Dealing with an Addiction

A friend of a friend had come visiting today. According to him, he had no idea he was going to come here today and the only reason he had come was because someone else had invited him to some sort of an event and that he literally was forced to come down here.

Then he began to tell us stories of what this event he had been forced to attend was all about. It turned out it was sort of like an end of the year party and that the guy organising this party owns a sport betting shop and he was throwing a party for having a successful business year because today was going to be the last day of business for the year so the owner had invited all of his best customers to come celebrate losing their money.

Of course they probably didn't see it that way, that was why they had all honored the invitation but that was clearly what it was. Anyways, the moment he mentioned that the event had to do with a sport betting shop, we all started talking about gambling and it's addictions, telling different stories.

_{Photo by Michał Parzuchowski}

According to the friend of a friend, before he left the event to come to our place, he had seen someone who was owing a debt of over five hundred and forty thousand naira, that is about 530 dollars and he had incurred all of that debt just this evening alone. That was more than half a million naira.

The friend said seeing that guy seated outside of the shop, feeling sad for himself while also holding a bottle of beer reminded him why he needed to leave that place fast, reasons why he decided to stroll down to my place. Then he began to tell us stories about his battle with gambling addiction and how that had ruined two of his previous relationships and was probably going to ruin his current relationship because his girlfriend was already complaining terribly.

I've always thought I had an addiction with gambling but hearing this guy tell stories of how he spent more that 3.5 million naira on sport betting and how he had also sold two of the motorcycles he had bought for commercial purposes just so he could keep on betting made me realized that his case wasn't an ordinary one and requires a professional to help him stop that addiction, which was what I told him but unfortunately he's too broke to pay anyone for help.

Which probably was why he had turned to me, asking me how I was able to stop but sadly I couldn't give him a direct answer because in as much as I would have loved to answer that question to help him out, I honestly don't think I did anything special to stop mine because if I'm truly being honest to myself, I wasn't really addicted to it. I had stopped right in time before it got worse, unlike his situation where it's already worse, so worse that he even gives them his phone just so that he could keep on playing and if he ends up losing like he always does, he goes out to look for money to pay just so that he could get his phone back.

I had given him one advice though, which was for him to try keeping himself busy because if he was busy, he wouldn't have the time to walk down to betting shops (thank God he doesn't like betting on his phone) to gamble. But unfortunately, I know that advise wouldn't do much good for him and he would go back to gambling sooner or later.