Its been well over a decade since I struggled with the one armed bandits, and being on the wagon for that length of time I thought it was about time I shared my story with the world.
It all began in 1997, when I was struggling with depression, mounting debts and working 80 hours a week trying to get a small franchise business into the black. At the time, I was living on the Central Coast of N.S.W, with my wife and two small boys, (2 and 4).
One day I went to the local club, with a couple of guys that worked for me and put five dollars into a Poker machine. It was the first time I had ever played them, my fathers destructive habit having torn our family apart twenty years earlier.
None the less I put my money in; how dangerous could it be? Hey presto, lights, bells and whistles went off and I won one hundred dollars. Now One hundred dollars was about a fifth of what I was bringing home each week, so I celebrated by buying a round of drinks and putting another ten into a one dollar machine. First push of the button and the bells and whistles went off again, and suddenly I was three thousand dollars richer. It was at that point that the bug bit and took hold along with all the dark things that go with it.
I gave my compatriots a hundred each and proceeded to pump six hundred dollars into the rotten things over the next two hours. I was embarrassed by this and decided to guild the lily when I relaid the news to my wife. Suddenly the win was only two thousand four hundred dollars, but being able to pull out a fat wallet and give her a thousand dollars allayed the guilt somewhat. The remainder got plowed back into the business which swallowed the money whole without so much as a thank you.
A week later I was back at the machines and then again a few days after that. Before I knew it I was at the machines every night winning a little and losing a lot. Siphoning money from the business, I tried to repeat that first nights luck until, seven weeks after it began I woke up one morning and realized the gravity of what I had done.
I had embezzled $12,400 from the parent company and lost it all. I still don’t know how much of our own money I blew, but it was at least that much. I turned myself in, lost the house, was given a $1000 dollar fine, a two year good behaviour bond and had to repay the money I stole. Even after all that, I still kept going back to the machines like a pigeon in a Skinner box.
We moved to Queensland to start anew and I tried the usual treatments. Gamblers Anonymous was helpful but not a cure for me. The stories were all so different to mine. “Hi my name is, Fred and I’ve been a gambling addict for fifteen years.” or twenty five years or whatever. Their stories were always about the slow insidious slide into addiction over multiple years. Where were the people who weren’t addicts one day and were the next?
At the suggestion of my incredibly loving and forgiving wife, I changed tact and began going to Breakeven, a support service offered by Relationships Australia. For the first time I had breakthroughs. With the help of two of their psychologists I was able to see what should have been obvious. All the reasons, the scars, the things that made me so socially suicidal, everything became clear in the light that these two shone on my soul. I am forever in their debt.
What I learned is that every Addict has their own demons to face, mine was my father, and that without confronting that need, the beast is only held at bay.
Australia has about one percent of the world’s population but operates about TWENTY PERCENT of the worlds poker machines. These things are designed to stimulate the reward response in the most vulnerable people in our society. For every dollar that’s played by a non addict, no one knows how much is lost by those who can no longer stop themselves.
I am lucky beyond measure, having learned what true luck is. My wife is still with me, loves me and can even trust me again, though I choose to let her handle most of the money for both our peace of minds.
If you are one of the many who are losing everything in the chase for another win, seek help. It doesn’t matter whether you go to G.A., Breakeven or any other organization that’s out there, just go. Fight for your life. I did and got my life back. And so can you.
Parallel Is available.
This is the Map from Parallel, my fantasy novel.
As the story continues, more detail will be added to the map so watch this space.
Parallel is available from iTunes, Barnes and Noble, and Sony as well as Smashwords here
Part 2 is available for .99 cents.
The complete book is on from Amazon
Thanks all for your continued interest and remember I love to get feedback from those that have read it.
Your’s through words,
Chris Kneipp
I Believe
What I believe and how I came to believe it is a long tale, filled with joy and woe.
What do you Believe,
That’s a big question isn’t it?
I guess there are layers to what I believe in and they get more complex the deeper you go.
At its simplest is the surface layer. Here you’ll find a belief in a controlling order, God if you will. He is my father in the absence of my biological father who disappeared from my life 30 plus years ago.
I believe in the order of the universe and the bits I don’t understand is where you will find my faith. I find it impossible to see the order in the universe and not believe that there’s something or someone who set it all in motion. I believe the chaos around us is only the natural entropy that occurs after a perfect moment, the moment that the universe came into being.
This is the surface layer.
Underneath that layer lies my belief in what life and death are. In particular my life and death. I probably give far too much thought to my own demise but at 47 I figure I’m probably half way through it at least.
I believe I am the sum of my experience built on the foundation of those that made me. I believe Rene Descartes didn’t know who he was, and that everyone and everything is real.
I believe that all life is made of energy and that energy goes on long after our bodies are gone. Every thought, every moment is written into the universe through our minds and as energy cannot be destroyed, In death, that energy is released into the universe.
I believe that everything I have ever done will be plain for all to see, my deeds and life will be ever with me and therein lies the nature of heaven and hell. All the other lives around me will see it all.
What would it be like for you? Would you be surrounded with love and light or will you be alone, unloved and in darkness.
Maybe it’s time to reach out and make some new friends I think…
There’s a lot more layers, but most of them are too personal to share, just yet.
Chris K
The shed metaphor
A productive weekend over, now it’s back to the grind of another week. It’s a Monday morning heading for 9 o’clock and I’m reflecting on the last two days.
I spent the weekend ordering my life, more literally the shed.
Now the shed is a sacred place, a sort of elephant’s graveyard where the bones of the elephants in the room lay in piles. In amongst the piles of 12 month old newspapers and the mouldering stench of the old tattered rugs dispensed with long ago. Now if someone had seen the inside of this sacred space, they would have thought a hoarder had moved in.
The state of it was indeed a metaphor for a time, years in fact, when I was directionless and lost. Pile of old fans and heaters that got left behind in the Summer to Winter cycle. Bags of old linen for beds that we no longer have, bagged up and shot in a corner as there’s no place for it in the shed yet.
I began by sorting out the big stuff. Fans, a steam mop we never use anymore, more fans, videotapes we no longer play finding treasures amongst the Cobwebs and dust. The rules of the game were simple, like eating an Elephant; One mouthful at a time. Pick a square meter and be thorough. Along the way things turn up, containers and sorting trays that you put aside to help deal with the little stuff later. If it’s camping stuff put it here, if it’s tools there and if its rubbish add it in the pile in the backyard that is now visible from space.
Garden equipment goes in the other shed down the back corner of the property. Now that has a whole bunch of issues by itself, but it’s away from the house and I can deal with it later. It can house the stuff that will survive a leaking tin shed.
Back in the main shed I find concrete, under the leaves, the bolts, the nails and screws. Under the rags and plastic bags, the paper and dirt. Under the bits and bobs sorted into the sorting trays I had set aside earlier. Concrete. Bare floor. Meter by square meter I reclaimed the concrete from the chaos and beat back the forces of Entropy. The shed would live again.
No longer an elephant’s graveyard but restored to a new life, with purpose and order. It was like ordering my thoughts and letting the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder have its wicked way with me.
What brought me to this point of clarity?
On Friday night I stayed up all night writing, thinking, writing some more. Two thousand words that bridged a whole lot of gaps that I was having trouble crossing. It felt great to do a few pages of new writing. I burned down a building, killed a few superfluous characters and unleashed a psychopathic Pyromaniac with Pyrokinesis on an unsuspecting world. Immortal Darkness, the sequel to Parallel is coming along nicely thank you for asking.
Saturday I did some gardening, removing a tenacious weed called nut grass from the prospective vege patch.
This insidious weed makes chains of peanut sized nodes that are connected by thin wiry roots that break if you pull on them. If you miss one peanut it will only be a matter of weeks till they’re out of control again.
As I finished with this tedious, though strangely clarifying activity, I went to put the tools away, and the whole shed thing started.
All of this organizing, preceded by a burst of creative energy and seasoned with a good dose of sleep deprivation, makes me think too deeply about things.
The whole weekend was a kind of a metaphor, you know. Tell me what you think it means…
Chris K
Last free day for Moments From Within
Last Chance to get Moments From Within for free as an Ebook from Amazon It’s a collection of poetry and artworks, watercolour mostly, covering a wide range of subjects. It is a selection of poetry, lyrics and thought’s collected over the last thirty years so I hope you enjoy it. Some of it’s a bit teenage angsty, but what can I say. those that know me will be able to guess about when I wrote it. There’s a story behind each one.
Tommorrow will be too late as the free promotion only lasts till the 29th US time so get a wriggle on and download a copy.
Did I mention it was FREE
Moments From Within
I have a new book out, a Collection of Poems and Art I have done over the last thirty years.
For a short time it is available free (Until the 29th March 2012) from Amazon as an Ebook. (Download Here)
Some of the poems can be read here on my blog, but why not go and download the complete Ebook now.
Please comment on anything you liked or didn’t like. (Hopefully more of the former than the latter.)
On a side note, Immortal Darkness, the second book of the Kasdtien Cycle, is coming along nicely. Book one, Parallel is also available, from the usual places. Any queries contact me HERE
cmkneipp@yahoo.com.au
Thanks again and enjoy,
Chris K
So What Just Happened? (Into Deepest Darkest Amazon.com part two.)
Okay, the five free days on Amazon for my novel Parallel is up and I’ve had a chance to look over the data. in five days my novel was downloaded by 322 different people. I have no idea who all of them are, barring a few, (Thanks Leni), they are strangers to me. This will be a good thing, if I can get even 5% of them reviewing commenting and otherwise spreading the word, then it may generate some interest.
I have thought long and hard about my dream of being an author, and it’s taken decades for me to realise what a slow climb it is at the begining.
To avoid obsessively watching the stats, I went bush for 4 days with my Brother in Law and an old mate of mine from Sydney. This may have been a master stroke for my sanity but it probably didn’t help by taking me out of the promotion loop.
None the less between Amazon and the previous versions on Smashwords I’ve manged to get about 500 or so copies out into the wide world.
This raises the question of Social Media and how I use it to promote the book, and my other writings.
I have accounts with Twitter and Facebook (though I’m still trying to work out how to create a page for myself as an author). I have accounts with Reddit, Stumbleupon, Goodreads and Digg but they are all new and I am still trying to work out the most effective methods of utilization.
All in all this is the early days of making the dream come true.
Two people have paid money so far to read my book and I am greatful to them. For me, selling my first book moved me from the status of Writer to the title of Author.
It’s a good first step.
Chris K
Into the deepest darkest AMAZON (.com)
For five days I am offering Parallel, the complete first book of the Kasdtien Cycle trilogy, for FREE (HERE) on Amazon.com. This is an extension of my experiment in self publishing and we’ll all just have to see how it goes.
So far, (In the first twenty hours) it seems to be moving along quite nicely, slowly clambering its way up the best sellars lists (for free books on Amazon anyway). I will be posting the results when it’s finished and I will be describing the mechanics of the Kindle Direct Publishing system in more detail in future posts. Until then I will continue to obsess over the stats during every writing break.
Book 2, The Immortal Darkness, is coming along nicely, and the expected release date will be in the second half of the year.
Thanks all of you have already downloaded the book from Amazon and I hope you enjoy it as much as I have creating it. Any comments or reviews, questions and the like are always appreciated.
Till next time.
Chris K
Part Time Lunatic
Voices
Who are the voices in your head? Let’s admit it now, even if we only hear our own voice, we all hear voices in our head. Maybe you just mentally verbalise a word or a phrase, maybe you hear a voice telling you to do something you know is wrong (No that’s not creepy) or maybe it is the voice of your conscience “Put down that burger and nobody gets hurt.”
As a writer, my head is filled with conversations, some that I’ve had and some imaginary, but all very useful if you long to breathe life into your written Characters like I do.
Along with these voices are the other voices, self doubt, “Okay you’ve got a hundred and sixty downloads, but not one review or rating. You know what they say, if you can’t think of anything nice to say don’t say anything.”
I really hate that voice, and to meke matters worse it’s my voice I hear.
For those who’ve read Parallel you will understand the metaphorical theme well. The theme of the book is the struggle between those voices in all our heads. Especially the ones that try to tear us down.
Part 2 of Parallel is to be launched on Smashwords February 1st and completes the first book. Rest assured the message is that you can silence those negative voices, but not without a battle.
I will be also giving some copies away of Part 2, more details to follow.
The next book in the series of three is called Immortal Darkness and will be broken into two Parts as well. It is slated for release mid year 2012.
Anyway, enough of my madness, time to get back to work.
Chris K
It is done
So here’s the official announcement,
Parallel Part 2 will be available from Smashwords on February 1st 2012.
I have just finished Parallel Part 2 and it is going through the last bit of polish as I prepare it for publication.
Less than two weeks to go and still so much to do.
Working on the cover art and adding appendices, it all seems to take time but I’m confident it will be ready in time.
Part one is still available for free from Smashwords
Apple iTunes
I need reviews from anyone who has read it.
Thanks again
Chris Kneipp
