A lesson too hard to take

As a friend of flag once told me, always move where the wind takes you as long as you remain firmly attached to a rigid pole. Well, I have always had my doubts about my gambling habit, I have never been able to actually stop it and I can’t even say right now that I am going to stop it. Unlike many people, I actually have my own very good reasons as to why I have not been able to quit despite listening to tons of summons preaching on the “sinfulness” of betting/ gambling( whatever you choose to use as I am not able to tell the difference between the two) and also hearing a lot of testimonies of people who were into gambling and how their lives changed for the better once they left this addiction.

My sole reason and what I can call in this case my rigid pole, are two big wins I have made so far. The most recent one being last December totaling to 97,000 Kenyan Shillings. Each and every time I bet, that is my reference point and anybody who advises me otherwise sounds like a cry baby who is just bitter for losing on numerous occasions. The win also meant a lot to me as for once I was able to move to my own place as I was staying with my aunt then. Another big win I have also made came around the tail end of 2016 where I won 37000 Ksh and as the last one, it came like a life saver for me as I had just lost my laptop and I was looking for money to get another one bearing I was a computer science student and it would have been hard to survive without a PC. Those two stories there can tell you the reason why betting for me is more of a lifesaver and not “lust for money” as most religious people may want to call it.

While those two are my success stories, like any relationship, I have had my own fair share of problems with gambling. My addiction to betting hit me hard and at the worst possible time at the end of this January. I didn’t have a stable job and I didn’t have enough money for my rent so I resulted in the easiest way I knew for making quick money and you can guess what it was. This time I can assure you it was not a pleasant experience and for the very first time, my addiction to gambling reared its ugly head on me. On this occasion, I ended up losing most of the little cash I had and was left in shambles not knowing what to do and how to get the money for my rent. This was possibly the worst time for me to lose cash as for one I didn’t have a lot of it and second, it was only my second month since moving to my own place and it would definitely paint a negative image of me running back to my relatives for help only one month after moving. It would seem that I was just rushing through things without being prepared.

This definitely was one lesson hard to take and even harder to narrate to others as it would only show the dark side of me. Despite all the pain that I went through in this experience, I will be foolish enough to just shrug it away, wipe my tears and move on. I certainly know that there are a lot of things that I can take from this that will serve me well moving forward.

Like most addicts, I cannot currently say for sure that I am free from this bondage but I know deep inside that I have a lot of work to do moving forward and I have to start making all the right steps and sound decisions to get me out of this trap.

Sooner or later, I will have to detach myself from the rigid pole that I am tied on and fly away to the winds of freedom and as the English men put it, “The Sooner the Better”.

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