The Wolf of Gambling E-Book

M. Trojan

• Herausgeber: neobooks
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 241

Beschreibung

Every gambler can withdraw from gambling if he allows the addiction to be isolated. Without using rigid rules of behavior, the author and addiction counselor M. Trojan teaches you to logically question the addiction. Using this effective method, the author accomplishes that the gambler will then scrutinize his life so far. By means of a change of your attitude you will succeed in isolating the addiction with an unprecedented effectiveness. Using newly developed methods, a gambler will scrutinize his addiction critically and will finally be convinced to turn his back on it.

Leseprobe

M.Trojan presents:

THE WOLF OF

GAMBLING

A motivational guide for a life

without a gambling addiction

Germany

2018

Bibliographic information at the:

Deutsche Nationalbibliothek:

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this

Publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie:

Detailed data may be found on the Internet at

http://dnb.dnb.de

Second edition 2018

© 2018 M.Trojan

aka John Valcone

Michael Jungwirth

83569 Vogtareuth | Bergstraße 7

(Germany)

Cover design: M.Trojan

Translation: Angelika Dürre

Headline / Fond-License:

fontsquirrel.com/license/blackjack

All rights reserved

www.Buchautor-Trojan.de

Made in Germany

“A gambler who wants to stop gambling, does not require any proof for this realization. For a gambler who does not want to stop gambling, it’s impossible to provide any proof.”

Quote by M.Trojan

This book is for all gamblers,

Whom I have so far not been able to help sufficiently.

I hope that this book will help them to gain their freedom.

The author

M. Trojan has to date written the best-known guide books regarding the issue of an addiction to gambling on slot machines in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. With his methods he has been helping addicts for many years to liberate themselves from their addiction.

Book

With new and especially developed methods the gambler will critically scrutinise his addiction and finally withdraw from it.

Other books about gambling addictions by M.Trojan

(currently available only in German)

The Wolf ofGambling

Antispieler

Antispieler – Extended Version

Wer gewinnt, wenn du verlierst?

Auszahlung – Ein Spieler drückt STOP(P)!

Spielautomatensucht – Der Weg des Spielers

Spielst du noch, oder verlierst du schon?

Unversucht: Ratgeber für ein Leben ohne Automatenspielsucht

Was hast DU zu verlieren?

All advice provided in this book was carefully considered and checked by the author. Despite this, a guarantee cannot be given. For this reason, liability by the author and publisher shall be excluded. Moreover, in all articles, advice and opinions the author invokesthe artistic licence as well as the general freedom of opinion.

Preface

Being at the slot machine is very true to real life – the principle of contingency makes the winners. Only, at the slot machine you pay large sums of money for a small accidental win. There is nothing much else that will destroy life more systematically than the addiction to gambling. Nothing else destroys the soul in a comparable manner. Luck and coincidence cannot be compared to each other. It is just coincidence if you win something at the slot machine – but it is true luck if you don’t become addicted immediately.

With this book I would like to make an important contribution to standing up to the gambling industry. I’d like to do this as a counselor for gambling addicts and also as a person who became pitilessly addicted to gambling just like many others and was misguided by an illusion and many false promises. The time to pretend that these things don’t exist is definitely over and anyone who does not want to use this guide as a self-help book for gamblers may alternatively consider it as a kind of declaration of war because I will not stand by silently and watch how more and more people commit suicide due to their high gambling debts while the gambling industry generates billion-dollar sales and continues to make light of the dangers of gambling. At the end of the day, not the better PR adviser or those with the more effective financial means will win, but rather the truth will prevail; finally, the truth always prevails – I am truly convinced of that.

Table of content

Preface

“No turning back”

Cause & Effect

“Lost Vegas”

The Kiss of Judas

Intervention

Fear

Spiral

Puppeteers

We were happy

The advantages of gambling

Behavioral Analysis

Interpretation

The different layers

General Questions

Who wins if you lose?

The art of life

“Gamblers never win and true winners

do not gambling”

Quote by M.Trojan

“No turning back”

Hi, my name is Michael; my friends and gambling colleagues at the time called me “Guru”. Just like them, I was a gambler. Or rather, as I preferred to see myself – I was a winner on the fast lane. But then things did not turn out as planned. Due to the gambling, my life became more and more troubled. But suddenly everything made sense because the inevitable was bound to happen. The gambler fails because of his own thoughts on why he is gambling. It was for this precise reason that my life as a gambler was bound to fail from the very beginning. Unfortunately, many years passed until I made this bitter and yet most important realization. I became one of the most effective, authentic and successful counselors for gambling addicts because by means of targeted questions I reveal the gambler’s reality and simultaneously I propose a solution. This cannot always be done with a lot of sensitivity, but the truth is generally not easy to bear. The main thing is to accept, process, and learn from that. Positive events will not make you stronger, but negative ones will. You grow with experience and not with the memory of better times. Anyone who lives in the past, cannot start successfully into the future. Gamblers contact me and ask about when it is the right point in time to get out. – Now and on every following page: it is always the right time, but you must recognize it and adhere to it. At the same time, you need to learn that the adhering does not require as much strength as the letting go does. Look ahead and don’t look back. All you need to do now is to read and not to start gambling again. Because you have already stopped gambling. In fact, the only thing is that you must not start again. In the case of a fight, anguish, stress and the daily rat-race, you cannot just flee and gamble away money at a machine. No, you need to face reality and this is precisely what you need to learn. The fastest way is not always the best way. Sometimes we must overcome unpleasant things in order to then enjoy the good things in life.

The gambler spends a lot of time downplaying and concealing his addiction instead of just accepting it. From the point of view of the gambler, the acceptance takes very much longer than one would ever suppose. Addiction does not have a fixed standing in our life. We see it as a balancing valve for everyday life. However, we also have to be able to master the day without this valve We do it every day; however, at the end of the day, we already decide that first thing in the morning we will persevere for the wrong thing. We see everyday life as a kind of punishment and gambling we consider to be a kind of reward where really it should be the other way around. Everyday life can become a gift if you spend your time with something meaningful. Time is not retrievable. Every minute spent at the slot machine – every hour, every day – is inevitably lost and will not ever come back. Today, you possibly waste 100 dollars at the slot machine and in a month you will have forgotten about it; but in twenty years’ time, you will look back and realize that you spent your life only at the slot machine. What is the point in losing or winning money if the stake is higher than you can ever pay for? I boasted with large winnings, but the realization that every winning would only extend the time of my misery did not come to me. It was because I did not want anybody to badmouth my winnings. It is not a winning - it is only lost time which was gambled away. You as a person are more important than a place of work and you are worth a lot more than a slot machine. It is not the slot machine which gives you that feeling of perfection. You have this feeling inside of you already. Unfortunately, you have only ever been able to let out this feeling when you were able to open up at the slot machine. A lot of people who play at the slot machines report that even severe depressions, anxiety states and even a deep lovesickness felt as if they had suddenly been eliminated. But gambling did not perform a miracle healing – gambling and/or the addiction only taught them not to think about the important facts any longer. Addiction does not heal – on the contrary – the addiction causes us not to care. After many years of self-destruction, gamblers become unfeeling, unemotional and sluggish. Are these three characteristics familiar to you? I would think so because after a number of years every one of us adopts these negative characteristics. Addiction is not a valve, it does not cure anything, it makes you die. We appear hardened, but we are able to whine on demand. Sometimes we appear tough because we want to be seen in this way and other times we appear tough because we have already turned off all feelings. But finally, it will be seen how tough you really are - not one bit. At this point, a lot of us panic. We feel misunderstood and at the same time we start believing that we cannot actually talk to anyone. The psyche of a gambler becomes quite complex in the course of the years. We want to talk and open up to other people; but we cannot find the right words to even begin describing our life. We are silent and simultaneously we hope that somebody listens to us. I know this feeling of powerlessness only too well, I know how it feels when your whole emotional world collapses. But I can assure you that you will survive this period of time when you have made the decision that something needs to be changed. I was never very good with words and to this day I wonder how everything could have happened the way it did. However, finally it all made sense and I found the right words as well as the correct and decisive way of thinking. I took this one path out of the addiction. I went with resolution, knowledge and many new realizations. There is more to us than the addiction, WE ARE WE. You are the person who can liberate himself from these clutches and you will do this. I am not telling you all of this so as to sugar-coat paradise for you. I am stating this because I am truly convinced that you will walk away from the addiction. I overcame my addiction and there hasn’t been a single day when I have even come close to regretting it in any way. Thousands of gamblers leave their addiction behind them and none of them ever have regrets about being allowed to go through life without gambling. Don’t wait any longer. Don’t hesitate and wait to do the right thing. Stop gambling! You will never regret it!

The decision to give up gambling is more than a simple decision. It is the direct realization of concluding the life you led to date. It entails making a 180-degree-turn – in the positive sense, of course. Withdrawal from the addiction is difficult to put in words, because with the withdrawal, the pack of cards will be reshuffled. Everything you ever hoped for in life, comes within reach again. Everything will be within your grasp. As a gambler, you wanted to be somebody else for many years and by withdrawing you realize that you can be whatever you want if you set yourself a relevant goal. Suddenly failure is no longer acceptable; you analyze your mistakes and restart. Without an addiction or compulsion. As a gambler, you unfortunately adopt the negative characteristic of not admitting to your own mistakes – of not even regarding them as mistakes. The addiction to gambling is a disease and its targeted downplaying is a major part of this disease. This is precisely what you must admit to. You cannot continue to make up excuses because that is exactly what you have been doing for many years as a gambler. You are not the American dream, you are not the work-place, you are more than that – you are a human being. A person with feelings, with strengths and their corresponding weaknesses. Stop being ashamed of what you are because then you can start working on the present and/or the future. Draw the negative as well as the positive conclusions from your deeds. The addiction to gambling must not be downplayed in any way. Your problems started with the addiction and they will also end with it.

We come into the world empty-handed and we leave it the same way. It is just that between these two empty states we believe that we must gather possessions. We strive for them every day, every hour and every minute. You can achieve everything, any goal and you can take whatever path you want if you choose the right perspective. One thing is clear – I cannot make the decision to stop gambling for you. You decide where your path ends. But in the end, a gambler is not free to decide because the addiction takes over your thoughts, emotions and actions. The longer you delay your withdrawal, the stronger the addiction will be anchored in your everyday life. Even in my closest environment, depressions are more or less considered from the outside. Reproaches were made, “You have no idea how terrible depressions are”. Unfortunately, I know only too well how dangerous depressions are. I am a gambler; but not one of those who lose a bit of money, get annoyed over it and stop gambling. I was one of those gamblers, who continued to gamble even, when I didn’t have a single cent to my name. I no longer got angry or disappointed over losing money – I was desperately unhappy and frustrated and finally I actually gave up. I did not want to change my life, I did not want anything any longer, and I just wanted to die. And here is the bitter truth; I did not just suffer from depressions. No, I was convinced that my death was the only right way to straighten things out again. This is what the gambling addiction does to you -regardless of the consequences- and it is for this reason that I want to save you from this suffering. I am not a writer who learned about life from books. I experienced it, I have had to experience poverty. I gambled and lost my money in a very targeted manner and I was only a few thoughts away from putting an end to it all. And believe me – it would not have deserved an Academy award. I would have left humanity quietly and secretly and the large majority would not even have noticed. I would have taken the question Why? with me to my grave – and it was this which gave me the necessary experience to state what every gambler hushes up.

Consider reality in the right light and you will realize that it takes much more than just giving up gambling. The decision is the beginning; but it doesn’t stop there. The decision is the beginning because everything in life has a beginning as well as an end and in this case you can influence both. However, it is also clear that you do not have an endless amount of time for this. Do not delay unnecessarily. Finish that which may finish you; I think you know what I ‘m trying to say.

There are a lot of things which we do not want to accept now; but still we have to learn how to deal with them. We do not want the people whom we love to leave us. However, finally, we have to let people go while the question Why? is probably never answered. You have more strength, more power and power reserves than you can even start to realize. You must and we will reveal your strengths without directly having to search for them – we will reawaken your strengths because they exist already.

Gamblers and particularly ex-gamblers always report how they would have risked more in an extreme case and that they would even have jeopardised the family. This is precisely what is basically wrong. You put them at risk every day, as soon as you gamble. Of course, it may be the case that you have so far not jeopardised your family, but you risked doing so every day. Gamblers like us must become aware of what we do to ourselves and to others when we gamble away money.

„Why does a gambler gamble away his money?” Every non-gambler will have asked themselves that question before. The gambler himself knows the answer and he knows it even when stating the opposite. He even knows the answer when he thinks he doesn’t. A gambling addiction does not have logical actions or ways of thinking; however, an addiction makes it possible to surmise certain actions. Being an active addiction counselor and a committed fighter against addictions, I have learned over the years that a gambling addiction can actually affect anyone. Regardless of the social class you belong to and regardless of age, the gambling addiction can hit you mercilessly as soon as you become addicted to a certain feeling – the feeling of self-affirmation. This feeling can be manipulated by means of the messenger substance dopamine which is released in the brain and in the reward system, it is responsible for the motivation of people. In the case of an addiction, you don’t reward yourself – you manipulate this natural process in order to receive a feeling of happiness in order to get away from the stressful every-day life. The human reward system helps people to achieve more motivation. There is probably nothing we would want to actually achieve without the reward system. Every action is basically anchored by a feeling of happiness. As a gambler you do not possess any motivation any longer; you don’t master every-day life any longer, but instead you are running away from it. Boredom becomes frustration and the feeling of not being able to achieve anything. This is the point when depressions contribute to the fact that we do not want to or are not able to activate our reward system in a natural way. A gambler usually does not notice the beginning of the addiction although dissatisfaction and a beginning depression are the major reason for it.

Important! Depressions do not develop from the addiction; they are intensified by the increasing gambling addiction. In conclusion, depressions are not the result of a gambling addiction, but rather – a gambling addiction is the result of developing depressions. For this reason, anti-depressants may actually influence addictive behavior positively. If you are interested, you need to consult a doctor of your choice.

Cause & Effect

I think the greatest difference between Germany and America is the fact that in Germany, you will experience mainly envy and mistrust while in America, people are happy for those who experience something good. Strangely enough, the citizens of both countries look the other way in the case of a slot-machine addiction. I was able to leave the addiction behind me; but it was very hard and I had to face a lot of adverse winds. Everybody tried to unsettle me and repeatedly gambling was glorified and sugar-coated. I believe, that in the United States, there is much more solidarity among people and this can be an advantage for you. In Germany, there is less solidarity and also little enlightenment. In America, only the enlightenment is missing because the solidarity already exists. Therefore, as an individual gambler, you can achieve a lot – even everything, for as long as you decide against gambling and instead want to improve enlightenment.

It can hit anyone and - to be quite honest – it has affected too many already; at least, we are the living proof for the danger which emerges from a gambling addiction. However, we must rise and stop hiding the gambling addiction. Pretending it doesn’t exist is of no use to anybody except the gambling industry. Cause & effect, withdrawal & enlightenment. It is up to you – you are the key to the solution. Consider for a moment what you are currently achieving with gambling and then think about which of those achievements are actually worth mentioning. Very often you hear the saying: “It wasn’t all bad”, but what part of it was good? Since when can you regard the gambling away of money positively in any way? We, the gamblers, really punish ourselves with gambling; but we consider it to be something redeeming. In gambling there is no Happy end and it is this fact which you need to understand and accept.

When I talk about my gambling addiction nowadays, it never takes very long until someone in the audience asks about how much money I gambled away in the course of time. In conclusion, there is the consideration of all the things I could have bought or what I would own today if I had never gambled. Well, I think everyone of us has at some point thought about these things. And it is these considerations which frustrate us because we automatically deduce that our life would have been good if we had never played. That may be true. However, it is also a fact that nobody can see into the future and for this reason one can affirm that we all make mistakes. It is not a question of always having a master plan for everything. It is all about accepting mistakes and making the best of the existing situation. What would have happened if...? is irrelevant because with this question we don’t want to achieve control, but rather punish ourselves. Since then, I don’t ask that question anymore; the question of whether I would still be alive if I had continued to gamble away my money is much more important. And this question allows me to perceive the present quite positively. It is the confirmation that I do have a future which I can determine myself to a certain degree. Very often, we hold on to what would have been if the addiction had not taken over rather than recognizing that things which happened in the past can unfortunately not be changed. We should not consider the gambling addiction as a kind of a stroke of fate. All that is to come; everything depends on the decision you make now. The gambling addiction does not make the rules. You do. It is not the gambling addiction, which will decide what you are going to achieve – it is you. Every wrong question or opinion will make you look in the wrong direction. You do not have to hold on to what would have happened if ...? Live in the present because only that is actually relevant. Learn to counteract negative situations, thoughts and questions; learn to act instinctively. It is not the ultimate answer which will give you your peace of mind, but rather an honest answer will do this. As soon as you are honest to yourself, the answer will then always be right, regardless of how hard it may sound.

Cause and effect; addiction-trigger and addiction. The gambling addiction causes a systematic self-destruction. Nobody wants to admit to that voluntarily. Unfortunately, you will do everything possible so that the risky undertaking will bear fruit as quickly as possible. But how can the fun in the game turn into such a suicidal undertaking? In my opinion, it is due to the fact that you recognize the addiction or stress-trigger far too late – and even then you don’t want to accept it. In the course of the years, I have guided many people away from the slot-machines – doctors, lawyers, politicians, prostitutes, teachers, unemployed persons, journalists and many other professional groups are among them. All in all I can say that every social class is to be found. Regardless of rich or poor, middle class, lower class or high society. There were and are all kinds among them and nobody is worth more or less than anybody else. At the end of the day we get caught in the clutches of the addiction and then you are just one thing – a gambler. It doesn’t matter, what you managed to achieve through hard work or what you might achieve yet. The minute you become addicted, status symbols change ownership, the money goes from A to B and finally you are willing to pay any price just to be ALLOWED to continue gambling away your money. Do not hold on to the delusion that gambling is about winning money. That is 100 % not true. I described the range of my customers on purpose, so that you may recognize that persons in certain jobs definitely do not need a financial subsidy from gambling. It was never about winning; it is about the kick in order to be able to manipulate boredom, frustration, stress, and partly to be able to manipulate emotions in a targeted manner. However, it was never about winning money. However, gamblers sometimes hold on to that and claim in fact that they only gambled in order to possess money. Why? For just one single reason – it is easier to explain the addiction this way.

It becomes explainable for non-gamblers, possibly even understandable. The reason for a gambling addiction is rarely or really never lack of money. The reason are worries which in fact are in no way related to the financial aspect. When we think about it logically, it would make no sense to gamble away money in order to win a little. No, the start into the addiction was triggered by stress, worries, and anxieties. These may actually originate from financial straits; but it is not the lack of money which guides us to the slot-machines, but rather our worries. Therefore, emotions play an important and even decisive role in becoming addicted as well as in the withdrawal from the addiction. Think about addictive behaviour objectively for a moment, please read the following questions intensively and carefully and answer them as honestly as you can. Please do not forget that with every lie you are not dishonest to me, but rather to yourself.

If someone gave you a gift of 500 dollars at this very moment, what would you do with the money? Would you invest the money in something not connected to gambling?

Does the idea that it is possible to spend the money on something other than gambling appears to be quite confusing for you?

Could it be the case that the idea of NOT using a gift of money or unexpected money for the slot-machine actually frightens you? Do you fell restricted or under pressure in making the decision?

Is it possible that when you heard of the 500 dollars in question, you immediately started calculating how long you would be able to gamble with it?

Why did I write 500 dollars and not for example 5,000 dollars? Regardless of whether you gamble daily or weekly (periodically), I am deeply convinced that a gambler loses AT LEAST 500 dollars every month Some gamble away far more, others somewhat less. 500 dollars are worth nothing in the eyes of a gambler because in his hands money in the true sense of the word completely loses its value. You invest so many dollars, just so that at the end of the day, you can say you won.

Think about what you would be winning if the slot-machine does actually pay out for example 1,000 dollars at some point. Do you actually win money or just more time to gamble away money?