Worst Bet I Ever Made

It has been almost 18 months since I entered my last entry and I think it's time to get back on the proverbial horse as the saying goes. I recently spent a little time with an old friend who, though we haven't spent a lot of time together, get along rather well, especially for a couple of struggling poker players. This particular person has seemed to come from rock bottom to a really good place in a real short period of time and has inspired me to do the same. It is so easy to get down on yourself when you are losing in this profession and even easier to take a lackadaisical approach when you are winning, thinking that it is always going to be this way.
I have never talked about my addiction to sports gambling publicly and the things that this friend openly shared about his troubled past with drugs and psychiatric issues made me really think, why not? I remember it like it was yesterday, Syracuse +2.5 points vs Indiana for the 1987 National Championship. Hell, I can still name every starter on the Syracuse team. I bet my hard earned $30 on the Orange to cover and they did. Boy, did I know it all at the ripe age of 16, I would never have to work again I thought but how little did I know that this would be the start of the worst habit I've ever known.
It's now almost 25 years later and I can say with 100% conviction that I don't know how many worse habits there are out there but I don't wish them on my worst enemy! I had a very supportive mother (maybe too much but all she knows is how to love and the best sister in the entire world. I never had a Dad but my mom was both mother and father and great at both jobs. Besides, I have never bought into the no daddy shit because people everywhere had and have it a lot worse than I.
You know that 12 step program where it's like "Have you ever lied about your addiction, Have you ever stolen? Have you ever had nightmares? Has it ever cost you to miss work? " I can say that I aced that test with a perfect score of 12 for 12. I have done other stupid stuff such as drink too much at times , partake in illicit drugs a few times, and various other things, but nothing has ever been an addiction such as this. I will never say I have kicked it because I don't believe you ever can completely kick something out of your mind like this. Even though I haven't made a wager in quite a long time, it still lingers in my head. Just tonight I was watching the ending of a game and I immediately wondered what the point spread was. I didn't bet on the Super Bowl but I knew the line and rooted for my friend Dave to win which wasn't a good sweat seeing as how he bet the Steelers and under. I obviously liked the Packers and over but kept my mouth shut when he told me, not that he would listen to me anyways.
So back to my friend, he has been talking about having organization and passion and I definitely have been lacking that. I don't think I have been playing bad, in fact, I am playing some, if not the best poker of my life. I will say that I kept an even keel tonight even taking a 1 outer to go out like 50th of an 1100 player field. I feel good about myself even though I don't really have a way to play the games I would like to play but I will get back to the top where I was in '06, I have no doubt about that.