He Stopped Gambling Without Willpower... Once He Saw This

If I stop gambling, then finish the sentence. What's left? What's left?

Who am I? I have to be bored. I have to sit through nights of not having crazy dopamine rushes. I have to sit with the things I need to change in myself. You get to leave a winner, not a loser.

You're like a healing fantasy in a sense.

Ooh, ooh.

Yeah.

Wow.

Oh, that's powerful. A redemption. Yeah.

Damn.

Dude, I feel like I woke up from a dream. It's crazy. I like just generally don't want to do it. Like I generally don't want to go rob a bank and risk going to prison. Like it's that same feeling, like.

Right. That's what's possible. Not white knuckling it, not avoiding triggers and fighting with urges the rest of your life, just simply not wanting it anymore. But if you're in the thick of it, you probably can't imagine feeling that way. The pull feels like it's part of you, like it's permanent, like the best you can hope for is just to manage it. The pull isn't the problem. It's a signal. And once you understand what it's been signaling, it starts losing its logic. That's what this is about. Not the behavior, what's underneath it. The guy you just heard from is Joel. He runs his own recovery channel and he chose to make our sessions public. What you're about to see are moments from that work. Watch what happens when we dig into what the fantasy of leaving a winner is actually about.

It's like, oh shit, now I'm not the best. Now there's something else I have to be the best at. And the more I do this, the more I realize like that's not how I should be viewing it. Um, and no one cares if I'm the best.

So going, going back to that desire to, to be the best, like just feel into that part. If I'm not the best, then, oh, I'm going to die.

I'm going to be, I'm going to be poor. I'm going to be leaving with my B. A loser. And I'm looking at right now, cause it's on my bedside. It's like, yeah, that's kind of like it. It's like no mercy. Like, unless you're always performing and always winning, you don't deserve love and care and peace. You don't deserve peace unless you succeed and accomplish. Man, it's just exhausting. I think. I can already see like a shift happening where it's like, still work hard. Like, this doesn't mean just like give up and just like stop trying. But if I could take the pressure off that I need to have every call be a close, every person needs to buy, every— yeah, every person I talk to needs to be a 10 out of 10 conversation that we develop this great relationship, you know. God, I'll enjoy the process. I'll, I'll, yeah, probably start loving the game instead of needing it to, right, reinforce that you're good enough, right?

Yeah.

Here's why you're so good, Steve, because you listen. It's such like a, like so many of like, like my whole life was sports, right? And it's like, no wonder, no wonder. It's like the performance was the secret.

Right. Poker's kind of like a sport. I mean, they treat it as such on TV. Like, it's just sports in different form. It's like your sporting arena where you can enact your performance to feel competent, to feel good enough, to get love.

Mm-hmm.

Definitely, man.

And it's just been an exhausting game because you never win.

It's never enough. As we said before, never enough.

God, it's so addicting, man.

Yeah.

The validation from being successful is like nothing else, right? Everyone applauding you. And this makes perfect sense because in my sales role, this is how I entered this recent, these recent jobs. It's like, I'm going to perform, outperform everyone. I'm going to get all the validation from the team.

I'm going to move up.

I'm going to be the number one. And I'm just realizing that No one cares if you're number one. Everyone just wants you, wants your money. It's like, cool, he's number one, how can I get what he has? So no one really likes you, right? It lasts, it's so short-lived. It makes things totally stressful because now it's just competing to be number one. And Yeah, it's just, it's— and that's, that's where I've been having the real idea. I just haven't been putting into words lately.

You said how you get love is your performance, and ultimately how you get love from yourself. So if I, if I'm the number one salesperson, maybe I can love myself.

Yeah, that's crazy, man.

I didn't even know, like I was thinking like that. I was just like, you know, it's just been on my mind all day, every day.

Right. Wow.

Oh, it doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

Just enjoy the journey. Just enjoy the journey.

Can you love yourself right now?

Yeah, I can.

And not for anything I'm doing, just because.

Right.

God, feels like the world's just slowed down a little bit.

Yeah.

Life, man, I think one of the biggest realizations, and it's always scary when it starts to happen, that shift happens. Right? Because this is the first time I felt peace around this. But up until now, it's been like something's wrong.

Right?

That's where that conversation landed. It wasn't a gambling conversation on the surface, but what we got to was what gambling was actually for, what need it was trying to meet. And that's where the real work is. That's how we dismantled the gambling mindset. How have you been since we talked?

Good, man. Dude, I feel like, uh, I woke up from a dream.

It's crazy.

What, what changed? Man, so many little pieces are like clicking. Like I think just realizing that I, a lot of my life has been performance-based. I actually felt some compassion for myself, like almost like I was able to see myself from a third person and be like, yeah, I'm like, I'm sorry that you've felt this way for so long. It sounds exhausting and like, like a lot of pressure and, you know, no wonder you've been so stressed. It's because you've been carrying around this thing that you need to always be number one. And so it took a little bit of the weight off and it allowed me to see myself from like the, like not attached to that part of me that was this like driven, you know, success-focused, needed this win, these wins to be number one and be seen and validated.

Right, right.

Yeah. For someone who learned early that love was something you performed your way into, having that level of self-compassion was a direct challenge to the belief that was running everything.

So yeah, we had our talk last time and I'd just gotten out of crypto, which was a huge move because I've been at it for like a year now. Right. And then we finally were able to discover the root of the addiction, which took a lot shorter than I thought it would. So that was awesome. And we had agreed that, okay, going forward, like, just focus on integrity and doing what you believe is to be right. And I'll say this, like, so I've been, you know, not making the money I wanted. And I finally, it's something I'd been hiding from was my girlfriend because, you know, I've come from the dating space. I didn't want her to lose attraction, all that, you know, but, you know, I just had, I was like, finally, I just told her, I'm like, hey babe, look, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to stay in Mexico very much longer. I'm doing a lot of things that I can, but I just want to let you know that I'm, you know, it's been a bit of a struggle last couple months. And she was just like super supportive. And my dad goes, Oh, I didn't tell you, you have an old college savings account with $28K in it.

What?

Yeah. Well, what a situation. You get out of crypto and all of a sudden all the money you ever needed just arrives.

It's crazy. It was crazy, Steve. It's incredible.

Yeah.

Super grateful and I, yeah, I think that keyword is integrity. Like, like that, the old Joel would've been like, well, I can go to the casino a couple times. I got some spare cash.

Yeah.

Yeah. But that—

I earned this.

Right.

But rather than doing that, you, you took it as like, this is a safety net and I'm, I'm gonna pretend it's not there right now.

Yes. 100%.

Yeah, I've honestly forgotten about it multiple times.

Like, interesting. When you're in a gambling addiction, what's the likelihood of you forgetting about $28,000 cash?

Zero.

Right, right. Is that right? It just shows that you are really shifting the gambling mindset, and that's kind of what we've been focusing on, was not Necessarily your active gambling, but being in the gambling mindset of having that approach, which the crypto is keeping locked in place by just having it there and checking it. So the ability to just have access to all this cash and just not really think about it, it shows the mindset's really letting letting off here quite a bit.

Awesome, man. I appreciate you sharing that. That's, uh, that feels good. It, it definitely feels like I've, I've matured, like, yeah. And it's probably, it probably makes sense why my parents didn't tell me till now. Like, in a, like, in a spiritual way, like, maybe they actually sensed, okay, Joel's actually working hard. He's actually, you know, he's not being irresponsible with his money. So now we can present this to him versus, yeah, had they done this one year ago, I would have definitely— I was at the casinos a year ago, so I definitely would have used a lot of that for poker. Like, I think first, thank you for doing this with me and, you know, taking your time every week to help me with this. And I think, like you said, I was in such a dark spot and I just couldn't see. I just couldn't, you know, I'll sum it up like Or, you know, maybe a good analogy would be like you came in and you just, you had a flashlight, right? You were able to start pointing the ways that I can exit the tunnel. And then as well, like you really helped me go inwards and kind of understand some deeper roots, right? Really helped me see the mindset I had. I think that was a big piece of what our work was, is that my mindset, even though I was not physically gambling, I was still mentally gambling with a lot of different things, you know. That was really important to see. Other big piece was to recognize that how I was showing up. So, you know, you helped me go to my past as well and look at some of the ways I lived and why, you know, in high school, like how my relationships I had in high school contributed to my gambling now. I still trying to chase highs and away from social dynamics. So, and you finally gave me permission to not need to win at everything. Finally let me like put my competitive spirit to rest. And it's still there, like it's always going to be there a bit, but now it's like not controlling everything I do. So that mantra you gave me to say, you know, I have it in my notes and You know, saying that just kind of helps me like step back from that like hustle culture vibe.

Right. Yeah.

That's huge. Wow. So I'm glad to hear this has been useful and just changing the whole mindset and allowing you to really kind of see the way out and take the steps out and feel the joy and peace and presence, I guess, is a big one. People say presence is one of the biggest things they start to notice. A new way. And that's motivating on its own to the point where you're growing beyond gambling so that it seems so unappealing that you're not just using willpower to resist it anymore. You're actually just not wanting it anymore.

Mm. Yeah.

So that, that's the biggest piece that came from this is that Exactly that. There's no, like, forcing myself to do it. I, like, just generally don't want to do it. Like, I generally don't want to go rob a bank and risk going to prison. Like, it's that same feeling, like—

Right. The same way you don't want to rob a bank is the same way you don't want to gamble.

Yeah. Oh my God, that's so huge.

That's what one-on-one work looks like. What you saw today was just one moment in a larger process. The real work is figuring out what gambling was specifically doing for you. What it's been filling in, what's underneath it, and what life looks like when that changes. Not just in theory, but in the specific way that matters to you. This isn't for everyone. The people I work with have usually tried to stop on their own. They're not looking for generic support. They want to understand what's actually driving this and deal with it at that level. And what used to feel impossible starts to feel natural. I take a small number of clients at a time. So if you've been waiting for the right moment to deal with this, the link to apply is below.

If you're really on the fence, just have that call, just schedule that call. You might not even be able to see it now watching this video, but it does release something in you, does free you up. It's not weird. It's not shameful. Steve won't judge you. It's like, it's very normal.