Are there people entering this platform just not that willing to put in the full and dedicated amount of effort required to give themselves a fighting chance against gambling addiction, and instead take the route of making diary after diary and posting relapse after relapse as to do this only requires SOME amount of effort and the latter exists at a level of effort they are comfortable with...
Is this alleged lack of effort linked to why we gambled in the first place? i.e. trying to springboard through life rather than accepting the daily grind of life and the 'only get out what you put in' mentality associated with healthy and successful living...
OR:
Are we as a society just spectacularly naive when it comes to true awareness of the power of gambling addiction, and by that I mean even CG's themselves, so rather than being critical of CG's not making enough effort they should be instead offered some sort of reprieve as society is not attuned enough to the true danger and impact of this addiction...
Does society's lack of understanding and under exposure to gambling addiction have a role to play in some CG's percieved lack of effort in their own recoveries? (is what I'm trying to ask!)
Any thoughts welcome.
(No criticism of anyone is being inferred here, just trying to clear some stuff in my own head through the wisdom and insight of others!) :o)
Hi S, I thInk we are spectacularly naive. I know I was, and I know how shocked I've been following this forum and the misery that has been caused. When I first started reading I counted myself lucky that I had not thrown my wages away every month, but then came the realisation that I was getting steadily worse until I found myself with no rent and then carried on regardless.
I’ve been following the launch of gamstop with interest, and I think even the people behind that have been shocked at just how many signed up. The recent social outrage about children being encouraged to gamble via free games and apps is far too late. It really has been going on for years in games. And finally the reluctance to change limits and the political dragging-of-feet.
We are naive, people don't use the language of an addiction; impulse, withdrawal, urges. Instead it's talked off as a 'choice' or a 'hobby' - something we miss. I'm beginning to wonder if everyone who spends a certain amount of time gambling will, eventually, end up an addict. Until society, and politicians, take it seriously then we are, excuse the term, screwed.
Fascinating response lil, thanks for that.
Just felt it necessary to compound my previous disclaimer by saying this is not aimed at anyone in particular or engineered to make someone who has relapsed feel worse... I am the king of the relapse actually...
I reckon I've relapsed 15-20 times since initially trying to give up gambling in my early 20's, however each time I've been drawn back in. It just so happens that this time is the first time that (amongst other things) I am using a GamCare diary - so to an outsider looking in it may seem like I am getting it right first time, but sadly I am not :o(
This time I am making so much more effort with my recovery than in previous attempts... GA, gamcare, confessing to friends/family, handing over financial control, reaching out for support when I need it... These are all new things I have implemented in my latest recovery and seem to be working, it all feels different this time, I'm deadly serious about staying off a bet for the foreseeable this time - this time feels like it could be 'the time' - I guess because of the extra effort I've made.
However the extra effort is not only keeping me off a bet - as a bi-product to abstainence I feel like I've had a sort of spiritual awakening and have also found my moral compass again.
I feel the pain of people when they enter this forum on day 1 and in bits, I want to help. I am using this thread as a way to work out if pragmatic suggestions to recovery are the way forward (and with that will come ruthless honesty and straight talking) or perhaps I should accept the latter suggestion that society is generally naive to problem gambling and people looking for support on here probably need more unconditional hope and belief messages from me rather than me just imposing my self-will onto them re how they wil have the best chance to do this... who's to say my strategies will work for them anyway... Who's to say they won't though??? Who's to say theirs will??
Some people don't even use GA, GamCare, give up CC's etc when facing problem gambling and they manage to give it up so perhaps I do need to accept that there are people out there who are masters of their own recovery!
Anyway still confused so any insight and contribution most welcome!
Hi Signalman,
Another interesting post.I find it sad whenever i see or hear of someones relapse. Ive seen people on here who welcomed me when i first joined fall and given how much support and advice they gave me when i first joined here tells me theyre not bad people quite the opposite.Ill never believe anyones the master of their own recovery before i came here ive lost count of how many times i promised and tried on my own. It may seem strange but at the time i promised i believed it and meant it.
There were many times i was sick and tired of everything related to gambling. So whats different this time you may well ask. Simply i wasnt just sick but i was BROKEN totally destroyed.I wouldnt ever contemplate suicide but there were many times i went to bed and hoped i wouldnt wake up the next morning. I hated everything id become and stood for.
I find it heart warming when you say youve found your moral compass again. Im not sure i ever will. I did immoral things to finance my addiction and quite illegal too. Our situations are the same in that weve handed our finances over to someone else and excluded. I just said YES PLEASE to everything offered to me or suggested when i came here from exclusion to counselling in fact i had my 12th and final session on Tuesday. I believe you have to be willing to close every door on gambling to recover. Is there a permanent cure for a gambling addiction ? i doubt it. All we can do is make it as hard as it can be for a CG to be able to gamble. Exclusion and not having access to more than i need to get by each day is the only way ill ever get close to the snakes head.
Anyway Signalman whatever your strategies or beliefs theyre clearly working for you and i know your sons gonna grow up being proud of his dad.
Stay Strong
AL
Hi SM
Short answer to your question I believe is 'yes'.
IME the most driven are those who have gambled themselves to the brink of destruction and from what Mr L tells me of GA the same holds true there. Problem (also IME) on this forum is you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink which means concentrating on your own recovery is key. Frustration is fruitless.
Thank you so much for both your posts. From collating all the insight from all posts on here it got me essentially wondering "am I a victim or am i a fool"
I've decided that it doesn't matter which I was because it won't change the past. However I'd be a fool to base my recovery solely on being a victim as it will just happen again.
I now accept that being a gambling addiction doesn't make me a fool. I have forgiven myself for what I did. And this I think is the dividing line between the two factions of people you generally get on here. People who have to forgive themselves in order to close the book on gambling and people who feel they can never forgive themselves for what they did as this will lead to complacency and possibly more gambling - these are the people who won't put blocks in or self-exclude etc as this would be regarded as looking after oneself and they are still intent on punishing themselves... But punishment is all part of their recovery and I have to accept that... I still want to help them if I can so from now on I will tailor my support to suit.
I am the former and I'd rather be the former.
Hi SM
I’ve enjoyed your thoughtful posts.There are so many factors that lead to addiction and it’s perpetuation- societal, psychological, our individual experiences including upbringing and influences, our relationships, our genetic/neurological make up etc so it is difficult to understand all the causes.
When I relapse which I have done again recently and horribly, I find myself searching for reasons and spend hours reading about addiction. I am looking for answers to my own behaviour perhaps in part to distract me from the pain I’ve caused myself and others. I guess I need to focus on my practical recovery steps although I feel this is part of it for me - to understand some of the reasons for doing what I do. I deceived myself into thinking I could control my gambling but deep inside I knew that it was going to fall apart at some point. Which of course it did.Well I’ve self-excluded and put Gamstop in place. Finding it hard to accept that I’m in a lot of debt again, which will take time to pay off, that I’ve messed up our plans again. It’s a long road. This time.
its interesting what you say about self forgiveness. I’m not full of self loathing this time but I wonder if in a way I feel I have become immune because of the intense self loathing I felt in the past and past therapy helped me with that. So I hope based on your analysis I will not want to punish myself but I worry that a part of me has given up and that I’m almost past caring about damaging myself. It’s happened so often. I think I am just feeling numb. It’s time to find something good.
I resonated with so much of your post down and out...
As I've mentioned before I think, someone told me that some people haven't experienced enough pain to finally put gambling behind them and do the things required to do so, and if there are things you could do and for some reason are conciously not doing, then you're probably in that bracket... Even though you may be hurting in that moment after a horrid relapse.
However the way you're talking sounds like you're finally done with gambling. Which is great. If you are genuinely past caring though that to me that is explicitly punishing yourself! Don't! Sack those thoughts off! Succumbing to problem gambling is a form of self-harm, as is not hitting the recovery process wholeheartedly because your past caring! And part of hitting it wholeheartedly is learning somehow to detach yourself from thoughts of apathy towards recovery... Have you read cardhues post about mindfulness? When you feel this way, break the cycle... Arrest these thoughts dead in their tracks with an alternative viewpoint or a different way of looking at things... The mindfulness thing is definitely something I will look into as my relapses start in the mind then before I know it I'm in action again. My mind won't be getting the better of me this time if I can help it... This mindfulness thing may end up being a key acquisition in my armoury against problem gambling. Good luck and stay strong.
I don't think Mr L has forgiven himself for what he did. He still felt immense guilt last time I asked although we don't often discuss it these days. I don't necessarily think retaining that awareness even as a background hum is a bad thing though. Anything that keeps complacency at bay seems a valuable tool to me.
Oh man I couldn't agree more with what you're saying Lethe...
Recently I've started playing a game. I live in a large county and drive a lot daily within its boundaries. Every day I pick a chain of bookie. Not that many to choose from. Every time I see one from that chain I make a mental note of whether I've been in there or not and if I have - I briefly visualise the layout and my gambling behaviour in there (only briefly).
At the end of the day I drive home and reflect on how many I saw and whether I won or lost the game. I have been playing for 7 days and have lost every time so far. Sometimes the result are actually quite shockingly against me. I had NO self-awareness re how much I was using bookies while I was in action... Only now do I realise (routes home taken for this reason, offering to do favours for people as I knew there would be a bookie on the way etc)
2 things...
1) it's has nothing to with trying to search out one i have never used. I'm in complete control of the game and it's about collating the stats so at the end of the day I give myself a gentle reminder of how much of a mindless d**k I was being when in action.
2) addiction is good at filtering out the s**t times and keeping the great memories, so if it tries to lure you back it can play a tape reel in your head that will assist its cause. However the bit about briefly pondering on my gambling behaviour in the establishments is to force myself to remember those times where my gambling was wild and absolutely unacceptable for a husband and a father of a young child to be engaged in. Sometimes the memories make me cry while driving.
Yes, occasionally the memory of that establishment will be of a significant win... But this memory will be invariably followed by another memory further down the road of the next bookie and doing my load. Those memories are almost always short-lived in this game I play.
I play because someone on here told me it can be healthy to look back at the past but don't stop and stare at it. That's no good for you.
It is helping me in my recovery as it offers gentle daily prods away from gambling and back towards a better life for myself and my family.
I won't play forever... One day I'll stop playing as I'll be too busy living a beautiful life and enjoying the time with my wonderful family to even have time to play games like this.
Yes another great post.
I think it’s helpful to remember the awful feelings even if they upset you, as a tool to not forgetting the pain and misery that gambling causes. I forgot that I was a compulsive gambler after about a year and unfortunately had a good run online which ultimately only led to the fallacy of invincibility and higher stakes and higher losses.
I think you are alluding partly to acting in your own best interests, something that I talked about with the therapist a lot. When we continue to gamble it can descend into acting completely against what is good for us. This may be because we don’t care anymore about ourselves, want to escape or on a basic addiction level we crave the activity of gambling in itself and our cognitive ability to determine what is good for us is shot away. So actually you are right. - Am I ready to act in my own best interests? Yes it requires effort.
Hi Signalman,
Its the old timer again. For what its worth i aint no victim. From the 1st day i walked into a bookmaker and placed a bet aged 15 ( even though the legal age was 18 ) I knew exactly what i was doing. Just as i did when i accepted numerous credit cards and loans. I was sly and devious and despite my addiction i had 2 simple rules.
1 Always make sure i gave my Mrs her money every month ( so not to raise suspicion about my addiction )
2 Even if you only pay the minimum payment pay it on time ( to make sure your name was good and you could always get credit. )
Trying to make it as simple as possible so in the past when i kept hitting the accelorater my foots on the break more often now..I hate what id become but given up on analysing. Im a compulsive gambler but just for today i wont gamble.
Stay Strong
AL
alwalm wrote:
so in the past when i kept hitting the accelorater my foots on the break more often now.
Stay Strong
AL
Mate absolutely love this quote. Spot on.
alwalm wrote:
I hate what id become but given up on analysing. Im a compulsive gambler but just for today i wont gamble.
Stay Strong
AL
And this one to boot. This one really made me wonder... Life is for living... I think currently I'm spending more time thinking about not gambling than I did about gambling when I was in action!
Jeez... Gambling... So easy to get into but not so easy to let go of eh? We will get there though, we have to.
Hi
For me the recovery program means healing and getting healthy.
Some might even think that if we do not gamble ever again that we are healthy people.
For me the recovery program helps me abstain from not just one unhealthy habit but helped me exchange my unhealthy habits in to unhealthy habits.
For me the recovery program helps me understand that my abstaining was only the beginning of my pains from the past.
The question is on walking in to the recovery program how much did I value my self in healthy ways.
Did I see or understand that wasting my money and my time was a form of self abuse.
On walking in to the recovery program did I understand how much pain I was cuasing my self.
On walking in to the recovery program did I understand how much fear I was living in.
On walking in to the recovery program did I understand how much procrastination I was living in.
I was told that once I learned to love my self only then I would be able to love other people.
I was told that once I learned to respect my self only then I would be able to respect other people.
For me the recovery program helps me abstain and then open up to therapies where I would get to know my self and other people at a much healthier level.
The therapies led me to reduce my fears.
The therapies led me to increase my trust.
The therapies led me to increase my intimacy with my self and with others.
The more effort we put in to our recovery the more successful we become.
Yet what did we think was success.
Is success lots of money, it is about a home car or material things.
For me today success is about all of my healthy action and my healthy words in my life today.
By being committed to my self and investing time and effort in to my recovery I am and my family are the benficeries today.
I use to say that I loved gambling, is that true.
Now I understand that my gambling was a form of escape, it was a form of self abuse, it was a form of adrenaline rush which was very much fear based.
Are any of these things love related.
For me now love is about healthy intimacy.
For me now love is about giving of my self in a healthy unconditional way.
For me now love is about healthy open honesty.
How much time and effort am I willing to place in writing down my healthy needs today.
How much time and effort am I willing to place in writing down my healthy wants today.
How much time and effort am I willing to place in writing down my healthy goals today.
Each day do I have a list of my needs my wants and goals and as I do them do I cross them out.
Can I say to my self each day I have done a good job.
The time and effort I put in to my recovery shows how much I value my life today.
If I am putting things off time and time again who am I cheating.
Our effort indicates how much we value our self today.
When I say to my self I have to do things is that obsessive thinking.
When I say to my self I have to do things would that imply that I do all things reluctantly.
How focused am I on fulfilling my needs my wants and my goals.
My relapses indicated that I did not understand what my emotional triggers were.
The gambling establisments never made me do any thing that I did not want to do.
The gambling establisments never made me lie, I lied because I lived in so much fear.
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