Is it possible for a CG to 'control' their gambling?

Hi

For me the addictions and obsessions were just a way of me escaping in my fears.

For me the addictions and obsessions just indicated how emotionally vulnerable I was.

Only once I was abale to abstain from unhealthy habits could I get to understand why I had addictions and obsessions.

Many times it was proven that a person would abstain from one unhealthy habit then switch then switch to another unhealthy habit.

Often from Gambling to drinking.

For me the abstaining from all addictions and obsessions was the point I could start to heal the hurt inner child in me.

My job was on the road.

After me abstaining from all addictions and obsessions I found that I had lots of anxietys frsutrations and fears.

It was then that I got to question how do you stop lying and living in fears.

When asked how I was did I say I was fine when that was not true.

Often the question how are you was not so much a question they saw and felt that I was troubled.

Saying I was fine I was lying to my self.

Only once I asbtained from all unhealthy habits was the point I replaced unhealthy habits with healthy habits.

Often meetinsg caused more questions than answers.

The therapies were a big help in finding new paths in my recovery.

Some might even think that once we abstain from unhealthy habits that our life becomes much easier.

Not so but as we get more and more tested wee do not react in such unhealthy ways.

My anxietys were reduced, my stress levels were reduced, my anger was reduced, my patience and tolerence were drastically improved.

Yes for me recovery and healing of my hurt inner child could only happen once I was no reacting in such unhealthy ways.

I have invested alife time in the recovery program.

A person once said at a meeting he was glad that he was a compulsive gambler.

With out his recovery program he would ahve never found out how unhealthy he was and also would nto have found out how much he was missing from his life.

Reduced fears increased trust, more honesty and more intimacy in his life with all people.

I have taken up the healthy habit of writing down my needs my wants and my goals.  

For me writing down my needs my wants and my goals is amy commitment to my self and a much healthier self sufficient life.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

Hi

For me my addictions and obsessions just indicated that I was emotionally vulnerable.

Because I was emotionally vulnerable did not mean that I was weak exactly the opposite I am and was a survivor and have been through some horrific painful events in my life.

The addictions and obsessions just indicated that I had a hurt inner child who was not able to abstain from my addictions and obsessions.

The addictions and obsessions was just my way of escaping my feelings and emotions and run away in my fears.

Was I aware of how vulnerable I was.

Not at all I use to put on a facade and live in fear becuse my inner child did not want to be hurt any more.

For me my past traumas and pains caused fears in me that I did not understand.

Only once I was able to abstain from my addictions and obsessions could I even start to heal the hurt inner in me.

For me the recovery program is about healing the hurt inner child in me and that was not possible if I was still causing my self pains and trauma being active in my own self abuse.

For me the recovery program really kicked in when my therapies got to a deeper place.

It may even seem strange that after  so much suffering I could be completely honest with the people in the recovery meeting.

After some time my therapies got deeper and I was abale to learn how to articulate what my feelings and emotions were.

Then after time therapies got to the point we could talk about any thing.

After time our therapies got to the point where we were all laughing and having fun.

Our therapies were no longer stressful but very much enlightening and our trust grew more and more.

This kind of relationship led to a healthy intimacy inside the rooms and out side.

For me healthy intimacy was also helping in my healing.

In time I did not fear exposing so much of my self.

The addictions and obsessions just indicated how much fear I lived in, just indicated how much I use to go in to panick mode.

The hurt inner child is still healing today.

The recovery program not only helped me heal but also made me aware of how much was missing in my life today.

I am able to tell my family I love them and that I am very proud of them.

I am able to express my gratitude and appreciation to all people.

Today I am able to become the healthiest person I can be today.

Each time I went back to my addictions and obsessions indicated that I had no dealt with those certain emotional triggers yet.

I am a non religious person.

The recovery program has helped me understand that if a person can reach higher golas so can I.

Love healing and peace to every one.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

Hi

For me the addictions and obsessions were an unhealthy way for me to try and escape certain emotional triggers.

When I gambled I was often on an adrenaline rush which was very much fear based issues.

I am a non religious person.

I now understand that I could find a much healthier life with out my addictions and obsessions and make much healthier choices.

Before my recovery I use to react in unhealthy ways to my angers, I use to react in unhealthy ways to my pains, I use to react in unhealthy ways to my fears.

Now I understand that my addictions and obsessions indicated that I had certain emotional triggers.

Being in the recovery I would learn to abstain from my unhealthy addictions and obsessions. 

Being in the recovery I would learn to heal my pains.

Being in the recovery I would learn to feace adn reduce my fears.

Being in the recovery I would learn to reduce my expectations of people life and situations.

Being in the recovery I would learn to accet the simple fact I could not change my past unhealthy habits.

I use to lie because I lived in high levels of fears and anxiety.

Because of my high high levels of fears I would go in to panick mode where I would be unable to think things out clearly.

Pains earlier in my life caused me to live in so many fears.

I use to fear being honest.

I use to fear being questioned.

I use to fear rejection and abandonment.

I use to fear being accountable.

Through the recovery meetings and therapies my fears would reduce and I could articulate my feelings and my emotions.

In time I would move on from abstaining from addictions and obsessions and start to heal the hurt inner child in me.

I suffered in so many ways in my child hood.

It was important to heal my pains and coming out of the emotional trauma I use to bury and supress.

In the recovery meetings and therapies I would find my self laughing in so many ways.

The question is did I ever think I would laugh at my self.

In time I would understand that my addictions and obsessions only indicated how emotionally vulnerable I use to be.

How ever far we come in our recovery that on seeing and hearing therapies we understand where we came from but more importantly we can see and live a future life free of our unhealthy reactions.

For me the recovery program is not about who is right or wrong but more about what is healthy or unhealthy.

I have been in recovery since 1971.

I have been clean in my recovery since 1992.

I question why it took me so long over 20 years to understand that recovery was all about healing the hurt inner child in me.

Yet how many times when questioned how I was I would say I was fine or not so bad, was that the truth.

How many times did I think that if I got back the money I had lost would make things better and heal my pains.

I am an open book in my recovery.

I am seriously a survivor. of every thing that was unhealthy in my life.

I am able to set boudaries and have a voice from a place of peace.

How much time and effort was I willing to invest in to my becoming a much healthier healed person.

Healing love and peace to every one.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham.

Hi

The addictions and obsessions just indicated how emotionally vulnerable I was.

By attending meetings in time I was able to abstain from gambling yet once I was abale to abstain only then could I start to heal the little hurt child in me.

Gambling did not control my life.

Gambling was a way of me not living a healthy life.

In time I would heal the deep seated trauma and paiins of my past.

For me the word recovery was abaout healing and becoming much healthier.

I could not be trusted with money.

My lies just indicated how much fear I was living in.

With such high levels of fears I use to go in to Panick mode when I could not think things out clearly.

Gambling for me is a very unhealthy habit.

Healing Love and peace to every one.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham

Hi

The addictions and obsessions just indicated that I was emotionally vulnerable.

Often people will stop one addiction and go towards another addiction.

This indicated that they could not cope with their emotional triggers.

It also indicated the hurt inner child has not been healed as yet.

I am a non religious person and uestioned if I could a very healthy recovery.

In sharing honestly in therapies I got to understand my self by seeing and hearing my self in other people.

In sharing honestly in therapies I got to understand where I use to be but more important I saw my new healthy path in recovery in other peoples shares.

The recovery program means to me HEALING, for me abstaining needed to happen before I could even start to heal the hurt inner child in me.

For me the recovery program was a very slow healing process, my fears would reduce, my trust would grow, I would make much healthier choices with my life and my time. 

The recovery program is not a race, it is a very slow healing process.

My driving also indicated that I was a very unhealthy person.

The recovery program is not about beating our self up and causing more pains on our self.

The recovery program is not about continuously living in guilt shame regret or remorse.

There is nothing I can do to change history.

Now today I want and need to live amuch healthier life than ever before.

Dave L

Hi

Sadly money was not going to heal my pains.

Sadly money was not going to repair relationships I betrayed.

Sadly money was not going to make me feel good about my self.

It was important to hand over all of my finances to a person I could completely trust my wife.

The gambling establishments never made me do any thing I did not not want to do.

The gambling establishments never lied to me I lied to my self.

My addictions just indicated how emotionally vulnerable I was.

I now understand that reacting in unhealthy ways just indicated how emotionally vulnerable I was.

What has changed in my life today.

Since walking in to the recovery program I have surrendered to the fact that gambling indicated how much fear I lived in.

Since walking in to the recovery program I have invested much time and effort in to working my recovery program.

No one could stop me gambling that was going to be my choice.

No one could stop me from living in pain and fear that would change by my healthier choices each day.

I am an addict who had has a hurt inner child who is healing more and more.
I am very much a non-religious person.
Being emotionally vulnerable does not mean you are weak, not at all and making a call indicates how much you value yourself.

Emotional triggers for me my were pains I could not heal, an emotional trigger were my were fears I could not face and reduce, an emotional trigger were my unreasonable expectations of people life and situations I could reduce, an emotional trigger were my fears of emotional intimacy and feeling a loner and disconnected, an emotional trigger for me was boredom because I could feel productive and I was not able to commit to my needs my wants and in time set goals for me to achieve.

Yet I am a much healthier spiritual person.
I walked into the recovery program over 50 years ago and thought that by stopping my unhealthy addictions and my unhealthy obsessions I would be a good productive person. I have been clean now 32 years and still attend meetings.

Recovery would help me understand that I use to be a very emotionally vulnerable person.
On me walking into the recovery program I would not understand that the addictions and my obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally vulnerable, the emotional triggers indicated that I was emotionally vulnerable and reacted in some very unhealthy ways.

Today can I say I understand more about what is healthy interactions or what is unhealthy reactions to people’s life or situations.
Today can I say I have mostly exchanged my unhealthy habits into healthy habits.
Today can I say that the unhealed pains of my past caused fears in me that I did not understand.
Today can I say that the fears in me have been faced or reduced working my recovery.
Some of my fears were huge ten out of ten fears.

By taking my biggest fear and facing the very worst that could happen my fears reduced over time.
My fears use to show up at different levels nervousness anxiety and huge panicking, at that level of fear I could not work out things in a healthy way.

The addictions and obsessions were a form of escape from my feelings and emotions.
The deeper I got in to healing and recovery and understood my unhealthy reactions, I would understand how to change unhealthy reactions to healthy interactions.

As my fears reduce my trust grows and I am able to have a healthier level of intimacy with healthy spiritual people, religious or not like-minded people.
Being emotionally traumatized disabled me from living a full healthy productive life, living in so many fears was disabling me and my relationships with others and with my self.

I do understand that that I am a survivor of all kinds of abuse.
I do understand that emotional intimacy is important to my healing and to having healthy realtionships.
That emotional intimacy is important to having a healthy interactive life with myself and with other people.
It was not healthy for me being alone living in my fears.

Due to pains in my life the levels of fears grew in me, for me anxiety stress and panic were all fear-based issues.
Panicking indicated fears so great that I could not think things out clearly.
My lies were often due to my levels of pains and my levels of fears I could not deal with in a healthy way.

Only by writing down my fears and facing each fear would they reduce.
On paper writing down the highest fear within me would be 10 out of 10.
Then over time it was very important to face my biggest fears first of all the work down my lists.

I also got to understand my anger was an unhealthy reaction to pains I could not heal, fears I could not face, frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of people, life and situations.

When I was being angry and aggressive, I was often hurting myself as well as others.
In the past when I was being asked how am I, when I say I am fine I was lying, when I say I am not so bad I was lying to my self.

In me were deep seated buried and suppressed memories and pains I had no recall of the memories of my childhood.
I blanked those memories out because I could not deal with them or was able to heal them.
One thing I understand is that in my childhood when parents were not with me physically that was physical abandonment and emotional abandonment.

When a parent was with me yet could not have any emotional or intimate connection that was emotional abandonment, feeling like I was not wanted or loved, that somehow, I was unlovable.
I used to take emotional rejection internally, like there was something wrong with me.

There were a lot of people who put up walls of fears to protect their hurt inner child, I thought that living in fear and mistrusting people was quite normal.
In healing my hurt inner child helps me open up to very healthy emotional intimacy.
Also, in the healing process comes the ability to understand and to articulate my feelings and my emotions.

For me being able to communicate in healthy ways without fears restricting me from living a healthy life.
Whenever I was asked to go into the office my instant reaction to what have I done wrong was to assume me being guilty even when I was not.

Asking for help is a sign of strength. Not a sign of weakness.
Setting boundaries is saying that I value myself today.

Setting boundaries from a place of peace stops me being the victim.
Today I understand that a victim is a person who is unable to speak up for them self from a place of peace.

Today I both need and want peace in my life.
Today I both need and want to be fearless.
Today I both need and want healthy people and healthy intimacy in my life.
Also having healthy intimacy in my life is part of the healing process.

I am a nonreligious healthy person today.
I am focused on exchanging unhealthy habits into healthy habits today.
The recovery program is about healing our pains, facing our fears and reducing our expectations of people’s life and situations.

There is physical pain and emotional pains.
I have suffered so much from both types of pains.

I at one time was so badly hurt physically that I could not feel any physical pain whatsoever.
The doctor warned me that having so much physical pain at one time was very dangerous.

The emotional pains which were a form of emotional trauma affected me in so many ways, it adversely affected my response times, it adversely affected my ability to listen and learn and to understand, it caused me to withdraw from any kind of intimacy, it also affected my ability to learn and absorb information and education.

How many people question what love is, one day I asked my wife what love is, she told me it is giving of our self unconditionally without any expectations.
For me I now understand that a person can only love someone else if they are able to love them self.

For me I now understand that a person can only respect someone else if they respect them self.
Love is about intimacy at a very healthy level.

If people have a hurt inner child in them then they are often living in fear of emotional intimacy.
Only when we heal our pains can we be able to reduce our fears.

Ladies often have unreasonable expectations of their male partners. They want more emotional intimacy than a man can give.
Because they have unreasonable expectation of everyone in their life and everything in their life, they are in fact causing them self-pains.

The only person I can change is myself, once I accepted that fact I stopped being frustrated. Often people with unreasonable expectation hurt them self-time and time again.

I am not a religious person, yet I am learning to be a more spiritual person.
My conscience is very much based on spiritual based values.
When I try to justify going against my own conscience, I am often hurt myself and other people.

My patience and tolerance indicates how healthy I am. If I am not being patient and tolerant indicates that I am also very hard on myself. Love and intimacy only happens when our hurt inner child is healed.

Love and intimacy only happens when we are more loving and respectful towards our self.
If we are procrastinating, are we avoiding fulfilling our needs?
If we are procrastinating, are we avoiding fulfilling our goals?
Am I allowing procrastination to limit me living my life to the fullest each day?

Boredom was one of my emotional triggers, it was due to my procrastination and having lack of faith and confidence in myself.
Sticking with healing, recovering and overcoming procrastination really accelerated my recovery.

How committed am I in writing down my needs, my wants and my goals today?
Another thing was not able to ask for help.

I now know that asking for guidance and to get people to show me how to do things was very helpful.
Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.

Asking for help is a sign of strength and how much we value our self.
The simple fact is someone shows me how to do it and I do it myself. That is part of my learning curve.

By doing things no matter how imperfect they are, each time I learn something new is healthy for me and for next time.
Each day we make a list of things, our needs, our wants and our goals for the next day.
Writing down our needs, our wants and our goals is very focused and very rewarding.

Procrastination is not very healthy for me, procrastination is a complete waste of time and energy, procrastination is white knuckling my recovery.
Living in guilt, shame, regret remorse is living from the pains of our past.

I understand that our conscience is spiritual based and when I do or say unhealthy things, I hurt myself and other people.
Is it healthy to live in the feelings of guilt shame regret remorse, for me it was unhealthy to continuously live in the pains of my past.

I can heal my pains yet sadly I am unable to heal people I have hurt, by me being unhealthy I adversely affect the relationship I have with myself and with other people.

Continuing living in guilt shame regret remorse adversely affects healthy intimate relationship with myself and between the people I have hurt.
An apology is not about who is right or wrong, an apology is about repairing relationships with myself and with the people I have hurt.

Guilt tripping is very unhealthy, it indicates that people continue to live in the pains of their past, that they are unable to heal their pains and unable to move on in their life.

Guilt tripping can also indicate that people have expectations and when their expectations are not met, they continue to bring up their pains and try to have their expectations met by people who do things resentfully and reluctantly.

Guilt tripping is very unhealthy and causes unhealthy reactions and people feel they cannot move on with their future having been continued caused emotional due to very unhealthy guilt tripping.

Guilt tripping is very unhealthy and hurts relationships and people are not able to move on to healthier relationships.
People will often avoid intimacy guilt tripping people because they find them too unhealthy to live with.

Guilt tripping people will find people try to avoid them and they live a lonely life living in the pains of their past.
Never being able to be content with them self or their life.

In recovery I got to understand that the gambling addiction and other addictions and my obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally vulnerable, the emotional triggers indicated that I was vulnerable and reacted in some very unhealthy ways.

I got to understand in my recovery that was about healing my pains, the recovery would help me be able to articulate what my feelings and emotions were.
One of my biggest fears was being honest because I felt that I would be rejected if I was open and honest with people.

Also being honest would be painful.
Yet in my recovery being honest was very helpful in my recovery my trust growing and my healing by having healthy emotional intimacy.

Being in a healthy recovery meeting where there were healthy therapies, I would open up more emotionally and with that honest and exposing how vulnerable I was my fears would reduce, my trust would grow, and I would get to understand more about myself and my vulnerability.

Just because I went to meetings did not mean I would stop gambling right away; it took me many years to get wise as to what my emotional triggers were.
In all the meetings I went to different meetings and found that therapy-based meetings were the most beneficial to my healing and a much healthier recovery.

Often there would be times where a person would exchange one addiction or obsession to another. This was just another way of escaping.

I am a non-religious person yet being in a recovery program dedicated to religions I found my unhealthy reaction to the mention of God or religion slowed me in my recovery.
The simple fact is if a person can understand that the recovery program works if you work it.

One thing is very important to find a very healthy person sponsor with healthy nurturing encouraging spiritual interactions religious or not.
A healthy sponsor will help you feel more comfortable, less afraid, less fearful and help you get focus in your needs, your wants and in time your goals.

Each time I went back to my addiction I would understand that I did not love my addictions and that often going back to my addictions was very much an adrenaline rush and fear based.

In truth I would escape from people’s reality and life when I could not cope emotionally.
No matter when my last bet was it was very important to go to meetings or more meetings when I was vulnerable.

One can gain some clean time in a healthy recovery program, and if ever we go back to addictions or obsessions learn and understand what our last emotional trigger was. People will often put on a façade built on their fears and try to hide how vulnerable they are.

Often people will think that getting large sums of money will somehow help them get healthy overnight, that was and is not true for me.
The simple fact money would never heal my pains, in fact I found that I could not be trusted with money, handing over all finances helped me in my recovery.

In time I would learn to not only value money but would also become more relaxed with money; money for me was never an attraction or an emotional trigger.
Simply money was the fuel for my addictions and unhealthy living.

It is often said that people have lost clean time going back to their addiction or obsessions, not so clean time cannot be lost, no clean time cannot be lost.
Why do people not take advantage of a meeting telephone list when they feel vulnerable?

Is it that difficult to talk to a likeminded person and say I am vulnerable I need to talk things out? So, before my recovery I was not a bad person, I was not an evil person, I was not a stupid person.

However, I was very limited in learning and absorbing skills, getting an understanding, and retaining education.
These limitation on me were due to emotional scars from my childhood.

After one session of counselling in dealing with abandonment issues after the counselling session my self-awareness my attention span time were adversely reduced for 11 days.

After those 11 days of emotional healing my self-awareness drastically improved, my retention improved and much clearer thinking and a faster response time.
When asked how I was I use to say I was fine or not so bad, I could not be honest as to how emotionally vulnerable I was.

Being in recovery I would get to understand each one of my traumatic emotional pains caused by fears in me that I did not understand.
With honest open therapies the fears are reduced, and my trust improves.

In time I was able to open up to very healthy emotional intimacy with likeminded people who wanted to heal and find a much healthier life with healthier relationships. The simple truth was that I could not heal my pains if I was not willing to be honest and admit to myself, that I was in emotional pains.

Inner peace comes from healing our hurt inner child and becoming spiritually healthy. My anger and rage were an unhealthy reactions to the unhealthy pains, unhealthy fears and unhealthy frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of people’s life and situations.

Due to not being able in healing my emotionally hurt inner child the pains caused fears in me that I did not understand. A recovery program will help people be aware that they are emotionally vulnerable people not being able to heal their pains.

A recovery program means to me healing our emotional pains. Our guilt, shame, regret helps us understand that we have a healthy conscience based on spiritual values, when we adversely affect other people, we hurt our self.

I am a non-religious person, yet today I have a very healthy conscience.
When people justify saying they want justice the truth is they are not healing pains they are transferring their pains fears and frustrations on to other people.

In my non-religious recovery program, I would open up to healthy therapies which would help me articulate and heal and resolve my confusion, my emotional traumas.
If we are healthy people and heal our pains, we do not react in such anger rage or venomous ways.

The addictions and obsessions only indicate that we are vulnerable people.
The addictions and obsessions indicate that we react in unhealthy ways to those things we cannot resolve. Inner peace comes after our healing process.

If all we do to the world is say I am fine or not so bad, we are lying to our self and we are denying our self a healing process. Me having a healing process enables me to have more intimacy with myself and with all people.

My rage, anger, resentments, vengeance and insecurity only indicate how emotionally vulnerable I am and that I am not healing my pains. At first in the recovery program, they often seems to be more questions than answers.

It is very important in a recovery program to find a very healthy spiritual person who will demonstrate nurturing and encouragement towards exchanging unhealthy habits into unhealthy habits. Once we change from unhealthy reactions to having healthy interactions we are on the road to safe healthy healing and recovery.

In saying I am fine or not so bad I am denying myself a healthy life.
There is no doubt in my mind that the unhealed pains of my past made me a very victim.

Some people might think that being a victim is a physical thing, or a s*x thing, or due to our limitations. For me being the victim was very simple I was not able to speak up for myself from a place of peace.

I did a lot karate for over two years and find that I still lived in my fears, I questioned myself and then found out my fears were of aggression.

This fear of aggression was due to unhealthy people being aggressive towards me from a very young age. I simply could not stand up for myself.

Aggressive people do not like it when people have a voice and stand up for them self, one way or another. Sometimes we just have to walk away from some very unhealthy people.

Healing love and peace to everyone.

Dave L

AKA Dave of Beckenham