Slevin,
Your threads are always entertaining to read in a soap opera kind of way. Think about why that is.
1) I blew up (drama, excitement)
2) I own up to my mistakes (tears, emotion)
3) Revelation! (Release, happy ending)
4) A quiet period with nothing of substance changed to ensure that another blowup will ensue (stay tuned for the next episode)
In this thread you seem to have been having a work ethic and putting something of actual substance into learning this poker fiend.
Now do this: Apply some of that work ethic and a plan and strategy of substance to dealing not with the poker fiend but with the gambling/tilt fiend. As Chardrian so rightly said - noone can do it for you. It has to come from you and you have to be the one to make it succeed.
We can probably all tell if you're doing it, but we can't help. All we can do is stay tuned for the next drama. Courtiebee peripherally touched on something also worth thinking about. Is failing a success formula for you? Think about this - why do some kids behave badly? Because they get attention that way. Even being scolded can be a kind of attention, and if they then tear up and get sympathy afterwards that's also attention. I'm not calling you an attention whore by any means, but is there any chance that the attention you get satisfies something inside you, and if so will that make it more likely that you put yourself in a similar situation again? Do we seem to care more about when you do badly than when you do well? Do you care that we care?
Before you blew up this week I was intending to come into this thread and throw a cautionary reminder at you regarding the tilt issue. I was in no way predicting that you would play when drunk and blow your roll. What I was going to say was that you think you're in control now, you have your work ethic, you get positive reinforcement from doing something right and it's important that you keep it up. Because - you will tilt again, and knowing your history it'll be something out of the ordinary. So your tilt control mechanisms need to be solidly ingrained as good habits that you can rely on to support you and you need to be open for and accept the idea that you are prone to tilting, respect the enemy and have a suitable response. My prediction was going to be that you will begin tilting seriously when one of two things happen (and both are likely to happen around the same time): 1) When the money in play become a significant amount of money for you 2) When you get near your goals.
For this reason you need to anticipate the ways in which you can tilt and design an approach that will keep it from happening.
If drink is a trigger I love the idea of the impossible-to-type password.
I'm not ignoring that all you've done and that I'm encouraging here is really symptom control. Another approach entirely is to try to find the ultimate source of the tilt demon and work on that. I'm not directly suggesting therapy, but an intensive process of that type could be helpful. Or a waste of your money and time. But it's probably true to say that as long as ultimate causes are not worked on all you're really doing is symptom control. There's nothing wrong with that however. Human beings are above all creatures of habit, and if you build really solid good habits and do your best to undermine the bad ones that may comprise a complete solution for you.
And don't lie to yourself. You say you haven't gambled much at all in the past year - what then do you call your approach to poker?
I don't want any 'revelation' posts in reply to this one. Think about why. What is it that I want?
Btw, Keith and I are doing a sweat this evening and we're looking to invite you in also. We'll probably just be talking about poker though.
