Abandoning Instant Gratification- My Hiatus From Poker

In the past three and a half months I have fielded quite a few questions as to why I have made such an extreme decision to remove myself from my career for such an extended period of time when it is seemingly at it's peak.  Many friends and family members have had a hard time understanding where this decision has come from and what I feel the benefits from such a long separation could possibly be.  When I explain my reasoning to such inquiries, the reaction I receive enlightens me quite a bit to whether the individual I'm interacting with is someone of substance that I care to continue to have in my life going forward, or if they are a person that I would probably rather not further associate with.  Most of the responses have been encouraging and supportive, but some people still don't quite see the importance of me following through with this decision.  I feel sorry for those who cannot grasp the concept of what I'm trying to accomplish here.

Throughout my run in the National Championship, I was convinced that it was imperative that I win the event.  My reasoning was simple;  I figured that if I won a huge sum of money, and a televised bracelet event, I would feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment that I had been lacking for so long, and I would find happiness at last.  When I finally got back to my hotel room that night with my treasures that I thought would plug the hole inside of me, I found that they had just the opposite effect.  Winning that event didn't fulfill me at all, nor did it give me happiness.  As a matter of fact it scared me more than I had ever been before, because it shined light upon the fact that no external or material thing was capable of making me feel okay about myself or where I was in my life.  My life was lacking substance and purpose, and winning this event really solidified that fact.

This experience sparked me to make a decision to remove myself from my career and focus on finding the things in life that WOULD actually fill that void in myself.  I went home, and started to get sober again, and more importantly, diligently set out to diagnose and begin to change the reasons why I chose the escapist coping mechanism of drugs and alcohol to deal with life.  The more I learned, the more hopeful I started to feel.  As I became more and more aware of my condition, I found that I was able to network and connect with other people who struggled with the same things, and begin to relay my experiences in an attempt to help them...and it worked.  Being of service to another human being and having a positive purpose in this world is the only thing that I have found so far that gives me the serenity and sense of fulfillment that I had looked for in bottles and baggies for such a long period of my life.

Three and half months later, I still receive periodic questions about my decision.  People ask me why I don't come back now that I am starting to change my perspective and clearly have a better attitude.  They ask me if I feel like I could function in the poker world in a more healthy manner.  They ask how staying out of my career is still a good idea in my mind.  Hopefully this post will clear up all those inquiries.

As to the question of whether I feel that I could function in the poker world in a healthy manner;  The answer is yes, I do.  My decision to stick out my commitment at this point, is simply that...I made a commitment.  For years of my life, I got through life by making promises I couldn't keep, telling people what I thought they wanted to hear, and having no accountability for my actions or my decisions.  I did what I wanted, when I wanted to do it with little regard for what I had said or what my intentions had been the day before.  I always traded feeling good right now for having any kind of standard by which to live, or being a man whose word meant anything.  There is a reason why most of my closest friends in the poker world were willing to bet LARGE sums of money as to whether I was going to show up at the Borgata Open in September...and most of them were willing to bet that I would, merely 1.5 months after I made a verbal commitment to stay out of the game for half a year.  That reason is because everyone close to me in my life knows that my word rarely held weight, and I hadn't the self control to stay away from poker for more than a few weeks.  The process I'm going through since July is about changing everything about how I operate in my life.  I wouldn't be doing myself or anyone else any service by returning to the game prior to the date I committed to.  As a matter of fact it would just be proving to myself and to the people I love the most that I haven't changed, and that I have no capacity to do what I promise to do...That is not the type of man I wish to be any longer.  At this point I'm honestly dying to play poker.  I miss the game a tremendous amount, and knowing that my new perspective and mindset would allow me to enjoy it again makes staying out of the action rather difficult.  I refuse to give into the temptation of scratching that itch before January.  As a recovering alcoholic and addict, self restraint and discipline are things that are ESSENTIAL for me to have.  I am learning to see the big picture and not trade the satisfaction of playing a game I love right now, for the satisfaction of knowing I was able to change my way of living and follow through with a very difficult challenge for myself.  I want the people I love to see me as a man of integrity, not as a man who constantly cannot follow through on a commitment.  More importantly, I want to see myself as that man, the man I aspire to become, not the man I have been.

On another front, the decision is about learning humility and not losing sight of where I came from.  The emptiness I felt the night I won the National Championship is a feeling that I must keep in the forefront of my mind always if I wish to stay sober.  Throwing myself back into the poker world where I will be getting congratulations, pats on the back, high fives and having my ego stroked is not something that I feel I deserve after three months of living correctly.  I have allowed my successes in my career on several occasions to eclipse or warrant my short comings in the other, more important aspects of my life.  I think that three more months of living in a selfless, purposeful manner, and continuing to help other people will do me a great service in not allowing me to lose sight of the abyss I existed in three months ago.  When I come back I will feel like I am deserving of the happiness I will experience as a result of playing the game that I love, and I will have no mixed feelings about the man I am outside of the game, because I will have accomplished something that I set out to do...a concept previously foreign to me. 

To paraphrase, do I miss my career? Yes absolutely.  Do I think that I would/could enjoy playing and have an entirely different attitude and outlook on my career and reaction to annoying or unfortunate situations that occur in poker tourneys?  100%  But I am learning that poker is not everything.  Success in my career is so much further down the list of importance in life as is being the man I aspire to become.  And that man will not go back on his word.  I will see you all in January for the Borgata Winter Open, and not a moment before. 

So if any of you are still thinking of taking prop bets as to whether I will be regging an event at Borgata this fall or at Harrah's this winter, my advice to you would be the same as my advice was to people in September...Lay any odds you want, and bet your roll AGAINST.  See you all in two months.  Oh, and I will still be 5 betting light so get ready to fair catch.  :)