Everyone knows that addictive behaviour is not good for you. People who suffer with addictions know this, best of all, because they have lived it. Yet addiction persists.Strange as it seems it must serve some purpose. In fact its purpose must be so great that it is even more essential than avoiding the bad consequences of addiction. It has to be more important than losing marriages, family, friends & health.It has to be more important than working in a field you love of hurting the people you love. What could be worth all that.
In term of the outside world , the world of careers, family, success there is indeed nothing worth losing all this for. The purpose of addiction must therefore lie in the inside world, where what is at stake are feelings central to my emotional survival itself. If this is the case then it is not surprising to find it overide even the most important external causes.
Addiction is a behaviour designed to reverse a profound, intolerable sense of helplessness.This helplessness is always rooted in something deeply important to the individual.
Addictions are efforts to deal with the most important emotional issues in your life, it is impossible to understand them without understanding yourself as a person.
The behaviour is not the issue. Addictive behaviour is nothing more or less than a symptom.
Addiction is an action that gives a sense of empowerment in the face of helplessness.
The solution requires self awareness, new coping skills & changing your enviroment.
A person is vulnerable to addiction when that person feels a lack of satisfaction in life, an absence of intimacy, of strong connections to other people, a lack of self confidence, compelling interests or loss of hope.
Addiction makes the painful tolerable & the ordinaryness of life worth living through.
Addiction is an emotional anaeshetic. A solution against a feeling of emptyness, boredom, selfloathing, helplessness. A stress reliever. An attempt to escape distress.
Addiction always originates in pain whether felt openly or hidden by the subconsious.
I felt intolerably alone without my addiction.
I felt incomplete & incompetent as a person. Addiction took those feelings away for a few hours.
Freedom from my addiction is not gained easily.
I must stop my magical thinking. Just wishing & wanting something to happen will not make it so.
Forget about your life situation for a while & pay attention to your life. Your life situation exists in time. Your life is now
Hi day@atime,
Very powerful post, Thank you for sharing.
Best wishes,
Suzanne x
Hi, you were kind enough to reply to my first thread earlier which was appreciated, just like to say 2817 days gamble free is a massive achievement for a compulsive gambler you once were like I am today. I find it very inspirational, knowing it can be done if the effort is made. Have you got a diary posted i could read?
Well written.
For me, these words stood out as they are key to my anti-gambling strategy:
The solution requires self awareness, new coping skills & changing your enviroment.
And this
Addiction is an emotional anaeshetic
spot on. Anaesthetics temporarily make you unaware of pain, but they cure nothing; and when the drug wears off, you haven't improved anything.
Hi,
Totally agree with this! Being unable to deal with grieve is what has led to mine ;(
Mel x
Thanks
Mel
Have you tried a grief counsellor?
You dont recover from addiction by stopping using.
You recover by creating a new life where it is easier not to use.
If you dont create a new life then all the factors that brought you to addiction will eventually catch up with you again
Hi... you asked me to comment on your thread..and in a way there is nothing more to add other than YES exactly, I agree with what you say. What you describe ( so very well) is what sustains addiction. To use myself as an example. I have always (more or less) felt lonely and that is what has driven and sustained my addiction. Changing my state of mind I have always found very hard. I have always given alot to others (which does bring a sense of purpose) but at a cost to myself. History tells me that I have this habit of recreating the conditions that led to my addiction in the first place... ie living alone and doing emotionally very demanding work with little support. Sometimes I feel powerless to make changes and that feels frustrating and only enhances my feelings of being alone with myself to cope. Again my history says that eventually addiction will step in to take me away from my "difficult feelings" for the duration of that gambling session...hence the reason that i never walk away if I win. I like the freedom from real life that gambling in particular brings. When i gamble i switch off completely and I do mean completely. I really do lose touch with reality.
The thing is I am very self-aware and I am not stupid and I don't feel as if I need counselling because ive had it before and it feels like i'd just be going over the same ground all over again, ground which I feel I dealt with and came to terms with years ago.... so whats the problem you might ask?... why o why did me of all people relapse again...
My answer to that, is that I have no experience of living any other way. I don't know what an enjoyable life feels like because ive never really had one. All ive known is "living on the edge"... maybe I have moments of peace and serenity but they never last. As you say day@atime.... "if you don't create a new life then all the factors that brought you to addiction will eventually catch up with you again and again". For me have I felt enough pain from the consequnces of my gambling yet?? can i live with my sub-concious pain without gambling anymore?? can I create a new life?? Time will tell eh... time will tell
People are kept locked into their addictive behaviours by their painful past , their distressing present & their bleak outlook for any kind of future.
Without creating a new life that gives hope to our futures we will remain in our addiction.
Wisdom in your words day@atime.
Cheers
day@atime wrote: You dont recover from addiction by stopping using. You recover by creating a new life where it is easier not to use. If you dont create a new life then all the factors that brought you to addiction will eventually catch up with you again
Wow! That is so true. If your 'environment' doesn't change, then how can you? The same stimulus will be reapplied and hey presto back to square one.
Creating a new life....is certainly an interesting challenge!
I've just been pondering again on some of the comments on this thread.
Maybe to have the ability to make some things happen for themselves a person has to reach a watershed in their lives.
I'm in my fifties now and I have had some longish periods of gambling abstinence in the past. However I could never quite "expunge the demon" from my life on a permanent basis.
Things that triggered my gambling were my depression, loneliness and family troubles.
I had a big family crisis begin about two years ago and it is still ongoing. This set me off on my latest gambling bout of gambling hell.
Lately though, especially since i got involved with online gambling I have become more disenchanted with the whole sorry mess. You could lose a lot of money in the betting shops in the old days on the horses and dogs. Nowadays. as you no doubt will agree have moved on apace with FOBT's. As I've said online was my evil and I've blocked that avenue now (with K9).
I went for counselling and have been able to adjust my lifestyle slightly. I have taken up hobbies that were previously cast aside. I have taken up vigorous exercise again (as best as I can do at my age !).
What I'm trying to say I suppose is by filling in my spare time with good stuff it's helping to kill off the "devil" in my head that gives me the evil gambling urges. I have built up my exercise regime over the last 4/5 weeks to a point where I can really get myself truly knackered. It does seem to banish the urges for me. If I dropped down dead with a heart attack, I'd rather it be down to excess hard exercise, as opposed to stress built up through excess gambling.
Where as I used to look forward to getting hold of money for my next gambling session. I now look forward to getting hold of money (not that I have access to much now !) to spend on hobbies and going swimming etc. I am also able to input into the housekeeping pot without having to sell stuff and use payday lenders etc.
I'm not making out that what I've done is anything special. What I am saying is, it's possible to use another kind of escapism from life's trials and tribulations.
I've explained what seems to work for me. It may not work for another person. I do however,think we owe it to ourselves and our families to explore the possibilities of another way of existing.
The 2015 Challenge has done wonders for me and others. I look forward to checking in with a "good report" at the end of each week. It's so good to read of the sucess people have experienced. When I see someone, let's say, posting of over 90 days free, it makes me want to pile up the days gambling free as well.
I'm still not falling victim to complacency though. I may still have a good few years left on this earth and I want those years to be gambling free.
I'd say to people whom are a lot younger than me "If you give gambling up, give it up for good". Don't waste precious years gambling as I've done. Life is too short to live it in a gambling misery if you can avoid it.
Cheers.
We regularly read people's stories on here and how much money they have lost whereas they really should be thinking how much precious time they are wasting. Money can be saved again but you can't get the time back.
Great comments on this thread, spot on delorean and Mr Stop
Our finances are a symptom of our illness they are not the cause of it.
When we make this about money we are doomed to fail.
If my whole focus in early recovery is to repair the financial damage i have done then once i have solved that my addiction will tell me all is ok to continue gambling again, that this time it will be different. It wont!
What i needed to repair was my relationship with myself, to treat myself with kindness, to acknowledge my good points & my achievements rather than focus on what i didnt do well. I needed to stop looking for recognition from others & to find it within myself.
Money comes & goes in life sometimes i have a bit sometimes i do not. I have come to recognize my happiness is not governed by the state of my bank balance but by my perception of my self.
Stop focusing on your life situation & start putting your energies into your life
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