Some nauseous nostalgia

The greatest TV show brought back some vivid memories...

Good evening valued subscriber,

Thanks to those who tuned in for yesterdays Q&A. I was expecting more questions so please take the time to list your concerns and queries since I will be doing a live Q&A at the end of every month. I set time aside to answer all questions thoroughly and since many of the same questions tend to pop up often, it’s a handy time to address everything at once!

Anyway, yesterday I was lounging about infront of the TV and browsing through Sky (as if I don’t clock up enough screen time!) and stumbled across on old Sopranos episode from season 2. If you’re reading this and haven’t seen the show, you have absolute no reference point to judge great TV from (won’t argue!).

To those who’ve watched it will remember the harrowing story arc of Davey Scatino, the sports store owner with a gambling addiction. He asks Tony to let him join his ‘executive card game’ – a high level poker game established by the New Jersey mafia. Tony declines so Davey joins a lower stakes game run by Richie Aprile (a capo in Tony’s crew). After losing, Richie turns up to his store to receive only a partial payment and charges interest on the remaining debt ($8,000) and bans him from future games until it is repaid.

Davey turns up at Tony’s ‘executive game’ insisting on joining to which Tony refuses. Reluctantly he let’s Davey join with $5,000, only to end up $45,000 in the hole as he borrowed chips from Tony whilst he was sleeping.

Richie unexpectedly turns up to the game where he sees Davey and chokes him out for not heading his warning. Davey ends up giving his sons car to Tony as partial repayment. Tonys daughter recognises the car since she is school mates with Davey’s son and realises it was taken against their will.

To make up for the debt, Tony and Richie squeeze money out of Davey’s store, buying merchandise on credit and selling it on the street. Davey is informed that it will continue unless he’s able to pay back his gambling debt. Davey is driven to suicide before he is inadvertently interrupted by his wife.

Too embarrassed to go home, he sleeps in his store and strikes up a late conversation with Tony who turns up and explains that he and Richie will continue squeezing the store until it’s forced into bankruptcy.

He then reveals how praying on such men like Davey who owns a sports store,  is one of his ‘primary’ incomes and he only let him join the game because he knew the shop would be collateral if need be. He reminds Davey that the game was fair and he could easily have won as well as lost.

The frog and scorpion proverb is interpreted as that there are certain irresistible instincts that man is helpless against.

Davey reveals to his brother in law in a bar that he’s lost everything, going as far gambling away his sons college fund. The only silver lining is his brother in law assuming responsibility of his sons educations costs. Davey ends up getting divorced and finding ranch work in the country.

When I first watched the Sopranos, I wasn’t nearly as empathetic with the characters as I was entertained. After all, I was 18. I knew f*ck all about life.

The genius in the show is it’s ability to simultaneously explore several themes, many relatable to the average adult. In the case of mafia boss Tony Soprano, the show exhibits how it’s almost impossible to maintain a real family and and a mafia family without having the latter corrupt and threaten the former. Davey faces the same issues, as do most of us.

A revisit of the show when I turned 30 felt absolutely necessary. As a married man and actual trader/gambler, only then could I truly appreciate the grandeur of the shows story telling and Davey’s arc hit too close to home. As a late teen I was in awe with the story, the characters and glamourized violence.

But as a mature adult, who’s experienced suffering in relationships and gambling, the show hits a different nerve. Season 2 captures the pain and stress of gambling, addiction and debt so succinctly that it reminds me vividly of the times I blew up. The sleepless nights of pain and regret. The strain on personal relationships. The hallucinations of price action, dreaming and waking up in the middle of the night thinking bitcoin had corrected close to my bid entry, only to remember my positions were liquidated. The pull of rage gambling to make it back. The moping around, weeping and not being able to tell anybody what I’d done since nobody would understand. Not to mention the embarrassment.

On my podcast I revealed how If I were to do it all again, I probably wouldn’t. Atleast not in the way I had went about it. Gambling puts your flaws under the spot light. Any chink in the armour, whether it be greed or fear, misplaced expectations, arrogance or overconfidence will manifest in losing money. Since we are not equipped to deal with losses, most of us end up continuing to lose until it’s all gone. The frightening part of gambling is that it takes a few moments to lose what could’ve taken a life time to make and this relates to the psychology of ‘loss aversion’ which I’ve explained in a previous post.

Thankfully in my case, it was my money. I had a roof over my head. I didn’t owe the mob. Whilst I can empathise with losing everything and having to start over, I can’t fathom the stress and fear of knowing your life is on the line. I can’t imagine looking my kids in the eye and knowing I gambled away their future.

Whilst I didn’t know it at the time, the epic meltdowns and risks I took in my 20s have given me the wisdom and fortitude in my early 30s that will shield from ever doing the same thing again. Of course I didn’t intend to mess up. But you never know what’s instore for you unless you take risks. I did it early. I had the mental and physical endurance to bounce back.

There is a point where it’s too late. You don’t have the time to climb back out of a hole when you’re middle aged, with a business, mortgage and family. When you live a life on the edge, you will experience painful lessons. Learning and returning stronger and wiser is what makes men. It also makes you appreciate great tv that much more when you understand how rare it is for a screenwriter, director and actors to work in unison and perfectly capture the turmoil of real gambling addiction and how falling into debt with the wrong people can be near fatal.

It almost feels like I was supposed to watch that episode again. It almost felt like the universe was giving me a warning. I’ve tasted failure, stress and anxiety many times but I can only imagine what that would be like in Davey’s situation. The anxiety I felt just rewatching the episode hits hard enough to remember never to succumb to the demons of greed ever again. I believe the story served as an educational warning as much as it was entertainment.

Gambling addiction is something most of us aren’t really objective enough to admit. We’re either lucky enough to have someone hold us back…or we lose it all.

Speak soon.

AT