Billy: I’m Addicted to Gambling

Billy shares his journey as he gambled his way to six figures in four years of college. Hear his stories of risky escapades at Mohegan Sun Casino and underground poker clubs, and learn how he hustled his way to success. Listen in on his thoughtful advice on managing gambling habits, and be inspired by his positive attitude despite his losses. It's a unique view of gambling, honesty and willingness to change.

Compulsive gambling, also called gambling disorder, is the uncontrollable urge to keep gambling despite the toll it takes on your life. Gambling means that you're willing to risk something you value in the hope of getting something of even greater value.

NATIONAL PROBLEM GAMBLING HELPLINE - 1-800-522-4700

The National Council on Problem Gambling operates the National Problem Gambling Helpline Network. The network is a single national access point to local resources for those seeking help for a gambling problem. The network consists of 28 contact centers that provide resources and referrals for all 50 states, Canada, and the US Virgin Islands. Help is available 24/7 and is 100% confidential.

The National Problem Gambling Helpline Network also includes text and chat services. These features enable those who are gambling online or on their mobile phone to access help the same way they play. One call, text, or chat will get you to problem gambling help anywhere in the U.S. 24/7/365.

Help is also available via an online peer support forum at www.gamtalk.org.

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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.

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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email secretlifepodcast@icloud.com

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Guest Billy Procida is a nonmonogamous sex-positive comedian in New York City and host of The Manwhore Podcast. His show is consistently listed as a Top Sex & Dating Podcast by Esquire, Uproxx, and Men's Health. Billy's writing has also been featured in the New York Time's Magazine, Marie Claire, and Mashable. He also runs a monthly Naked Comedy Show in Bushwick. Yes, actually.

Twitter: @TheBillyProcida

Instagram: @billyisprocida

OnlyFans: @callmebilly

The Manwhore Podcast - apple or spotify

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Create and Host Your Podcast with the same host we use - RedCircle

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Get your copy of SECRET LIFE OF A HOLLYWOOD SEX & LOVE ADDICT -- Secret Life Novel or on Amazon

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Transcript

[0:00:00] Billy: I've been the Gamblers Anonymous a few times. I think like three times I've been the Gamblers Anonymous. I don't really like it because they say that to be a member, the first thing you have to do is have a desire to quit gambling. And I don't want to quit gambling. I just want to stop losing.

[0:00:20] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict, a four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to Secret Live Podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave. Or those lighter, funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really?

[0:01:18] Brianne Davis: The how, what, when, why, or why it all today. My guess is Billy. Now, Billy, I have a question for you. Don, what is your secret?

[0:01:30] Billy: I have a gambling problem.

[0:01:35] Brianne Davis: Okay, tell me about it.

[0:01:38] Billy: Yeah. What was interesting when we were talking about doing this, it's like, well, what secrets do I have? Because I'm also a podcaster. I do a show called The Man Who Are Podcast. So it's like, I live my life very publicly on the Internet, especially like, my sex and dating life. So it's all out there. And I was like, what don't I really talk about? And when you ask people to support your artistic career with things like patreon and other ventures, you feel self conscious about being like, I'm going to try really hard not to gamble with this money, but I also might and I'm so sorry.

[0:02:14] Brianne Davis: Oh my God. I never thought about it in that element. Wow. So first let's talk. When did you become a gambling addict? When did you start gambling? Was it really young?

[0:02:24] Billy: Yeah, I think my introduction was probably somewhere around like, let's just say 1011, maybe like eleven with scratch off tickets. I used to go down the street to the pizza shop, like a half mile from my house after school every day. But I have a sports practice. I would go down there, have a few slices, read the paper like an old man, total old man, talk to the adults. Which now, by the way, when I go there, I'm seeing the adults would have talked to at 1120 years. I'm like, oh my God, you were like in your 20s or thirty s and I thought you were so old. But I would go down there and chat because I didn't have a lot of friends. I got bullied a lot. So this pizza shop was like, a refuge for me, and the dudes behind the counter would play scratch offs, and the only time I got to play scratch off is, like, christmas, when, like, everyone gets one in the stocking. But it was great. When you won, you lost, and if you win, you can just trade it in for more tickets to then eventually lose. Because a gambler doesn't want to win. A gambler just wants to gamble, and eventually we lose. That's when we notice stop gambling. That were like, when the place is closing down, I would give my money to, like, there was a quick stop thing next to the pizza shop.

[0:03:40] Billy: I would give the pizza, the guy, my little list, and my little $10 allowance money because they also played a scratch off. Everyone's a junkie, so they go next door for me, and they get my tickets, and then I would caress them and hound them to go next door. I wasn't very cognizant of context of things, so it's in a rush, and I'm bugging them. I wasn't really manipulating it's like, hey, Robbie, you go next door to get tickets. Can you get me my tickets, or can you cash in my tickets? So that's where it started. And then, like, middle school age online poker, like, underground online poker was starting to happen, and there was this weird gimmick where somebody's parent would, let's say, let them put $200 in their all Star poker's account. I even remember what the site was at the time. And then they would just barter and trade the credit because you could transfer credits to accounts. So someone's like, oh, can I give you $20 to transfer me, like, ten into my account? Because my parents won't let me gamble with their money. And so there was that whole racket going on. And so then I was starting to play some online poker, and then it would progress until I got to boarding school, and they're like, you weren't allowed to gamble. So I was like, yeah, I was a rule follower told square. So I was like, Why?

[0:04:57] Billy: I don't break the rules because I don't want to get into trouble. Because at my school, if you got in trouble, you had to do, like, a 05:30 a.m. Workout. And I hate waking up early. I don't mind the workout. The workout was, like, a 630 p. M. Workout.

[0:05:09] Brianne Davis: You're all for the dice.

[0:05:11] Billy: Yeah, but I'm not waking up at 530 and going to the gym. No, thank you. But there was a loophole. The loophole was you could gamble for food, so, like, you could gamble pizza. Oh, yeah. And board of school pizza is currency.

[0:05:23] Brianne Davis: It sounds like a prison.

[0:05:29] Billy: I went to an alternative kid boarding school. I don't know if you heard the term trouble. Teen industry.

[0:05:35] Brianne Davis: Yes.

[0:05:36] Billy: So my school was on the very, very light end of that spectrum. So we sometimes get kids from these wild schools you hear stories about in the news. Like, if they behaved well enough, sometimes they get to come to our school. So it wasn't prison, but it was strict. You'd have, like, N 64 or PlayStation. So I would play, like, NFL Blitz or something where we play poker. But for pizzas. A lot of us were putting the pizzas on, like, mom or Dad's credit card. I don't know if I've ever said this. I ran up a bill on my mom's credit card at some place special, which was, like, the local pizza shop. And I would run up a bill because a kid took me for ten pizzas. And then my mom's like, why did I get charged for $130 from someplace special? It's like, because you know what? I really need to practice harder at this video game. I really need to, like I need to do the work if I'm going to gamble it.

[0:06:29] Brianne Davis: Wow. What age was that?

[0:06:32] Billy: That's all the high school.

[0:06:33] Brianne Davis: Wow. So here's what I just want to stop and ask you what would happen if you're talking about it now, is anything happening in your body? Because there was a little jolt I felt from you telling the story about it.

[0:06:46] Billy: Well, as I told you before we started, I live my life very publicly. I don't have a lot of secrets. I got a couple of secrets because I think it's healthy to have a few. It's like, I got to have a couple. I need something for my first book, right? There needs to be something that a headline will be like, billy Procedure admits to Blank in his first debut novel, which is on the bestseller list. No big deal. I got to save a couple of things for the first Man Whore book. But I was like, what? Do I not get to talk? I just don't get to talk about this? Everyone's interviewing me about, like, sex stuff, which is fine and great.

[0:07:20] Brianne Davis: I get that's what I wanted to interview you about, because I am a sex and love addict. So I'm like, let's talk about the gambling.

[0:07:29] Billy: I imagine I would come on and share that, except all my sex life is public. There's no secret there. But this is something, like, I don't even really think about. I haven't thought about Adam Mizrah beating me for ten pizzas and NFL bullets since I don't know when. Like, I haven't even thought about this. He would use Peyton Hillis as running back a lot. Literally, I haven't thought about that. Sophomore year, wow. I was on probably, like, Three East the wing I was on. Yeah. That's crazy. So I just haven't thought about this, and I don't get to talk about it very often.

[0:08:00] Brianne Davis: Well, this is the perfect place. So then when was the next thing you gambled and it just amplified?

[0:08:07] Billy: Also when I would go home on breaks, you could gamble. So I place them online poker, the scratch off racket. And then when I got to college, I remember sophomore year college, I went to like, my five year high school reunion. I went to some sort of I went back to my born school, and all the kids who went up, all the other alum, we were hanging out, we were drinking some beer. They can't give us whatever. And then someone's like, oh, let's go to Mohegan Sun. Now we're all underage. Yeah, like, I'm 19, by the way. I like gambling at the native American casinos more than, like, Atlantic City because, like, when I lose that Mohegan Sun, I feel like I'm doing good. There's some kids who know, like, calculus now because I paid for those books. So it's like, this is better your.

[0:08:57] Brianne Davis: Due, good service, going to lose at the Mohegan Sun casino.

[0:09:03] Billy: Yeah, community service. This is good karma. When I lose here, if I lose in Atlantic City, it's just going to somebody's bank account. So. Anyways, let's go to Mohegan Sun. I had a fake ID, but I never been to a casino because I was underage. And we got in. I didn't realize, at least in Connecticut, there's not like, someone at the door. Even in Jersey, I'm pretty sure there's not like someone at the door. I go in another state sometimes, though, you walk and right there, it's like, what's your ID? But here is more like you walk around and somebody might card you, and most likely you are going to get carded if you ask for drinks. So we just didn't ask for booze, no problem. And I got to go ahead and lose my $100 at blackjack. Like, fine, but then that let me know, oh, I can get into a casino underage. And so then I would start to go.

[0:09:53] Billy: Now in college, I don't got a lot of money, so I'm like driving up 3 hours Mohegan Sun from New York to gamble with $100 to $200, which when you're back at blackjack does not last very long.

[0:10:09] Brianne Davis: I thought you were like, maybe doing the nickel slots. I would take it to the nickel slot and it would take a long time.

[0:10:15] Billy: No, the slots nonsense.

[0:10:20] Brianne Davis: Like the old lady slot. That's what I would do.

[0:10:23] Billy: The slots are for bachelorette parties and guys who don't know what they're doing. Okay, I'm taking this seriously. I would start going up there, and I'm going up a little bit. At that time, junior year, I discovered underground poker scene in New York City, right. And after a couple of times playing, I very quickly was introduced to dealing. My boss was named Scotty Cards because of course it was I didn't know his last name, scotty Cards. He was in my phone with Scotty Cards. So he introduced himself to people on the street. And so Scotty cards taught me how to deal. And he was like, do you think you could get other college kids to come play at our game. I was like, yeah. So I would get kids to come in. I got to learn how to deal, and I got to make money. When you're dealing, can't really lose. So I would start dealing, but then what happens happens is I take the money I make from dealing, and then I would play on other nights, I'd go up to the casino, and then I just lose there.

[0:11:22] Billy: We just keep moving the money around. Yeah, but now I'm in the underground poker scene. I'm going to poker clubs around. It's like that movie Rounders. Like that. I'm running around the city playing with old men when I'm not dealing cards. And all this money is really just funneling back into the gambling. I started webcamming junior year college. I webcammed for a couple of years, did all right. I was, like, making $100 to $500 a week very casually, just sitting in there doing webcamming.

[0:11:52] Brianne Davis: What do you mean?

[0:11:53] Billy: You know what webcamming is?

[0:11:55] Brianne Davis: I know, but I want you to answer.

[0:11:57] Billy: Oh, webcamming people don't know. Or pretending they don't know is that yeah, I'd sit in a chat room and when dudes or dudes pretending to be women wanted to watch me take my clothes off or touch myself or do something kind of like one time a guy was just like, I just want you to sit around fart, pick your nose, be a gross dude. Which is weird because I know all the lyrics to Rent, and I'm like, I don't think I'm like the dude I am. Make money per minute, like $3 a minute talking to people, and if they want me to take my clothes off or jerk off, I could do that. Can I swear on this? I didn't.

[0:12:37] Brianne Davis: Yes.

[0:12:38] Billy: This show is okay. Awesome. Fuck. Now this is money that goes back into the gambling. I did a lot. I hustled hard in college. I estimate that I probably made about six figures in my four years in college. On the side, between the poker dealing and the webcamming, I did, like, textbook buybacks, and I also like, I fucking sold fake IDs. Which, by the way, I have the research statute of limitations this morning just to make sure I could talk about this comfortably on a recorded show. But I used to deal fake IDs all four years of college.

[0:13:14] Brianne Davis: Yeah, so you would make them, or you found somebody to make them?

[0:13:18] Billy: No, I knew a guy. I'm very North Jersey Italian like that. I don't do anything. I know a guy.

[0:13:24] Brianne Davis: You know a guy who knows a guy, and then they help.

[0:13:27] Billy: Yeah, well, like, I grew up on my dad operates on the guy's system. My dad's got a guy for everything. He's like, oh, Billy, you need new tires. Oh, you got to go use my tire guy. Gary, here's what you're going to do. You're going to go to hackensack. You're going to go to corner second and south fourth. You're going to go to Gary's Used Tire Shop and Grill. Okay? Naturally, of course, because that's where the guy is going to operate something sketchy. Weird business. What time we fucking. We're going to the jets game. When I was a kid, and we stopped at this shut down gas station, and there's legit a white van in there. And in the back of the white van, there's a bunch of knock off, like jets and Giants.

[0:14:09] Billy: Merch my dad makes very good money. My dad's one of those top percent people. He's fine, but I think he grew up a bit on the poorer side, so I think that's still in him. So he's like, oh, I know I could take you to Sport Authority and buy you a proper jets hoodie.

[0:14:27] Brianne Davis: But he wants a discount. He wants it under, like in the dirty cellar basement.

[0:14:35] Billy: Makes him feel like a kid again. He's like, oh, no, we're going to do this. No, I've been doing this for decades. We go to the gas station to the guy in the van. So I had a guy who made IDs. And at first it was like, oh, can I get mine? Great. But then what would happen is like, oh, some of my friends wanted one. So I was like, hey, I got a few friends who need okay, cool. And they say, hey, if you could get this many people, I'll give you this discount on them. I'm like, can? Okay. So I was like, okay, let me get him five at a time. I get to keep the difference. That's fun.

[0:15:05] Billy: And then I kept coming back to him. So he's like, look, I'll give you this deal so you can make more money if you want, if you want to keep bringing me big orders. So then I start bringing in bigger orders, like ten at a time, 15 at a time. And over the years, he would upgrade his equipment. So it started with these horrendously, bad New York fake IDs. I feel almost guilty selling them New York fake IDs. But by the time I graduated, he'd upgrade to California and Texas, which at the time was like, crumb. That was like the Rolls Royce of a fake ID was like the California fake. So we could charge more. But then he was giving me these stupid low rates. So he would charge me like $40 per ID. When if you went directly to him, he charged you over $100. So he charged me like, $40. I would charge like 200 or $160.

[0:15:55] Brianne Davis: You're making good money.

[0:16:00] Billy: That was my biggest money maker, was the brokering fake IDs. And I would tell friends, I would be like, hey, get me ten friends. I'll give you yours free. So now they're bringing me a cluster, and I'm getting all this on the top. By senior year, what was happening was kids would go home, they'd use a fake ID. Their friends from the other schools, wherever they lived would be like, oh, yours is great. And they put me in touch. So then by senior year, I'm mailing like, ten to 20 IDs at a time to the University of Oregon or like, I don't know, something Texas. I'm mailing shit across.

[0:16:33] Brianne Davis: Very illegal entrepreneurial. I'm kind of proud of you in a very disturbing way. I don't know why. I'm like, Good for you. Good money making scheme. Maybe that's the addict in me. I'm like, yeah, that's a good tactic.

[0:16:48] Billy: Yeah. I was always a hustler. Even if I did textbook buybacks during final season, I was fucking carrying around in a big suitcase, going door to door at every door, and I'm knocking on every door saying, I want to buy your textbooks. I liked making money. I liked being good at that. But it always really to feed gambling. The gambling book would be titled something like How I Made Six Figures in College and How I Lost It all. Because when I graduated, I didn't, like, have this money. Like, it just it was at a variety of poker clubs and casinos, you know, and so that's college is where it really started to soar when I graduated, then I just had more freedom. Now I'm like, I can freely drive and go up or take the bus to Mohegan or Atlantic City or whatever. So now I have more time to do things because I was just pursuing comedy full time. I had some money. I had a little nest egg thing that could live off for about a year. But I'm pretty much just like, I'm dealing poker and I'm gambling.

[0:17:51] Brianne Davis: It's almost like you were enjoying being in the CD underworld with it.

[0:17:55] Billy: There is a sense of community to that. So I play back gaming. If people don't know what back m is, ask your grandparents or dead all seance ask them then, because it's either you're a junkie like me or you're over 60. Like, no one plays Backham. Nobody during COVID Yeah, nobody. It's like you'd say Backham and they're like, what? But if you have someone's like Jewish grandfather, you say chess pesh and be like, oh, yes, I know this game. So I started playing. I learned. I always knew I played back am, and I would play with the pizza boss from back in the day. He taught me, like, the basics, but I wasn't very good. Now I'm fucking slam him. I'm much better at him now. But then I saw someone in Washington Square Park with a back ammon board. I was like, oh, I'd love to play back ammon.

[0:18:41] Billy: They hang out with the chess people. It's kind of all that little crew.

[0:18:44] Brianne Davis: Yeah.

[0:18:44] Billy: Then I start playing back ammon, but they play for money because they're like, well, I can't waste my time doing this. So I am learning how to gamble with backgammon now. By the way, I've already stopped the figure game. Yeah.

[0:19:03] Brianne Davis: You can't just play for fun.

[0:19:06] Billy: I would have, but these grown men wouldn't because those guys in the park, they're working, those are hustlers, the chess guys in the back of and people in Washington Square Park, union Square, they're hustling. That's kind of their work job. Sometimes they do lessons as like, a guarantee, but otherwise they gamble chess, they gamble Back Avenue. So now I've got a new game I can play with and lose my money on. And in 2013, in the summer of 2013, I had a really bad session. I pretty much lost the last of my money. I was trying to find a job. I was having trouble finding a regular day job or whatever. I was still dealing with poker, but I kind of wanted to stop doing that. And I had a big bad loss to the point that was like, I got to owe this guy money, and then I had to move out of my apartment and move back home.

[0:19:54] Brianne Davis: How much did you owe?

[0:19:56] Billy: Okay, it wasn't a lot of money, but I was just, like, kind of running on fumes in the first place. So it was like rent. Yeah, I was bottoming out. I was like, hey, I can give you 300 now, but I'm going to owe you like, another seven or whatever the number was because I don't have it, and one day I'll have it. I'll give it to you. But I didn't have to tell my roommates, like, hey, I got to move out next month. And I moved back home for like, nine or ten months, something like that. I was like, okay, I got to chill the fuck out. The gambling kind of went on pause. I started looking for an actual job. And then when I did get an office job, I worked my way back to the city, paid that guy back, but the itch is still there. And then around that time, online poker got legalized in New Jersey. So now I've got another place. You see the patterns. Like, I am presented with new these are fun games.

[0:20:52] Billy: It's like, oh, my God, it's fun. Here's a new way to have risk.

[0:20:55] Brianne Davis: And to alive and get the jolt in the high. And it's all colors. They made it all colorful now online.

[0:21:03] Billy: Yeah, but quickly back with the back, because you mentioned that I did the CD underground sitting. Even with the poker, there is community. So right now, if you go to the Union Square right now in New York City and you go to the chess guys, most of them know me, and I know that because I've been playing with them and hanging out with them for like a decade at this point. Like, some of them I'm sincerely friendly with, right? We bust each other's balls. I say, hey, what's up? Sometimes I go by and hang out for ten minutes. I'm not even playing. I'm just like watching a game or catching up or something because I talk about sex for a living. Like I have an only fan. So they're like, Billy, man, what's doing on your only fans, man? What's she doing there? Who'd you bang, man?

[0:21:52] Brianne Davis: If people want to join, you can join. We'll link it in the description.

[0:21:56] Billy: Yeah, but they all know each other. I mean, one guy came over to play a couple of weeks ago. He left his dice. So after this, I go to Union Square on my way to a comedy show. I got to go drop off a guy's dice.

[0:22:09] Brianne Davis: What's going on? You're still doing it?

[0:22:12] Billy: I don't pretend to be in recovery at the end of the story. This is not a story where it ends with me doing the work, giving.

[0:22:19] Brianne Davis: Inspirational quotes at the end. You're not going to be giving no inspiration.

[0:22:23] Billy: No. This is like somewhere in between Rounders and Mississippi grind. You seek Mississippi Grind?

[0:22:30] Brianne Davis: Yes, I did.

[0:22:31] Billy: Brian Reynolds and Ben Mendelsson. That's a terrible gambling movie. You can't have a gambling movie like that. Spoiler alert, cover your ears. Fast forward 30 seconds. If you're still listening now, it's your fault. That movie ends with him winning and he wins a lot.

[0:22:49] Brianne Davis: Yeah, that's not a true scenario.

[0:22:53] Billy: Well, here's the thing. It is a possible true scenario. It's not like nobody ever wins like that. It's just like that's not healthy for me to see all the great gambling movies they end either neutral either it was like they were down and they were working away to even, or they lose it all and they like, have a come to Jesus moment. But like, this is the first gambling movie I saw. It's like they're depicting an addiction. Ben Mendelsson's character is terrible. He is off the rocks. He's rock bottom. Even when he hits rock bottom, you didn't think it could go Lord. Then Ryan Reynolds comes into his life. That goddamn beautiful, man. Ruins it even further. But then at the end, he wins.

[0:23:30] Brianne Davis: I know, but you have to understand but that's what society does. It glamorizes those scenarios. Just like for me and I talked about it recently, is like, The Notebook is like the worst movie for sex and love addicts because the cheating she's doing, I'll kill myself if you don't go out with me. I'll drop off the spares wheel and it's like it's all a bunch of bullshit. That's not actually how it ends. Like, those relationships end. So I get you where you're like, oh, I want that. I want someone to kill themselves for me.

[0:24:00] Billy: Well, when I saw Mississippi Grind, like, I'm very cognizant of my addiction. So I'm watching that, knowing that this is not a good movie. I'm watching it being like, yes, he's losing. This is correct. This is how it should go. If you want a really good depiction of the gambling addiction, there's this movie that does it just I've never seen anything so realistic. It's on Netflix. It's called win. It all starts I think his name is Jake Johnson, that dude from the new guy. He's in Tag. It's really good. And he tapped into a thing where I'm like, I have felt all these emotions that you were feeling in all these moments, and that was really true to form. I'm getting goosebumps now remembering it. I'm scared to watch it again because it just so he nails it. It's weird having a struggle like this where I'm also not trying to fix it because I don't think I can.

[0:24:49] Billy: I went eight months one time without gambling in college because I had a really bad night. I had a big loss. I probably lost, like $1,000, which, when you're a college kid, is a lot. Yes, but also I became ugly. I snapped at a lady at the table who was, like, being upsetting. And I was playing with adults. So to them, we were playing low stakes. To them, one hundred dollars to five hundred dollars buy in. To me, that $200 was a fucking lot. And so I probably did five rebuys or something like that. At one point, she was like, how much are you in for? And I fucking snapped. I mean, it's a little rude to ask the question, but I got ugly, and I didn't like what came out of me. And so I was like, pause. Went to a college professor.

[0:25:34] Billy: I missed class the next day. I was so down. And then when I went to him after that, I was like, hey, man, this is why I missed class. He's like, Look, I don't want to overstep. I've taken this guy, like, multiple classes, so he knows me. And he gave me the number of a friend of his who's a psychoanalyst, started seeing her. I went eight months without part of that was because I didn't have enough money to gamble the way I enjoyed a gamble. But also, part of it was like, I wasn't buying dollar scratches. I was like, I was really trying to stop. I made it eight months. That was the longest I've ever gone.

[0:26:04] Brianne Davis: And so what made you start again after that eight months?

[0:26:08] Billy: I got some money. It's easy to not gamble if you don't have money with which to gamble.

[0:26:16] Brianne Davis: So you got money, and then all that work that you did or that just being just went out the window again.

[0:26:23] Billy: It just will slowly be like, look, you go up, you can go down, but you end down. I also have a hard time leaving. Like, for poker table, it's hard to leave because there's also, like again, it can be social, right? So you can go and you're making friends. You're cracking jokes. I'm getting attention. I grew up with basically no friends. I got bullied real bad. So when I found myself in a space. That was accepting me and enjoying my company and laughing at my jokes. Whether that's in the comedy scene or in this scene or later in the dating scene, it's like, it feels warm, it feels nice. I'm like, oh, these people like me. Even if they don't, I'm thinking they do. There's also a little bit of addiction to the it was more fun to go to a poker club in the city than to a casino and play by myself for 15 hours straight. I think my longest run on casino floor was like 27 hours.

[0:27:12] Billy: I went 27 hours straight, no stop. I would stop for food or to take a piss, but I wasn't going to sleep 27 hours straight on the floor. I was doing well. It might have fenced, but I was doing well. I'm like, I can't stop.

[0:27:26] Brianne Davis: But see, I'm not a gambler. So when I'm sitting here listening to you saying 27 hours and you're up, I'm like, Walk away. Take the money, walk away.

[0:27:37] Billy: I think I did end up for that session, if I recall. I don't think I left being like, what did I just do? But I've also had a lot of times where I spent 7 hours somewhere and then I left down three grand. And I'm like, what did I just do? And it's really tough and it's really dark. And again, because of my work and because of being a comedian, I have a lot of material on gambling. But in the real world, like, right now, what we're doing, even though it's a podcast, podcasting is more real to me. I don't get to talk about it and it's a little tough. It's weird. It's also weird to say, I know this is bad and I'm choosing not to stop.

[0:28:13] Brianne Davis: But I just think that's honest. I love even when people are in their place of where they're numbing out or going to define community, that might not be the healthiest or this activity that gets them higher, that excitement that you're willing to say, I know it's bad, but I'm not stopping.

[0:28:34] Billy: Yes, I can control it sometimes. But as you know, in any addiction, if you're not supposed to try to control it in a certain way. But I'd always be like, well, okay, I'll be cognizant of like, well, why do I want to gamble? And if it's not a good reason, I won't gamble now. But if it feels like natural, then I'll do it. But no matter what, it will always end up with, even if it's not that session, it will lead to a session that is really bad. Not just for my personal health, not even just for my bank account, but for my life. There's time that I don't get back. Something I'm realizing is like, I'm losing time and I don't get that time back. And that's time that's not going towards my creative pursuits. That's time not going towards friendships. Time not going towards fucking yoga, right?

[0:29:16] Brianne Davis: Because you're using 27 hours. Just like the guy I talked to last week that lost 14 hours playing a video game and not participating in life or even what I used to do is being obsessed with this romantic person that was unavailable. I lost time. You are losing time.

[0:29:34] Billy: The amount of time you've spent scrolling someone's Instagram feed to be like, okay, but is he back with her?

[0:29:41] Brianne Davis: Well, luckily, in my bottoming out days, there was no social media. I can't imagine if I was still an Attic with social media, I would just probably lose my mind and not be on this planet, to be honest. I can't imagine. But you're still in it. So I guess my last question for you is where are you now with it, now that we have this conversation?

[0:30:05] Billy: Yeah, I've tried going to gamblers. I've been to Gamblers Anonymous a few times. I think like, three times. I've been the Gamblers Anonymous over the last ten years. I don't really like it because they say to be a member, the first thing you have to do is have a desire to quit gambling. And I don't want to quit gambling. I just want to stop losing. I joke that I think Gamblers Anonymous should be a weekly meeting where we come together and learn how to be better gamblers. This isn't heroin. We can be better. This is like heroin where if we do the math rights, it can work out better. Let's all learn how to count cards. It hasn't been my vibe, partially. I don't know how it differs from AA. The way you can participate is a lot more limited if you're newer.

[0:30:57] Billy: Unless you have X amount of months or a year, you're just limited in participation, which I don't like. I like talking. So, like, let me talk, and if I can't talk, then I want to be here.

[0:31:11] Brianne Davis: You just can't talk more than three minutes.

[0:31:13] Billy: You can share, but you can't do cross talk.

[0:31:15] Brianne Davis: Whatever the cruise talk, you can't talk about other people when you're in those meetings, especially with money, sex, and food, you can't cross talk.

[0:31:25] Billy: Yeah, I've been to other types of meetings, like for a friend where I went to an Allen On thing once and was like, okay, you could participate a little more. And so I just didn't like the vibe. Where am I at with it now? I'm just like, you know what? When I do have the extra cash, I'm not first thinking about how I can gamble it. I'm in a more adult mode, so there's a little bit of help where there's limited resource. And the resources I do have, I have things I do want to do with them. So it's helpful to go into a casino. I won't go to a casino with less than $1,000. Frankly, if I'm going to do Gamble Casino the way I like to do it, I prefer to have at least two grand. It's almost like it feels like not worth it. Because if I got to drive 3 hours and 3 hours back, I want to spend X amount of time and I'd like to at least make X amount of money if I win. If I win and I'm able to leave. So really the most gambling I end up doing is the back gaming. And the winter is helpful because it's fucking cold.

[0:32:26] Billy: So I can't go to Union Square and play there for hours. It's gotten better where I'm not going to freeze while I lose. If I'm going to lose, I'll be a little comfortable.

[0:32:35] Brianne Davis: I want to get a suntan. If you're going to lose, I want a suntan while I do it.

[0:32:39] Billy: Yeah. I am in maintenance and like a low volume mode and just doing my best to get out of routine. So sometimes gambling can be part of a routine. If I can create other routines or different subway routes to the same place that bypasses Union Square, that's helpful. If I have other joys in my life, whether that's a partner or practices or I'm like doing a lot of creatively. I've been freelance writing more, so that's helpful. Not only am I being creatively generative, but I'm also making money from that. I've been writing for Mashable recently, so stuff like that. Just being generative at least helps with the maintenance where I don't have enough time and I may have some money and even when I gamble, it's some money. But usually I'm winning $50. I'm losing $50. Okay, sometimes I win $200, but sometimes I lose $500. But I'm able to manage it a little easier. But the best thing so far has been just filling my schedule with generative stuff and that's the best I can do for now.

[0:33:48] Brianne Davis: That makes you feel good and productive?

[0:33:50] Billy: Yeah. And the more the better I feel, the more productive I am, the less desire I have to go spend 8 hours in a park with some potentially homeless people playing back. If I can just folks check me on socials. You search Billy proscida. I pop right up PR o CIDA. And I host a great show called the Man Whore Podcast. Wherever you're listening to Secret Life, you can find me there.

[0:34:17] Brianne Davis: Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your secret. I'm so grateful to know you. This has been such a great episode.

[0:34:24] Billy: Yes, thank you. Thank you. I was happy to be here and.

[0:34:27] Brianne Davis: If you want to be on the show, please email me at SecretLifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time.

[0:34:34] Billy: Bye.

[0:34:39] Brianne Davis: Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate, share or send me a note at secretlifepodcast.com. And if you'd like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.

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