HONESTY Why FEAR being

Hi

I use to have fears with regards family issues and did not like my unhealthy reaction to my family.

I came to understand that I internalized how other people felt.

The serenity prayer helps me understand how ever unhealthy people are I am not able to change them.

The serenity prayer helps me understand how ever helps me understand that I can change my unhealthy reactions to unhealthy people family or other wise.

Sadly I had built expectations of other people and sadly by doing that I caused myself pains.

I used to say I wanted to be normal, today I understand what normal people say and do to each other is not very healthy.

It is not a judgement but an observation.

If I want healthy that is my choice today.

If I am serious about my recovery I need to understand and resolve my unhealthy reaction and my emotioanl triggers.

Thank you for sharing with me.

 regards Dave

Hi Louis

If you find a healthy meeting place with healthy nurturing an encouraging people in the recovery program your fears will reduce and your trust will grow.

Sadly it is important to talk out the past with people who have no history with you.

As we talk about our past we can relate to other people both healthy and unhealthy.

For me I could not talk to my family the fear was far to great.

 Besides they would not understand what recovery was all about.

In the recovery program the word normal is often used, sadly what normal people say and do is not very healthy.

Yes the recovery program is effective means of overcoming addiction and building healthy relationships.

Yes abstaining is just the start of the healing process.

It is important to keep going to meetings no mater when your last bet was.

Even if you have no money please keep going.

As we get more honest our fears reduce.

With each lie comes fears

Love and peace.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

I had a different fear, I'm already (successfully) 9 years in recovery from alcohol addiction and whilst I used to play the fruit machines a bit when I was drinking, it wasn't particularly problematic.  

What I've done though it swapped one thing for another and starting with acca's on the football progressed particularly to in-play betting and a bit of casino slots.  I've been a sporadic gambler, going weeks or months sometimes without betting but often betting maybe £**  matchday usually in £* stakes, all very enjoyable and at times so profitable I was either restricted or banned from certain sites due to their "non-reasons".  The problems came later when I started chasing bigger in-play bets, putting bigger stakes on in-play, putting a bet on a favourite team when they went a goal down to an underdog, doubling down if they went another goal down and so on.  This was all very "binge-betting" but at a few hundred a time, once or maybe twice a month, it adds up quickly.  

My fear was that because I had overcome one addiction so successfully, I'd never explain how I got into another - in effect, I swapped it, although not seamlessly but it built, as did the problems.  First I had to convince myself it was a problem but by this time, I was into several credit cards, a parental bailout and a loan, all paid on time as were all the bills.  I was afraid to tell my partner because she was so proud of my giving up drinking and because she'd, quite rightly, be seriously angry that I'd racked up these debts.  

So,instead of facing the fear, I eventually was found out by my partner when (perhaps ironically) one of our cats tipped out a carrier bag with a letter from a loan company in front of her.  This, I had planned, to be the last loan because I was genuinely worried about not having a car and actually missing bills.  So, instead of facing my fear, holding up my hands to my loving partner 2/3 years ago when she might have had some respect for me doing so and when the debts were smaller, I'm now likely losing her because of the betrayal.  She has been very forgiving in the past with other, unrelated, actions but this looks like it might be the final straw.       

So, now my very real fear is that my partner may well leave me and it's all because I didn't use the skills I already possess and open up about this problem earlier. 

Dear serialidiot,

Thank you sharing your concerns about your relationship. You might find it helpful to talk us us for a one to one chat on our Netline or via our helpline 0808 8020 133. We would be happy to give you some guidance and advice regarding your debt and listen to any other worries you have.  Sometimes the conversation with loved ones can be a little easier if you have already taken some action to address e.g. debt etc.   

Best Wishes

Forum Admin 

Hi

I understand that living in unhealed pains is not healthy for me today.

I understand that living in fears is not healthy for me today.

Fear disabled me in so many ways.

Only once I am able to be honest with myself.

Then I am able to be honest with other people.

Being aloner was a very unhealthy life for me.

Only by recognizing my fears and facing my fears would they ever reduce.

When my fears were reduced would I open up to trust and healty intimacy with my self and with other people.

Today I can talk about every pain in my life.

Today I can talk about every single need want and goal in my life today.

I am set free from my past.

I learned from my past and I am able to live for today with out any fears in me.

Dave L

Hi

I understand that living in unhealed pains is not healthy for me today.

I understand that living in fears is not healthy for me today.

Fear disabled me in so many ways.

Only once I am able to be honest with myself.

Then I am able to be honest with other people.

Being aloner was a very unhealthy life for me.

Only by recognizing my fears and facing my fears would they ever reduce.

When my fears were reduced would I open up to trust and healty intimacy with my self and with other people.

Today I can talk about every pain in my life.

Today I can talk about every single need want and goal in my life today.

I am set free from my past.

I learned from my past and I am able to live for today with out any fears in me.

Dave L

@serialidiot 

Hi

For me swapping one unhealthy habit addiction obsession for another indicates to me that I have not healed from my pains of the past.

What helped me egt focus was to write things down my needs my wanst and my goals.

In time I found to be ehalthy I needed to be self sufficient not put my self on other people.

If I did not know how to do some thing to ask some one to show me how to do it. 

I would never ask for help finding some thing in a store, now I ask all the time.

Money was never going to heal my pains.

Money was never going to reduce my fears.

Money was never going to heal my realtionships with other people.

Money just gives me more choices.

I wrote down a list of all of my fears.

Only then could I reduce my fears.

By attending meetings and ahving therapies I got in to the healthy habits of facing my fears and improving my trust issues.

I use to fear being honest because I feared rejection and abandonment issues.

The person I feared facing the most was my self.

Dave L

@cardhue 

Hi preacher Dave.

Thank you for your comment.

Telling lies is a lie.

If people are to scared they will avoid being honest.

People who are scared and fear filled people tell lies.

GA is a recovery program, do we not want to heal our pains and live in fear for the rest of our life.

Pains caused fears in me.

Do I want to heal and reduce my fears today.

No one could stop me gambling that is the truth for me.

Am I sharing my views and opinions or do I demonstrate a healthy recovery from my learnings.

There are times we have that light bulb moment and we get it and we fully understand.

Those light bulb moments often came to me from a persons experiences they learned from.

How honest am I today.

How fearless am I today.

How productive am I today.

Thank you for your sharing.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

@cardhue 

Hi Louis

Your comment was your opinion and when I hear my self on recording I do sound like a preacher.

So your honest is my honesty.

I use to stress my self out in so many ways.

For me it was an unhealthy habit to stress my self out before Christmas, I stressed my self out during Christmas, and even stress my self out after Christmas.

The very first year we were stress free we both felt very weird.

We even commented that we felt that we could have a healthy Christmas with out stress anxiety.

Now Christmas is a very realxing time for me and my wife Shirley.

I wrote down every thing related about Christmas I use to give presents as a guilt thing, I use to give presents as person pleasing, I use to give presents as saying sorry.

Then the dought were the presents or gifts enough.

No one stressed me out, I stressed my self out, why generate so much fear adn anxiety.

I am able to heal my pains today.

I am not able to heal other peoples pains today.

By living in guilt shame and regret we are living in the pains of our past.

Is that in any way healthy for us or our realtionships with other people.

Christmas is about healthy inimacy with others we are able to iteract in healthy ways.

Some people are unable to be nurturing and encouraging in healthy ways.

They often to others those things that were done tot hem.

By taking GA or the steps with a healthy like minded person can open you up to so much more in your life.

More honesty more intimacy more productive and more balance in your life.

Often people think that an addictic can just stop.

They do not know or understand the emotional triggers of an addict suffers from.

My emotional triggers felt like they controlled my thinking.

The funny thing once we get in to a healthy trusting relationship with ahealthy sponsor our fears reduce and our trust grows, and our emotional intimacy improves to healthy levels..

Being in a healthy recovery for me it is non religious I have healed in somany ways and my fears are down to very low single numbers.

Going to GA and doing the steps is self rewarding and helps us all live healthier lives. 

Love healing and peace to every one.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

@cardhue

Hi

The more honest we are with our self then we are able to be more honest with other people.

The more honest we are then the less fear we live in.

No anxiety no stress no panicking.

Dave L

@serialidiot 

Hi

Often people will swap from one addiction t another.

It indicates that our pains were not healed and we did not understand our emotional triggers.

For me it was a very slow learning curve.

The more time and effort we work on our program the healthier we get and less emotionally vulnerable.

Dave L

@cardhue 

Hi Louis

The word criticism can indicate ways to improve to become a healthier person.

I often refer to be empathy caring nurturing and encouraging towards all people.

The word criticism can indicate a person is trying to transfer their pains fears and frustrations on to other people.

The word criticism can indicate an healthy interaction between healthy people wanting to improve their life and relationships with them self frist of all and other people as we heal.

You are having a bit a tough weekend do you mean painful of fearful.

In facing our fears we prepare our self willing to accept the very worst that can happen.

Once we do and accept that our fears drop from 10 our of 10 to single numbers.

Sadly often our unreasonable of people life and situations causes us to cause pain to our s elf.

I got to understand and learn that I was not the only one that was unhealthy and emotionally vulnerable.

The recovery program helps us abstain from unhealthy habits.

The recovery program helps us exchange our unhealthy habits in to healthy habits.

Yes the redovery program helps us build healthy relationships with our self first of all.

If you are not an addict why do you read peoples sharings.

Do you see and feel your self in other peoples expereinces.

Please stay in touch.

All the best 

Dave the preacher. 

Love healing and best wishes 

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

@joydivider

Thank you for your honesty with me.

They do say that honesty is the best policy.

Have a reat day.

Dave L

@serialidiot 

Hi

I took my  time and wrote down every fear that I had.

Each fear I had gave it a number out of ten.

Then for me to take the biggest fears and ask my self what is the very worst that could happen.

Once I was willing to accept the very worst that could happen my levels of fear reduced.

I Had cancer in my right arm on the day of the operation I was so relaxed people thought I was odd.

It is quite often that people swap to and fro from another addiction.

For me it just indicated that my hurt inner child was not healed.

One of my biggest fears was rejection or abandonment.

Living in high levels of pains and fears I was avoiding any kind of emotional intimacy. 

My chasing was very much high levels of fears which would cause me to go in to a state of panick wher e I could not think things out clearly.

It took me over 20 years to indentify and understand it was my hurt inner child that needed to heal.

The recovery program helped me help my self.

Abstaining from gambling.

Gave up smoking.

Gave up getting drunk.

Gave up drinking tea and coffee.

The cigarettes smoking cost me over 70,000 over more than 20 years.

Very healthy thing to do facing your fears, holding up my hands to my loving partner that is surrendering big time.

Yes our lies are a betrayal of their trust in us and our relationships.  

It was very hard for me to hand over all of our finances, it put lots pressure on her. 

Let her know of your fears and how emotionally vulnerable you are.

Your honesty will help you and help her.

That is what my wife wanted from me.

She knew deep down that I was not openeing up to her.

Thank you for your sharing.

Dave L

@cardhue 

Hi Louis 

It is my pleaure sharing my post.

My respect is an expression of my healthy spirtual values.

My apologies is abaout me being accountable to my self.

Yes self-reflection self awareness and healthy changes from with in.

For me to apologise far quicker is resolving my issues..

Yes guilt for me is living in the pains fo the past.

When I was avoiding was very much fear based.

As we become healthier our sense of purpose improves.

Yes the more we hide the greater the walls, fears limited me from living a healthy full life.

Yes dwelling’ in anger can be really toxic.

I found anger is pains not healed, fears not reduced or faced, pains not healed. 

Anyway all the best.

Love Dave L