“When I walk into a casino there is a soundtrack in my mind. I am hearing all those cool Rat Pack, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis songs and…it just feels like everything’s swinging, everything’s hip and it’s all gonna go my way. Ring-a-ding-ding. Cha-Ching. You know?” Gabe, Gambling Addict. Intervention.

A gambling addiction can be seriously debilitating in that it can leave you in financial ruin and lead to mental health problems and possibly substance abuse. Places like DayHab Gold Coast Rehab off support to those going through this and battling other addictions. Gabe gambles four days a week, up to 12 hours a day. He has lost over $500,000 in the last six years. His addiction is fed by the soundtrack delusion—in fact, he’s crippled by it. It’s the song the starts slow and melodic and rises up into the Second Act. The worse things get, the more he needs it—the more it divorces him from the reality and the awfulness of his situation.

He’s a nice example because of the contrast. The casino is a shitty Indian casino two hours outside Los Angeles. He’ll never be in the Rat Pack and it’s objectively not going his way. But the truth is that the fallacy is much more insidious. And we’re all addicted to it.

The best way to stay sober: practice your contemptuous expressions.