WHY DO THEY NOT JUST STOP

What a simple but great post Dan and one that I can relate to greatly :))

Regards Alan

I've also heard a similar explanation and it makes sense. But I don't want to have a deep and profound understanding of why he did it. For me, that comes too close to endorsing it and lifting the responsibility from where it should be. And I don't want to put myself into an unhealthy mindset/ thought process in a bid to gain understanding. It jeopardises the necessary detachment from the chaos of the addiction.

I'll support in my own way as best I can but its not my job to understand - he gets that from GA.

BW,

CW

That was an excellent post Dan

Brilliant post!

day@atime wrote: From the delivery room to the nursing home, everybody has one thing in common, a desire to increase pleasure & decrease pain. Babies come into this world crying. They come from their mothers womb(33 degrees) to room temperature(22 degrees) & they are cold. A nurse wraps them in a nice tight blanket & places them in their mothers warm arms, the crying stops as baby is content - until he gets hungry.

We all want comfort at every phase of life. And we dont have to live long to realise thst there is always something within us begging to be satisfied. Everyone can relate to this fact of life on some level. Realising this is a crucial step towards helping your family or friends who are battling addictions.

Here's THE TRUTH about all addictions.
They are very effective for increasing pleasure or decreasing pain. They really do work, & they work fast! You dont have to wait around looking at your watch, you can get instant pleasure or instant pain relief. Their very effectiveness feeds into our culture of instant gratification.

So when you talk to your friend or loved one & say to them you just need to stop gambling (something that has worked emotionally for them for a long time), dont be surprised if they react like you're the crazy one!
They have a good idea what living life addiction free is actually going to entail for them. They are going to have to go through withdrawl, seek counselling, commit to a GA programme, make new friends, grow up, be responsible & start being a better spouse & parent. To an addict none of this is going to sound better than to keep using. I know it certainly didn't to me.

One of the big problems for many addicted people (myself included) is that they don't see the problem developing in the beginning. For most people, addiction is a slow & gradual process. Some wil see their gambling as a reward after a stressful day, a way to unwind. No one I've ever met has purposefully set out to become an addict. In the beginning gambling usually starts out as fun, but in the end, it becomes the very thing that robd our ability to enjoy life.

A dependent person knows how to feel better fast.
Gambling addiction has become a way of life, a way of dealing with pain & experiencing pleasure. So expect recovery to be a battle - but a battle worth fighting. It is a battle that can be won.
Those in genuine recovery DO make dramitic changes in their lives.

I spent decades lost in the fog of gambling addiction. Friends & family members all tried to get through to me. I was defiant & wanted to keep gambling in spite of the fact it was no longer fun. In fact fun gained through addiction was a distant memory. It had become all about killing pain for me. I see this now only in hindsight. At the time, I just had chips on both shoulders & didn't know why.

The real insanity about addiction is the fact, that people continue despite all the bad consequences. In fact, for me, the consequences became the very reason to carry on doing more of the same. Addiction is a means to escape & the more you try to escape from your own reality, the worse that reality becomes.

Imagine having a loved one who rents a dvd. He brings it home, puts it in the player & sits back to watch it. After about 30minutes, he decides that the movie is terrible & boring. He pops it out of the machine & puts it back in its case with plans to return it tomorrow, but an addicts mindset is always tomorrow. In about an hour, he decides to put the dvd back in the machine to try again. Nothing has changed, its still the same awful movie. BUT, the addict in him keeps thinking that one of these times if he just keeps trying with the movie, it will get better. Now imagine someone replaying this scenario for years sometimes decades. That is the logic for someone with addiction.

This is the insanity. Each time an addict uses, there is false hope that things will get better. That by continuing to gamble, life will improve, it will fix everything & life wont be so bad. For all you who witness this crazy behaviour, such a pattern makes no sense at all. You feel as though the addict in your life has lost their mind or is doing it to punish you.
But to an addict in active addiction, it seems the only thing in our lives & in the world, that makes any sense at all.

I appreciate this but understanding does not give you the tools to live with or change. Partners and relatives don't need to sympathise they need to get help and stop enabling an addict.

True but all recovery both from the addict & co-dependent begins with awareness, how does one even start to tackle a problem without it?
From both sides of the fence you see people floundering, completely unsure of what the correct course of action should be. They are bombarded with the notion that if you stop the haemorraging of the inevitable loss of money that gambling addiction brings then everything will be ok. This is simply not true, it is akin to using a plaster to treat a broken leg.
The point of the post was to highlight the emotional dependency that addiction gives & the flawed thinking around how to combat it is both dangerous & unworkable.
The biggest & most difficult part in recovery is the learning of how to have relationships that aren't dysfunctional & learning how to have a healthy relationship with money is pretty high up on that agenda.
When we stop discussing the symptoms & start talking about addiction then we may begin to see more headway

I agree but most partners and relatives expect the gambler to sort it out. If we constantly concentrate on them and the addiction we miss the fact that we are caught up in the chaos too. There are too many young vulnerable women on here and understanding addiction isn't helping them. If they are sympathetic to an active gambler it will make them more vulnerable to the lies and the 'I can't help it'. I understand it's not about money but when you first find out that's your focus. Especially when you can't reason with an addict.

Nice to hear from you, Dan.

For me, I haven’t changed my view on this since I responded to the original post. I get that it’s self medication and I get that the compulsion is compulsive but I don’t want to deal with someone else’s urges, the only advice I could give is to call a fellow member and go to a meeting. For me, it’s about learning healthy relationships with self and others. I need to be comfortable with the person in the mirror.

Just to set the record straight, I may be doing a bit better in some areas but my weight is well above what it should be. I know, but I’m not doing what I need to.

All the best,

CW

Agree with MGR and CW.

My responsibility begins and ends with protecting myself and the children. I don't understand why Mr L did what he did and kept on doing it over and over and over but I don't need to. Trying takes up energy I need for myself and it leaves me open to being manipulated all over again. Getting understood is Mr L's responsibility and the obvious place for that is among those who get it because they've been there.

Thanks ladies, I don't really see why being aware of what lies behind addiction isn't your joint responsibility though. If my partner had a chronic life threatening illness that not only destroys them but myself & all those close to me & them, I would be availing myself of every piece of information I could lay my hands on. The stopping of the gambling isn't yours to control of course, that is your partner's responsibility to address their symptoms. But recovery is a joint project & to separate the two is a continuing cycle of the lack of honesty & real intimacy that has in many cases led many to where they are today.
Sympathy or rather empathy do not have to result in a get out of free card for the addict.
If I could ask a question?
What's the plan?
Do you continue to live on a knifedge, where no new communication skills are learnt on how you communicate with one another, is every monetary transaction treated with suspicion & terror.
Or do you go forward?
Ripping up your old dysfunctional relationship because let's face it, it sucked & starting again from scratch where you both openly communicate without the fear of condemnation.
Or is more of the same being perpetuated under a different umbrella

I think you're becoming too personal. We are on this site to help. Partners views are different from gamblers views. I don't judge anyone else for how they are moving forward. I've already said I understand and I have empathy that's why I'm still married. Please don't assume you know what happens in anyone else's relationship other than your own.

re joint responsibility, all I need to know is that the compulsion exists and is insidious, baffling and powerful. I don’t need to join in the craziness and it would be harmful to try. Beyond that, I can’t do his recovery work and I don’t expect him to do mine.

I’m not living on a knife edge with every monetary transaction analysed in detail or at all. I’m not prepared to live like that nor to play constant mind games. We have long term software and financial barriers but only as a tool for him and as reassurance for me that any break out wouldn’t be with family money. However, our present life together depends on his willingness to live as we do. My husband could stop meetings, stop being present and go back to using without warning and if he does, I would have to enforce my boundaries because moving them and tolerating is a worse alternate than not moving them. That’s in theory, having the strength to do it is another thing. Not today’s problem.

I presume that you’re posting to make us think, but as MGR says, you’re getting a bit personal. Perhaps focus on your own relationship and recovery? Hopefully you’re not living on the knife edge you describe?

CW

I'm the addict and I'm fighting my own personal battle, one that has many shared traits with others but is individual and very different to the one alluded to in your opening post. This attempt at recovery feels like my most effective and so far it has gone OK, albeit it is early days still. I am so grateful for my support network and in particular my sister, I have spoken about this on here before so sorry for those reading a repeat. One of the most powerful things I have had to face is when everything was unravelling, I wanted to tell my stories, I wanted to share my experience of the rollercoaster and in some ways I still do yet my sister shut me down. She told me she didn't care about the stories, the amounts, the 'injustices', she didn't care about the losses or the 'wins', she cared about me and my choices, my behaviours. Being told, blunty and directly that I was trying to manipulate her and that she wasn't having it was a brutal, tough moment to face but in hindsight it was the best thing I could of heard. It showed me that I needed to work personally on my addiction, with expert help, something I am trying to do daily.

I've found so much strength from the friends and family posts and I for one will be eternally grateful for their insights - something I will never experience personally. I want to learn and listen to their experiences, i want to understand what I can do to try and improve my own relationships, what is important for them to see/ know/ have access too and how can I ensure I am providing that for those around me.

I have affected the lives of maybe 20 people directly and indirectly through my choices and I am trying to do what I can to ensure I do not do that again in future, I cannot change the past.

Personally speaking I do not think I am in any position to tell the non-gambling people in my life what they should and shouldn't understand about my addiction.

I welcome discussion and debate on gambling matters but - again a personal feeling - don't think 'us' addicts should be using the friends and family section to influence those facing a battle of their own that they have never chosen to face.

I don't want my wife to try and understand, I need to be able to talk or refer to my addiciton but the minute I try and explain it to her I will risk trying to manipulate her, to muddy the waters and I'm dangerous enough to myself that that would be enough for me to potentially slip up = I need the relationship now to be pure, I need to be fully accountable for being transparent and open with everything.

I'm tired and rambling and maybe don't make sense but CW, Lethe and MGR thank you so much for your selfless contributions to these boards, for sharing your stories, experiences and expertise on addiction and especially for offering your ongoing support for the multiple new partners of addicts that appear on a sadly too frequent occasion.