My therapist would definitely say it is healthy.
But I still do think about it, and I believe my residual regret and pain still have a purpose.
I can dig them up when I need a dose of gratitude for the present. That my relationships are stronger now, that I’m happier and healthier now, that I’m significantly closer to being the person I want to be than I was two years ago.
I can let them go when I drift too far and start reliving the deception and hurt, the money and particularly the time that is gone. You’re only on earth for so long, and this is how you wasted so many of those precious days?
It needs to be there enough for me to remember that I never want to go back to being that person again, but not so much that it paralyzes me going forward. To me, it’s neither healthy to completely forget about it nor to park it in the front of my brain. It’s part of the soundtrack to my life, rising and falling like the tides.
I can give myself grace – and accept it from those around me – without sweeping it under the rug like it never happened.
“Were you ever suicidal?” my wife asked me, not all that long ago.
I was heartened that I could immediately and emphatically tell her no.
As low as I felt when I lost money and went back for more (only to lose again) or for as much shame and disgust was welling up inside me when I couldn’t stop doing a thing I knew I needed to stop, I maintained a somewhat counterintuitive healthy will to live and belief that things could get better.
I knew I was loved. I knew there were still a lot of people in my life who were getting my love, even if they weren’t getting the best version of me. I was still functioning. I was just stuck in a spiral that was accelerated by the isolation of COVID, and I didn’t know how to get out.
But I didn’t take her question or the notion lightly. There is all sorts of data – and unfortunately plenty more still to come given the dramatic increase in legalized gambling and sports betting in the U.S. over the last five years – that says gambling addiction has a higher rate of suicide than other forms of addiction.
For as bad as I felt even during a relatively brief period when I was in the grips of it, I am both grateful that it stopped when it did and uncomfortable when I think about where the path might have led if it didn’t. Cautionary tales from others in recovery who lost far more than I did – time, relationships and money, among other things – sadden me but also keep me grounded.
Anniversaries tend to illuminate these feelings anew, not just because of the milestone but because of the familiarity of the time. The season is the same, the air is the same, but thankfully in many ways I am different.
The process is far from complete, which anyone who is recovering from anything will tell you, but I do think another part of the journey came recently when we moved from our old house in Minneapolis into our new house in Eagan.
Two reasons: While it is not the fault of an inanimate object (a house) that I developed a gambling problem, being in the house while recovering could be a reminder of who I had been for a time in that house.
It was also the house where we went through COVID, and the house where I was diagnosed with MS, and the house where we brought home all three of our babies who are no longer babies, and the house that had a million great memories. I think we needed to bring those babies and great memories with us and live somewhere new.
Two: The physical space we have in our current house is much larger, and our surroundings are calmer. It is conducive to looking both inward and outward – to gaining even more clarity of thought and perspective. It’s a better match for my internal clock at this point in my life.
With the time and space to reflect, I do still come back at times to a specific regret – and maybe the only thing I will preach about here.
I regret that I didn’t open up and tell someone that I was struggling, leaving it instead to unravel in a chaotic mess. I was ready for help but I never sought it.
If any of you find yourself thinking right now, “I could use some help,” please ask for it.
There is a point early in life during which a person comes to terms with the idea that death is inevitable and yet our time alive feels something close to infinite.
And there is a point as you get older when you know you still probably have a lot of time left but you can also feel that it is not infinite.
It’s unsettling and sweet at the same time, and it sure makes changing for the better seem like a good idea.
Maybe this could be your lucky day, too.
Well said, my friend. While I'm happy to hear about your recovery, I'm most heartened by your perspective on the situation. Many of us have things we'd like to forget but also need to remember. You seem to have struck a healthy balance between the two. That's going to serve you well as you continue to put distance between yourself and the past.