The Door Is That Way
He made me leave when it was cheap, so I would know how when it was not.
Winter of 1958, there was a hall in Scranton with a coal stove in the back and a house man named Delmar. Hands like catcher's mitts, no patience for any of us. I was sixteen and I thought I was the best thing that ever chalked a cue in that county. I was not. I was fearless, which at sixteen looks the same from a distance.
One Friday I was up eleven dollars, which in 1958 was a coat and a week of lunches. Delmar came over mid rack, put one of those hands on my shoulder, and told me to get my things. I said I was winning. He said he could see that. He said the door is that way.
I was furious. I told him the fellow still had money, that I had it going. Delmar listened to all of it, then said the only thing he ever said to me twice. The game will still be here Thursday. You will not always be.
He did that to me maybe twenty times over two years. Sometimes I was up, sometimes stuck, mostly it was a night where nothing much was riding either way. I hated him for it.
It took me until my sixties to understand what he was doing. He was making leaving ordinary. A man who has never once walked out of a room while his blood was up will not manage it on the night he needs to most, because he will be attempting the hardest thing he has ever tried at the worst possible hour to try it.
You cannot practice quitting for the first time on the biggest night of your life. The walk to the door is a muscle, and it only gets built on the cheap nights, the ones that do not matter, when leaving costs you nothing but a little pride.
I forgot Delmar for about twenty years, and those years cost me a house and most of a marriage. But when I finally started walking out of rooms again, my legs knew how. He put that in me back when it was only ever worth eleven dollars.
If your phone is in your hand right now, put it down over something small. Not the big one. A small one. Then do it again tomorrow. And if that walk has gotten too long to make alone, 1-800-MY-RESET is answered all night by people who know the distance.
Practice on the cheap nights.
Sal
Walking away from gambling is a habit that has to be practiced when the stakes are small, because someone who has never left a session early is unlikely to manage it when the losses are large. Building the habit on low stakes occasions is what makes stopping possible later.