However true, that you always need to refer back for the reason of your gambling. Regardless of how tough you are you will still be tempted and tested. That's why your biggest enemy in gambling is not the casino but yourself. Greed and fear will attack you and will push you to do something irrational that is outside your plan and will derail you to your reason. That's why I think along with a strong reason, you also need a good circle of people to support and remind you "Why you are doin what you are doing."
Seems like a lot of commitment when you are playing gambling when you said that your only enemy is yourself. You will only think about this kind of deep thoughts on gambling if you are already doubting yourself. Probably you are playing with strong attachment to your money which you can’t afford to lose that’s why this kind of emotional problem plays a big factor on your gambling.
You should play just for fun no string attached to your money in able to have free mind. You don’t need a circle of group to remind you what’s your reason for gambling because it should be always for a source of entertainment. Nothings big deal on gambling if you will just play using an amount that you can afford to lose.
Indeed, when we gamble, we have to be able to ensure that we use money so that if the money is lost we are prepared for it all. Because if we gamble with money that we cannot afford to lose then emotional feelings will always come to us.
I have a story where a friend of mine needed money at that time, so he used the money he had to gamble, in the hope that he could win to cover the lack of money he had. But we can already guess what happened, yes he lost everything, previously the money they needed was only a small part, after he gambled he became short of the large amount of money he needed.
I reminded him, but he still insisted on what he wanted to do. and after he lost it all, he became regretful and regretful that he felt not being able to return the money he lost. This is one example where we should use free money to gamble.