"choose and lose"
Contextually, I have seen it used to chastise someone who has chosen a life of drugs and drifting instead of providing for his children.
However, a word-by-word analysis implies that no matter the choice, the person will lose.
Reconciling the usage with the analysis, one might interpret it as "based on your choices, you lose."
Questions (if any are off-topic, please let me know and I'll update the question):
- Is my reconciliation correct, is the idiom correct, and/or is the word-by-word analysis correct (for possible usage)?
- Is this an informal idiom, or it is useful in formal communication?
- What is the origin of the phrase?