EPTI'm going to share with you an experience that changed my life, It was the best and worst experienced of my life.
Firstly I think i better give a brief introduction. Hi!, My name is Serjei James, I am 24 years old and have a bsc in Geochemistry from the University of Melbourne, Australia. During my university days I had a troubled existence. In last year of my degree and for two years after that I played poker somewhat professionally, I made ~75000 USD in that time, yet i found it to be a dark time in my life.
However every time I tried to quit poker (and gambling forms in general) I have always ended up going back to it in some way. I since have stopped trying to fight my love for gambling and have (i guess admitted to myself) that I have a passion for gambling. It is for this reason that i took time off my work as a geologist and took a gambling trip.
I did this in the hopes that it would satisfy my gambling passion, or alternatively that it would be a bad experience, thus destroying my love of gambling and poker.
Ok, So if that was tl;dr basically i just felt a need to take a gambling holiday.
I had planned to Macau (china, big gambling district) aswell as South Korea (where i was planning to watch some GSL). However I just ended up going to China.
The trip to china was a disaster. So, in a way, I'm making this blog to help clear my own mind and apologies and religiously repent for the way I acted. I did so many illegal and immoral things and I am still not truly sure why I acted the way I did. I dank huge amounts of alcohol, went to wild parties and did drugs. I bet on dog fights and I slept with prostitutes.
Part of the reason I acted this way, is that this is the first time I have had true and complete independence. I have stayed with my parents my whole life (even through university) and I have always been under there very conservative influence, and while I have been a problem drinker and marijuana user, I have never done harder drugs, or drank anywhere near the level i did in Macau. I was also a vigin before the trip, so I slept with prostitutes and drunk women at the parties, just for the reason that I felt i had something to prove, because I was a virgin for so long.
My passion for poker was also lost to an extent, Overall i made about $10000 from the trip, but most of this money game from gambling on horse races, illegal dogfights and Chinese poker. I was a looser at Holdem and Omaha and lost a lot of money with bad decision making and playing drunk.
The trip destroyed my love of poker. The whole experience is a blur, of dark back-rooms , drugs , alcoholism, bright casino lights and busy streets. I was robbed and abused while stoned ,due to my inability to control my drug use.
But at the same time i am glad that I indulged my guilty pleasures and feel the trip was beneficial as it was a type of rehabilitation from me. I will never bet on dog fights again, and I feel sick thinking about the things that I saw.
But most importantly the trip taught me something about myself, a new philosophy if you will. I learned that lust for money and woman, is something that is not apart of me, and its rather something that I felt i must live up to and do, to feel good about myself, and be the "alpha male". I made mistakes, hurt people and hurt my family with this trip. But even after all this, I feel like I am healed.
"I will never do something just because it's popular, but at the same time, I will never disregard anything, just because its popular" - Serjei James.
