Hello everyone!
I live in Costa Rica, Central America. Today I wanted to share a little about my experience and how I have found relief and solutions to, not only my gambling addictions, but also to 14 years of other dependencies such as *** and C*****e.
As in many cases everything started as a silly high school game, a weekend party at someone's house...well, even at that point in life it was easy to tell that I had problems. I was always the only one who could not stop drinking and eveeryone would talk about this the week after when we saw each other again in school. How embarrasing! Anyways, from alcohol I turned to marihuana, to cigarrettes and by the time I was 20 I tried C*****e. This was the begginning of ALL THOSE PATHS THAT LEAD ME TO HOSPITALS, INSTITUTIONS AND JAIL.
When C*****e was not sufficient for me, after 7 years of using and abusing, stealing, losing my salary in casinos, lost relationships etc, I tried *** and this took me straight to the streets of Costa Rica, where I had to eat from the garbage and ridiculize myself for a coin. Such a waste of education, such a shame....
This drug even took me to jail, where I had to face my deepest fears. Simply because I have faith in God, who always SAVED ME FROM DEATH, I can tell you this story today.
I imagine you are asking yourself: what did you do to stop?
Well, I was fortunate enough to come across a kind holistic center in Costa Rica. It's been about a year now since I got out of jail and still live in the center, they kindly offered me to manage the kitchen which I immediately accepted. The approach to healing you from addiction here is like nothing you have ever experienced. You feel alive again, get to know Costa Rica and yourself at the same time. IN other words, you regain your personal, interior freedom.
Thank you for taking the time to read my story and look forward to being of support.
Regards,
I'm really happy that you have found a place to heal yourself innerhealing. It sounds like you have moved on leaps and bounds from when you found yourself at your lowest, my sincerest congratulations on that.
However (and I mean this as no disrespect), I am pretty sure that it is unlikely that many (if any) long term gamblers in the U.K. ...or anywhere outside of Costa Rica will have the funds available to uproot themselves to a different country to seek the exact help you did. Also, gambling isn't really a problem that is created specifically by global geographic location, it's predominantly a problem rooted in our own mentality and that kinda stays with us wherever we travel to.
That aside, I have a friend who visits Costa Rica a lot for work and she has said it's a beautiful place and it is on my list of places to visit one day. Maybe if I do I'll look into the holistic healing centres out of interest. I do agree that all recovery has to be as holistic as possible and that involving ourselves with new experiences and achievements is a very useful tool in overcoming problems so it would be very interesting to see how that is done there.
I wish you well in staying on the positive path that you are on.
All the best.
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