Dope-a-mine. Why is seeking a buzz always negative?

I find typing a chant on an in depth discussion a bit weird, distant and lacking in engagement with the subject matter

It's the Serenity Prayer used at all Twelve Step meetings, in my opinion, it has the balance right about being happy.

Yeah I know. It's a saying. People trot it out, zombie like without engaging. Becomes an empty slogan

good post made me laugh

gambling and some very reckless spending whilst i was younger and stupider has left me paying a very heavy price a few years later financially

i often wonder would life be any different to what it is now if i had never started gambling

sure i might have a nicer car , i may have been able to afford a couple more nights out / holidays i may have even saved some money

but to be honest the fundamentals would still be the same i would still be in a dead end job , i would still be stuck in the same routine day in day out and i would still be stuck with the same old family and freinds

like you i crave excitement i crave that urge to know ONE day i could hit the jackpot and everything would change .......

until i acheive some sort of fuffilment in my life i very much doubt anything is going to change

A bit harsh Louis ? .

It's only a prayer but it's at the centre of GA's belief's and something a lot of people find comfort in and whenever they feel the need to use it . Just sayin 🙂

Bad day Buddy or is junior keeping you up at night ? :((

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next

It is indeed a slogan. A religous one at that too. Doesnt take away the great wisdom in it. I personally find it a better dogma to keep reciting than say time, money, location. If that makes me a zombie or a sheep so be it. It is a slogan that has enabled me to remain in recovery & bet free for 9.5 years. Im proud Annonymous groups adopted the prayer. It remains at the heart of my recovery & i will be forever grateful its power was passed onto me.

I think what Louis was saying was that there was no point or did the serenity prayer add anything to the original post.
I actually like the original thread
Because it's one I have found relatable to how I feel in a long time.
But up comes the whole illness debate AGAIN

Here's my 2 pence worth
I'm addicted doesn't mean I'm ill
In the same sense I smoked for 20 years. If there's such thing as a compulsive smoker then I was that to. Gambaling like smoking I have a choice I do or I don't.
An illness gives you no choice.
Gambaling for me is a pleasure. Something I struggle to replicate to the same effect in any other aspect of my life. For me somewhere in my mush of a brain the only way to get that pleasure is to gamble.
For me to change I need to find a pleasure which replicates the same pleasure response I get from gambaling.

thanks for all the responses people.

I personally never adhered to the 12 step programme, because it advocated I give up my control to higher power and trust in it.

Personally, for me that's b******P because I'd already given up my control to "lower power" - gambling and alcohol, and trusted in them both to bring me "salvation". And guess what? They didn't. So I have a problem with trusting in a higher power/sky fairy/etc, to rescue me from the hole I put myself in. Replacing trust and hope in a spinning wheel or in a superior power - both stink.

(Sorry if I'm P*****g on anyone's chips here, but really -grow up. Such vulnerable minds will always be susceptable to self-help gurus / gods / gambling adverts which promise a way to avoid facing demons and taking personal responsibility.

I own my pain. I deserve it. Only I can face it and change.

I'm trying to.

I'm not saying the SP is good or bad.

It's a mantra, which i believe yr meant to repeat ...to yourself. Not necessarily to others, often

Someone makes a detailed point raising interesting issues - if that was in a pub, my singular response would not be too hit them with the SP. That would obviously be odd. So what's different about a forum?

I mean if you must, make yr point then say yr mantra. Don't just say the mantra.

Or better still write it often on yr diary as many times as you want. Let yr hair down and really go for it

My vulnerable mind thinks the SP does have something to add to the original post.

It asks for courage to change the things i can. Something clearly the original poster has failed to do.

Whether you believe it an illness of not is irrelevent.
Although almost every medical board in the world accepts it as one, & if it isnt one that probably leaves you somewhere between sociopath & psychopath on the DSM.

Freedom from the chains of addiction follow the same path for almost every person ive ever met. Connection, purpose, personal growth & spirituality. How you choose to attain those things can come in many guises.

Off to chant a few mantras with my weak mind & pray at the temple of susceptability

My addictions came from not believing in myself but believing rather that external things could save me. Be they "mantras" or self-help books, get-rich-quick-schemes-, alcohol adverts/gambling adverts promising me a better tomorrow if I just take a risk and trust in them.

I agree day@time, it's whatever works for you. I don't judge you on your weakness of mind that means you need to be told what to do. If it's working for you... Great!

But what led me into my gambling addiction was an unfailing belief and trust in god to see my right. AND GUESS WHAT? My belief in something other than myself was wrong.

I need to find my own way back. Posting on a forum helps me offload, so I'm grateful. But what really triggers me, is all this 12 step, looking outside yourself and trusting in a higher power cr a P. Sorry for being so harsh, but it really grinds my gears.

Maybe, but where it's subscribed to and followed, it works. Otherwise the ego and desire to be the master controller of everything around you takes over. And that doesn't work.

CW

Lol and it grinds my gears that someone who believes the 12 steps is about looking for external solutions to an internal problem would comment on something they clearly have no understanding of.
I would suggest if you could fix this on your own, you probs would have done so by now. Where you see asking for help as a weakness, i see it as a sign of strength.
I was apt to P**s in g on peoples chips too as an active addict. Always made the ones i was eating look more appealing.

It was a good first post & one i probably would have wrote myself when i first thought of stopping. Full of angst, romantic tortured soul stuff. I used to think my addiction was the only interesting thing about me. That if only this d**n addiction wasnt in me i would be capable of great things.
Trouble is, if you do decide to commit to stopping, youre left with nothing to fall back on to justify not taking the world by storm. Youre left with the fact youre a pretty ordinary man whose whole life has been spent hiding from life.
Taking that leap takes huge courage & commitment. Not many have it. Hopefully you do.

Well said day@atime. Its whatever works for you! The serenity prayer is about accepting things you cannot change(in my case ..all money lost and time and relationships)..courage to change the things i can(hell stop gambling...change my life for the better).
For me its a good help not a 'mantra,chant'...and certainly not empty meaning.

a good post that day@atime.

I realised that I was less than an ordinary man because I have been a bone idle dreamer most of my life.

I am doing a trade course at the moment and its got me into a routine and back into the land of the living.

It has snapped some sense of reality back into me and Im looking at tooling up with the new qualification I will have.

Whats quite scary to me is just how much I had lost the plot

For smallest violin writing on the forum and then reaching out for help does make you more of a man. I get my dopamine drip from the pleasant things in life. Im calm and Ive got order back in my life.

I realise that when I was gambling, I was stressed, depressed and quite seriously ill