Gamblers Anonymous: Why does it Work & How to get The Best from it.

There are few places in the world you'll find more honesty, courage & support than in a 12 Step room. It's one of the most amazing experiences you can have. Gamblers Anonymous meetings are not what you have seen on the TV or at the movies.

GA groups are an important resource of recovery for two reasons. First they are effective. Millions of people have found recovery through the Anonymous module. Second, they're free & universally available to everyone. Almost every country, every city has them. There are many kinds of recovery support, doctors, therapists, counsellors & rehab programs. How they work is obvious. How GA groups work is not so well understood. Bare with me, this is going to go on for a while, but I will try to explain!

SO HOW DOES GA WORK.

You can decide if you have an addiction.

You can go to a meeting & hear other peoples stories & decide if there are any similarities between their story & yours. You can overcome some of your denial about your addiction. You see that addiction can affect anybody. Good people, with good jobs, good families & a sense of humour. You may already know this intellectually, but you need to believe IT. Everybody likes to think that they're something special. But addiction is one of those times when it is comforting to know that you're not alone.

You will meet people going through the same thing.

The idea behind GA groups is that you feel stronger when you belong to a group of people who are doing the same thing. Everybody's first reaction to addiction is to deal with it alone. Addiction is an isolating disease. GA groups give you the chance to reach out & ask for help.

YOU BELIEVE RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE.

You see that other people are recovering from addiction, & you develop confidence that you can change your life. The people you see recovering didn't do anything special. They just followed a few simple principles laid out for them in the 12 steps.

YOU LEARN OTHER PEOPLES RECOVERY TECHNIQUES.

GA meetings are a resource. You can ask other people who've been in the same boat you're in how they handled certain situations. You can ask them if what you're going through is normal. Some days you'll have a powerful urge to gamble & its good to know that other people have gone through the same thing & how they dealt with it. One of the fears many people have is that their life will be smaller or less interesting without gambling. GA groups give you a chance to meet people whose lives are just as interesting & in many cases bigger & more fun now that they've stopped gambling.

YOU WONT BE JUDGED.

Most addicts have difficulty sharing their feelings & emotions, partly because they're afraid nobody will understand them & partly because they're afraid that they'll be criticized. So they bottle everything up inside, which makes them want to gamble even more. The people at a GA group won't judge you because they've heard it all before. They've done it all before. They know that you're not crazy because of the things you do when gambling, but that you are addicted.

YOU're REMINDED OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF GAMBLING.

I Can promise you this will happen! After you have stopped gambling for say 6months to a year, you'll feel stronger than you've felt in years. That's when the voice of your addiction will tell you that you can control your gambling.this time. That this time it will be different. This time you'll know what to do & when to stop. GA groups give you the chance to hear stories of the people who've just come into the program, or the stories of the people who have relapsed & just come back. They will all tell you the same thing. They all felt that they could control it.. If you could control your gambling, you would have done it by now. Addiction is a disease & should be treated as one. If you had a heart disease, you would never think that your heart disease was gone once you began to feel better & that you could eat anything you wanted or not exercise, without suffering more heart disease. GA meetings remind you that you need to keep following your recovery plan.

YOU HAVE A SAFE PLACE TO GO. GA meetings are a safe harbor when you want to be out of harm's way. If you've had a bad day you can go to a meeting & spend a couple of hours knowing you wont be able to gamble. By the end of the meeting you'll almost certainly feel better & more motivated for recovery.

GA meetings are a source of hope, strength, safety and guidance.

WHAT GA GROUPS WON'T DO.

They will not define you as weak or powerless. Instead they encourage you to take control of your life by recognizing your addiction and overcoming it.

They are not based on shame & labelling yourself in a negative manner. Instead they encourage you to take responsibility for your life & to realize that you can stop your gambling. GA groups encourage you to recognize that addiction is a disease & that you are powerless to change the way you emotionally respond to gambling. But they also encourage you to realize you have the power to change other parts of your life so that you don't relapse in the future.

GA groups encourage you to take a look at your life & see how you got into trouble in the past so you don't fall into the same traps again. GA groups encourage you to ask for help, where as addiction encourages you to avoid help.

FINDING THE RIGHT GROUP.

Every group is different. Some groups you'll like, some groups you wont. They each have their own personality & mix of people. Finding the right group is important because when you do find it, recovery becomes a lot easier..

Don't keep going to a group that you don't like just because its convenient or close by. If you do that you'll eventually convince yourself that you don't need to go to meetings. You will tell yourself. They're real addicts. I'm not like them. The beauty of GA groups is that there are many to choose from, it's not that hard to find at least one you can connect with..

HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR GROUP.

Become active. The magic of recovery happens when you actively participate & share at meetings. Recovery doesn't happen when you sit passively & listen to other people. Yes bed yourself in, but once comfortable, engage. You recover when you're honest, nakedly honest & share what's going on inside.

BE COMMITTED.

Join a group & go to it regularly. How often is regularly? For the newcomers as many as you can physically get to. At least two a week. Just one a week seems a bit thin, as if you miss one due to unforseen circumstances, that leaves a two week gap between meetings. Far too long & potentially dangerous.

USE THE HELP ON OFFER.

GA groups are a generous & giving environment. People will offer to help in many ways. They will offer to meet for coffee to talk things through or maybe their phone number to call or text day or night. They've been through it themselves & they know how hard it is. In the beginning you may be overwhelmed by their generosity. But its sincere.

Your tendency will be to not accept their help. You will think that you don't want to be a bother, or that your problems aren't important. But they're offering help because they want to, and because they know that helping you helps themselves. When they listen to your stories, they're reminded of where they've been & what they need to do to remain gamble free.

GET A SPONSOR & DO STEP WORK.

A sponsor is your own personal coach or teacher to help you through recovery. There are 3 levels of support in GA rooms.

The first level is people who are general supports. They will offer to go for coffee, give you a lift to the meetings, to offer their number. You can't have enough friends like that.

The next level if support is a temporary sponsor. They're someone who you would like to spend time with talking about
recovery. They can be a sounding board. They can help you to understand the format of meetings. They can call you to motivate you to go to meetings. They can also act as an early warning system to help you recognise if you're in denial, being complacent or showing signs of relapse. You can have more than one temporary sponsor.

The final level of support is a sponsor. Once you've been in recovery for a while & you've checked out some of the meetings, you should find yourself a regular sponsor. They are a teacher to help you learn the 12 Steps.

FINDING THE RIGHT SPONSOR.

A sponsor is somebody who you would like as a teacher to guide you through the 12 steps & into recovery. They don't necessarily need to be someone you would like to hang out with as a friend. By choosing a sponsor you're also implicitly saying that you like the form of their recovery & serenity. In GA rooms it is said that you like what your sponsor has. In this case has relates to what they have in recovery not materially.

A sponsor should preferably have at least 5 years of recovery. They need that time to develop enough perspective on recovery. Finally a sponsor should be someone for whom you have absolutely no romantic feelings for.

There's one question you should ask your potential sponsor.

Tell me what you do with your spinsees? The answer you're looking for is something like, We get together once a week, I give you homework & we go through the 12 steps. The answer your not looking for is, We get together once a week, we go out for coffee and you tell me how your week has been. That might make a good friend, but it won't make a good sponsor or guide you through the Steps.

SO....THE 12 STEPS.

The 12 Steps is a huge topic that deserves more attention than I can give it here, but I will make a few basic comments.

THE 12 STEPS ARE NOT ABOUT STOPPING GAMBLING.

Only the first step is about stopping gambling. The remaining 11 steps are about how to create a new life where it's easier not to gamble. They are about how to be happier in life.

The principles of the 12 Steps are the principles of life. If you work at the 12 Steps, they will help you identify the traits that make you unhappy, let go of those traits & learn something better in their place. The 12 Steps are a module for self-change.

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