Hey guys, i just wanted to say something that helped me when dealing with my addiction and maybe it will help some of you.
(Sorry in advance as it's a long post)
Okay so If you are addicted to gambling, it's easy to feel like your worthless, a f**k up, stupid, a life wrecker, idiot. Burden, dumb, weak, failure, selfish ect...
its easy to think that gambling is a part of who you are, that it is a part of your personality that is flawed and that you are a bad person. Well this isn't true.
Addiction is not about your personality, or who you are, or ever have been. Addiction is an illness, a disease of the mind. it's like a virus that hijacks the brain to control our actions and overides our thoughts and replaces them with thoughts to make us gamble.
We know how to be a mature responsible adult, we can function perfectly in society when we arnt gambling, infact we do it all the time. But when it comes to gambling, and we tell ourselves that we cannot gamble, the addiction kicks in and overrides us, it makes us irresponsible by replacing our thoughts with excuses to make us bet, to justify gambling and give the brain the hit it thinks it needs.
There are 2 sides to you when your an addict
1) the real you
2) the addiction
the real you (1) is the person who says "I need to stop gambling" the person who says "i know this is stupid" the person who says "this is destroying my life those around me" the person who joins gamcare for help, the person who is trying to be responsible.
The addiction (2) is the illness that overides our thoughts to convinces us that "I can afford just £50, I won't gamble anymore after that"
The addiction is the illness that overides our thoughts to convinced us that "I will win big this time I know it! I will win big and then I can repay my debts and finally stop gambling"
The addiction is the illness that overides our thoughts to convince us that "i want to gamble, I enjoy it, just 15 minutes then il stop"
the addiction is the illness that overides our thoughts to convince us that "I'v lost so much money already, I'v f****d up, who cares if I bet more money.. what difference does betting an extra £200 make now anyway"
the addiction talks for us, and it's voice is louder than our true voice, the one who wants to says "no!"
And yet for many people, gambling feels personal, it feels like a personality flaw, it feels like something that we cannot stop because it simply is a part of who we are, that we need it in our lives (We don't)
I use to think all that stuff about myself. I thought I was weak, pathetic, flawed, good for nobody, good for nothing!! I thought that I couldn't stop gambling because it was a part of me, a part of who Jason brown was. My life, my f****d up life...
But then guess what? I stopped gambling. I stopped over a year ago, and believe it or not, I'm happy and love life again. gambling does NOT rule my life anymore, the addiction is still there, it always will be. It still says I am allowed to gamble from time to time but I'm the one doing the talking now, I'm the one who gets to say no.
I stopped believing that it was ME who couldn't stop gambling, but the illness in my head that made me think I needed to gamble. I looked at my addiction, at the thoughts in my head telling me to gamble even though I knew that I diddnt want too and it was making me physically sick, and I realised I had to fight it, that I had to take back control of my thoughts again.
And it is possible, it's possible to be a gambler who does not want to gamble.
But to do this you need to fight your addiction as if it were another person, like a bully telling you what to do. You need to fight the lies it tells you and to shout back, and eventually your true voice will start to take over, the responsible one. the real you.
This is a little gem that I copied and pasted from another thread on here. I imagine its true for a lot of us!
Imagine inside your head two different brains. They're both made of your nerve cells and they’re both inside your skull, but they work independently and each comes to its own conclusions.
Brain 1 seeks pleasure. It loves the rush of the occasional winning moment.
Brain 2 does reasoning and strategy. It loves to plan for your future prosperity, and advise you on rational tactics to get there.
Brain 1 says "gamble". Brain 2 says "stop". Thus the experience of Mixed Emotions.
When Brain 2 explains the math, Brain 1 doesn't listen because it doesn't even know what math is. It's an animal. It doesn't plan. It just seeks pleasure.
So when the two disagree, neither one backs down. Brain 2 doesn't back down because it knows it has a valid point. Brain1 doesn't back down because it DOESN'T EVEN KNOW an argument is happening! That's just not how it works! It has ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that "soon enough you will be in debt again". It doesn't do math. It doesn't know what debt is. It doesn't understand threats. It just keeps trying to get its “winning moment” thrill.
Left to their own devices, the two brains will battle each other in a Pythonesque futility:
“This isn’t an argument. This is contradiction!”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it is.”
By default, your "self" (wherever THAT is in the skull) obeys whoever shouts louder, brain 1 or 2. Which means you never know who will win on a given day. Which means you’ll relapse over and over.
For me, beating gambling means better refereeing of the conflict. When brain 1 shouts louder and refuses to listen to argument, he gets ejected from the game for unacceptable misconduct. The winner is chosen on the basis of better debate instead of loudness.
“That’s a yellow card for telling me to visualize the thrill of winning. Oh! That’s two yellow cards! You’re being sent off!”
Brilliant I love it! 🙂
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