How did I feel day one in recovery

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person, yet I am not a religion person.

With regards my anger and resentments I did not understand those unhealthy reactions started from an early age for me.

Only once I was over 50 years of age did I learn that anger is an unhealthy reaction to pain fear and frustrations, sadly not one of my teachers in child hood knew that simple fact.

I use to blame and the world for my stress that was fear based, and even though it is very twisted thinking I use to fee responsible for how other felt and if they were angry or hurt I felt responsible for how they felt, that was an unhealthy habit from my child hood years.

I have been angry twice this week and understand it was unhealthy and understand why I was angry, yet it was for a very brief period of time.

My emotional triggers were pains fear frustrations loneliness and boredom, sadly I use to think before the spiritual recovery growth that gambling was the most exciting thing in my life and everything else was boring.

Did the spiritual recovery program brain wash me, did the spiritual recovery program make me religious, what was it that the spiritual recovery program did to me to change

The spiritual recovery program helped me learn to help myself it helped me to understand that any form of self abuse is not healthy and it gave me the new unbelievable choices to become more confident than at any other time in my life.

When I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I was scared of facing myself and facing other people.

When I apologize to someone it is not about the money or who is right or wrong it is about healing damaged relationships.

I use to think that the world was responsible for me not feeling loved, it was my fears that made me unlovable it was my fears that stopped me from having any kind of emotional intimacy with other people.

I have dropped down to two meetings per week, the meetings I go to have given me so much help in learning how to face the world and more so to face myself.

My honesty extends for more than being a broken record keeping about the money I lost, the fearless spiritual recovery program rooms has given me such honesty is goes down to my very being, how I feel how I think and how I process life and situations.

I use to react to everyone and everything, yet in those I did not think I had any choice but to react in anger and hurt myself time and time again.

The spiritual recovery program rooms were going to give me place to identify firstly a day at a time to say to myself just for today I WILL NOT, then once you understand serenity prayer, courage to change the things I can.

The topic of birthdays came up today, who are the birthdays for, I use to think it was all about me the GA birthdays, sadly GA birthdays are for me to show my appreciation to the people that helped me help myself.

There is no doubt in my mind that every one therapies from the heart helped me gain faith and hope in myself, every therapy helped me deal with my stresses my fears and my tensions in a much healthier way.

For me there is end to how much more healthier I can be, each meetings helps recovery open up even more to me.

Today I did not want or need to gamble, yet if all I did was sit on my hands doing nothing today but abstain from gambling abstain from getting drunk or abstain from smoking then I know I was not working my recovery.

Do I any way try to control or regulate other people today, do I any way another person of fear being honest with other people today.

It is our own conscious decision is what counts to be dedicated to recovery, to spend more effort and time in and sharing recovery than I gave to my addictions and obsessions.

Are our actions today about nurturing and helping other people learn to fulfill their own wants and needs and encouraging another person to come out of them self and have a healthy relationship today only when they are ready for it.

Money was never going to resolve relationships; it was by me making amends and to make sure that people no longer need to fear me in any way.

I was working for the gambling establishments for nothing; I was taking my holidays cloths cars and giving them to the gambling establishments saying I do not deserve the nice things in life.

Why was I so reluctant to put to a spread sheet how much money I had lost over a long period of time, three decades of avoiding facing responsibility for my unhealthy actions and words.

Self enlightenment is a very powerful tool, to not feel intimidated and feeling willing to see and feel yourself in other people and not feel scared any more.

Step twelve is very important so that when new people come to the rooms you are able to help them understand how you felt before recovery and that you they the same way they do on their first day from day one and now my pains fear and frustrations do not adversely affect me the way they use to.

Anxiety procrastination nervousness stress confusion were just a small indicator of how fear I was in from day one of my recovery, in time as I faced my fears asking myself what is the worst that can happen if I say that or do that, only once I am willing to accept the worst that can happen do my fears reduce as I do the actions required of me.

Balance is an important part of my life today, I do not always get it right, and I understand that for me to be healthy I need to be more mature and accountable to myself.

My own healthy actions and healthy words build up my own confidence and pride in myself. Pride is the reward I give myself for my healthy actions and for my healthy words I use in my life today. The more I learn, the more I am able to share of myself with other people.

Every lie I told made me weaker and weaker, every lie I told caused me to live in more fear, and I was for certain an adrenaline J****E long before my addictions and obsessions.

In my addiction and my obsessions I was deceiving myself in thinking to myself that somehow I would find success happiness and emotional resolve through my addictions. That was never going to be the case.

Do I react to life and people today or do I interact with life and people today, do I feel connected or am I still isolating myself from other people today.

In the earlier part of my life I was having difficulty in having trust of other people and having emotional intimacy with other people, I had difficulty in learning and taking healthy advice, from my perspective I was feeling that any advice was other people trying to control me.

Today I understand that controlling other people is fear based, nervousness anxiety worry stress the base feeling is fear, now on would think that my fears started when I took up my addictions and obsessions.

I questioned at what time in my life I started feeling like a victim, at what time did fears over whelm and made me feel that nothing I would say or do would stop me feeling like a victim.

If people still want to blame me for how they feel today that is the fact they are unable to heal from their past, there is nothing I can say or do to change how other people feel about me.

I think that me being in my addictions and obsessions I was my own worst enemy, I was in emotional decline I was unable to value myself or care about myself.

I use to react to everyone and everything, my impatience and intolerance was an indicator that I was impatient and intolerant with myself I was being cruel to myself by calling myself names when I did not things right.

The spiritual recovery program helps us ask for help, the spiritual recovery program helps me help myself; the spiritual recovery program is not going to fix me, I am going to do that myself.

Going to counseling indicated to me that I was willing and able to overcome my fears and expose that hurt child in me, it was going to take time and eleven counsel to peel back that onion and let that inner cry once more.

I am often admire people who are able to and willing to articulate how they feel so that other people can relate to their experiences in life, I am still learning how to articulate my feelings in anon threatening way.

Child hood pains and emotional trauma were going to have a devastating impact on my growth and my maturing in to adult hood.

Often with every physical pain with intent from other people in my earlier life people were transferring their pains fears and frustrations on to me.

So how do we talk about how we feel without other people threatened by us exposing our past, do I want pity and sympathy today, did I really want to remain feeling like a victim for the rest of my life.

It was strange that I recognized that other people were willing to forgive long before I was able to forgive myself.

It was also strange that other people had more faith in me that I had in myself; they all knew I could do recovery before I did.

It was very painful going back to the rooms saying I had gambled once more, as I was able to feel more emotions for myself it became difficult to admit that I had hurt myself once more.

People think and feel that once you break out gambling that you have lost all of your recovery time just because of one day gambling, that is not so.

At one time I use to think that life was boring because I was not stimulated by the healthy experiences of other peoples growth, I am worth far more today than when I walked in to the recovery.

Every time I gambled I was giving away a little part of myself and losing my family with each bet.

Before entering the spiritual recovery rooms I did not have a choice, today that is not so, I have no doubts in myself or other people today.

My needs are to be more respectful caring tolerant and loving towards each day, on a growing curve.

Step one took me over twenty years to *****, surrender was easy and simple enough that by my addiction I was in spiritual decline and getting more and unhealthier.

That every time I gambled I was in decline going in to more and more self inflicted pains, I made relationships in my life more unhealthy, that I was completely beaten, that gambling was a form of self destruction. Slow painful decline for myself and everyone around me.

I could not win a healthy happy spiritual life by gambling.

Money was never going to give me happiness.

Every time I lied was an indicator of how much fear I was living in, and with each lie came more fear until I went in to panic mode and could not think things out straight or clearly.

Step one life being unmanageable was understanding all about my emotional triggers, my emotional triggers were pains fears frustrations loneliness and boredom.

I being over sensitive and getting angry and resentful quickly over simple every day things was an indicator that there were pains and unresolved and unhealed trauma and pains of my past.

I was born completely fearless as a child and due to unhealthy pains and trauma they caused me to live in more and more fears.

Being born completely fearless was a spiritual value which I lost and by living in so many fears I became afraid of emotional intimacy with all people in my life.

For me today love is a healthy emotional intimate relationship with other people or with animals.

To learn to be lovable I started to understand that I needed to become more fearless, and to accept that by being loving I am willing to give of myself unconditionally.

It took me a long time to understand my frustrations, my frustrations were due to my unhealthy unreasonable expectations of people and life, and this was also tied to the fact that my actions towards other people were conditional that if I did something I expected something in return.

Lonely issues were due to abandonment issues from a very early child hood, when people left me I felt both physical and emotional abandonment, sadly when adults in my life were filled with suppressed with a lot of pain fear or frustrations they put walls of fear around them self and then I felt very painful emotional abandonment.

Sadly as a child I internalized so much of what unhealthy people did to me, I felt it was all about me.

So to do step one was about understanding my emotional triggers, to talk to a person before I gambled and best deal with my emotions before I hurt myself.

Abstaining was important before my thinking changed to today I WILL and overcome all methods of escape, once that was done I became more productive, fulfilling my needs wants and goals.

I was in an unhealthy state of self destruction before recovery taking my loved ones with me; everything in my life was going in to decline.

I now know for sure that I was completely ignorant as to how unhealthy I was spiritually long before my spiritual recovery, or did I have any clue how to make healthy changes in my life, in recovery I moved away from having unhealthy addictions and obsessions.

Unhealthy actions have unhealthy consequences,

Healthy actions have healthy consequences, no actions on my part is I remain stuck being unhealthy and not improving my life and how I feel.

For me to be healthy I understand I need to fulfill my wants needs and goals, physically and emotionally.

That is part of what being a healthy adult is all about maturing and growing and being accountable in a healthy way.

To understand completely and in whole the serenity prayer.

Gratitude is about healthy spiritual values.

I do not need to be religious to be a healthy spiritual people.

No one could stop me gambling, no one could stop me smoking, no one could stop me escaping in another form of addiction or obsession that was going to be my own conscious decision to want to become healthy and give up my unhealthy life of my past.

I am not a victim today I do not want pity or sympathy, I do not want people to do things for me that I can do for myself, I do not want to hear war stories or people go on about money and the gambling.

Each time I broke out was an important lesson if I was willing to learn from it, what was my emotional trigger was it pain fear frustrations loneliness or boredom.

To be fearless and spiritual is very healthy.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave of Beckenham

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler!

I arrived in to the spiritual recovery well beaten in decline and traumatized and I had lost the ability to listen to my own conscience and take in to account that I was going against all spiritual values.

Once I was able to abstain from unhealthy habits could I progress in my healing and my spiritual recovery, it is not possible to heal pains at the same time you are causing yourself more pains.

My lack of faith and trust in the spiritual recovery program was not about the program at all it was all about my ineptness inadequacy insecurity and lack of faith and hope in myself and people around me,

The rooms of spiritual recovery would enable to see and feel myself in other people not only who they use to be but also who and what they are today.

Once I recognize that if we are all equal then if another person can find resolve and repair their life just maybe I could do the same with myself.

The simple reason I told lies and escaped responsibility was for me all fear based, I use to think that being accountable and honest was a painful experience.

All of my time in the rooms of spiritual recovery I have been enlightening in that being honest helped me become the person I should have been.

One step I found very scary also was setting up boundaries for myself, to say that today that is unhealthy and unacceptable, very much like courage to change the things I can, it is that instant someone or something is having an unhealthy influence on my well being.

I am able to speak up for myself in a healthy way and then once that is done if people are still being unhealthy I walk away, it is in that instant that actions speak louder than words.

In speaking to people during sponsorship we do things when we are ready for it, once me commit our self to healthy actions and healthy words we are responsible the consciences.

I did not have a clue how lonely and isolated I was before my spiritual recovery, I could admit simple things like I was frightened of the post man, I was frightened of the telephone ringing and I was frightened of strangers coming to our home.

I use to chew my thumb nails down till they bled, my legs use to twitch from being so stressed out uptight and nervous all the time, yet from my thinking I thought that everyone else lived liked that.

As I opened up more I become slightly more comfortable with going in to meetings, yet felt uncomfortable about some

When I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I did not have a choice if I Gambled or not I just did it.

I now understand for me that my addictions and obsessions were just a way of me escaping how I felt within myself.

I was not stupid evil bad or dumb I was just a very unhealthy person who when I felt emotionally vulnerable would escape in any way possible for me.

I did not understand that I felt very vulnerable, I even married another not person not knowing that deep down emotionally I was a very immature vulnerable child who had not healed from the pains of my past.

Before I was seven years of age I had suffered emotional abuse physical abuse and felt very vulnerable within myself I Had even by this time already started to suppress and bury things I could not cope with emotionally.

After I was eight years of age I suffered emotional abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse and felt even more vulnerable and again could not admit it to myself.

Did I suppress my anger and my resentments or did I internalize those pains and felt that I was responsible for all the things that happened to me and started to doubt myself.

For sure I was a victim from a very early age and yet understanding how painful it was from my own experience I did and said unhealthy things to people that were close to me, I was doing the same things that were done to me, I was transferring my pains fears and frustrations on to other people.

On walking in to the spiritual recovery program did I truly understand how unhealthy I had become, did I understand how immature I was, did I understand how inept I felt, did I understand how insecure I was, did I understand how scared of being honest I was.

I like many people think that if I did not gamble I would be happy, it did not happen that way, if I had loads of money I would be happy, not true, if I had loads of money I would not worry not true.

Money was never going to resolve my emotional issues.

I started to understand that I would find recovery without taking up religious beliefs.

That all religions educate people with spiritual values, yet why did I go against my own conscience and against spiritual values why was I willing to cause myself and other people pain due to my deceptions and lies.

One thing caused me a lot of pain from a very early age was my unreasonable expectations of life and other people,

One can question if all of my wants and needs were fulfilled from an early age and I know for sure that was not the case, not because would not fulfilled my wants and my needs, they were unable to.

In recovery I learned to have empathy for myself and over time empathy for other people it is of no importance when people had their last bet or last unhealthy habit, it is important to encourage people to stay with their recovery no matter what happens.

Sadly people will think and feel that if they break out after some time of abstaining that time is lost no clean time is not lost, is not correct if one gambles after time they have not lost clean time.

For me there is no such thing as failure once a person is in the spiritual recovery program, there is a gradual learning curve which seems so slow at the beginning.

How many people give up one addiction and another kind escape in another addiction or obsession, for me escape was television I would get angry if someone disturbed my watching television, now only use television to relax and chill out, I can take it or leave I would plan my life around television I am not that sick.

Some people think that they can only be happy if there team wins if the teams fail they feel they have failed, how can that in any way be healthy.

My reacting in my anger and in my resentments is my responsibility today, I needed to understand my emotional triggers and then once I recognized my emotional triggers do something about them.

I have a great fear to aggression and confrontation which was a result of many spiritually unhealthy adults transferring their pains fear and frustrations on to me.

For certain people abused me in several physical ways and for sure I was a victim yet not only did they physical abuse me with it came their emotional abuse which I internalized on many occasions.

I think the easy way to explain recovery is to relate it to mountain climbers and they gain confidence and learn safe practices in how to progress and learn new skills.

I now understand that I could not do spiritual recovery on my own, it is like expecting a defective computer to repair itself.

Mountain climbers use the rope of hope and faith which is our honesty to stay safely connected with spiritually healthy growing people for the feeling of safety and to share our safe healthy wisdom and helps people progressing without fear holding us all back from progressing? The strength or our rope is our honesty wisdom and our trust and our healthy sharing?

The number of people is not a measure of the strength of our recovery or our progress; it is our honesty which is strength and the quality of our progress? Our honesty is the best policy?

Our honesty is an indicator of how healthy my relationships are with other people and with myself.

Often as we move through recovery helping each other it is important to stay tied to spiritual healthy confident people and with strong groups so that our progress is both healthy and steady.

Even the slowest person moves with the healthy group that are all tied together in their recovery and their honesty.

Today as I get much healthier spiritually and physically I am feeling far less guilt and shame in my life, there is nothing healthy by living in guilt and shame and pains of my past today.

Every action has consequences, in my recovery every healthy spiritual action has healthy consequences, by doing nothing and being bored sitting on my hands abstaining only I do not progress.

I am feeling more proud of myself, as I become more productive there is less regret in my life, as I become more focused on healthy living I reduce the odds of me going back to unhealthy living again. Abstaining on its own was and is not enough for me today.

If at any time I am pushing my beliefs on to other people it is an indicator of how insecure I am within myself, am I in any way trying to control other people today.

When I use the words “I have to” implies obsessive thinking and that I am doing things reluctantly without desire.

Often people will use offensive language and often it is due to the fact they are not able to articulate their feelings in a healthy way.

Being over sensitive and getting angry quickly was a good indication that the pains of my past were not healed and nurtured away. How can I tell if I have healed my pains in a healthy way, well for me all my pains caused me many fears, and if I am able to feel sadness for a painful event in my life it is healed.

I was so focused on the money issue that I did not understand that every time I was gambling I was becoming weaker and becoming unhealthy.

Every time I took the easy option in life I was cheating myself, every time I took the easy option I was getting weaker.

Each time I lied I went against spiritual values, each time I lied I went against my own conscience I caused myself pain due to the guilt and shame I was feeling.

Just because I stopped gambling did not mean I became healthy over night, just because I stopped obsessions did not mean I respected myself and that I did not like myself or that my anger would fade away over night.

By burying and suppressing my pains I was not healing them, at what time in my life would I cry for that little hurt child in me, at what time in my life would I start to respect like love and care for myself.

My honesty demonstrates how healthy my relationships are with other people and with myself, my honesty demonstrates that I am not afraid to be open about who I am and what I am today.

Welcome to new comers to this web site in time we learn to relate to other people and are able to recognise what is healthy and unhealthy about our self and how we can improve the quality of our life by our own actions.

I used to be like a rat in a wheel going faster and faster getting nowhere, and could see or feel that what I was doing all the time and energy was a complete waste of time and energy it was very unhealthy activity in my addictions and obsessions.

I was working for the gambling establishments for nothing, giving them all my holidays my cars and houses and also depriving my family of the things they deserved from life.

How could I give up my time with my family to go and stand with complete strangers and deprive myself of a healthy life and deprive myself of the love of my family?

By gambling whatever was not healthy with my life simply made things much worse than they were previously.

By gambling and my obsessions I was getting weaker and weaker and going in to steep decline rapidly

Once you overcome your fears you start to feel comfortable going to meetings, and feeling comfortable you move on from reading words and understanding that it is by our own healthy actions we become healthy spiritually.

I am glad that I am a compulsive gambler because without the spiritual recovery I would never found out how much I was missing from life and my relationships with other people and how unhealthy I had become.

Being dysfunctional was so unhealthy for me, being dysfunctional indicated that I was unable to be spiritual and healthy with other people.

Being dysfunctional was about blaming other people for my failings, being dysfunctional was living in the pains fears and frustrations of my past, being dysfunctional was not feeling proud in myself unable to give myself any kind of credit or approval, being dysfunctional was being unable to have the confidence to do the healthy thins at the correct time.

I understand now that I was destined to an addiction or obsession because of being a victim in the earlier part of my life; I have lost count of the number of times that adults transferred their pains fear and frustrations on to me emotionally and physically.

I played all three parts in my life victim perpetrator and rescuer and understand that each roll is not healthy.

I am a very very very extremely selfish person, my recovery is the number one priority in my life, everything else comes second place, I needed 4 -5 meetings a week just to abstain, that was how consumed I was in my addiction and obsessions.

Am I willing to ask for help, am I willing to pay people compliments, am I willing to forgive other people, am I willing to forgive myself.

The word I will is beyond the spoken word it is about my commitment and me being selfish in my spiritual recovery.

Asking for help demonstrated my strength, I admitted when I felt emotionally vulnerable demonstrated my commitment to becoming healthy.

Every time I was caused pain by myself or other people my fears grew and grew in me, every time I gambled my fears grew and grew in me I felt I had no choice but to lie.

Every time I Gambled I just made things and my life much worse than ever before.

The facade I lived was built on fear and that is all.

So confidence pride and respect come about due to my healthy actions and healthy words, a decline in our self is due to the fact we go against spiritual values and go against our own conscience which causes us to feel pain time and time again.

Anger and resentments were a huge part of life for me before recovery, I could not admit to myself or the rooms that inside I was all bitter bent and twisted up with the pains of my past.

Feelings of anger and resentments were a very good indicator that I was not able to heal my pains and was not able to forgive people who had intentionally or adversely affected me in some way.

My anger and resentments started very much from my child hood as I tried to take my own life as a teenager I could resolve or heal my own pains and I was going to bury and suppress painful things in my life for a very long time.

As you peel back the onion that little hurt child in me started to come out and play and he does so the pains of the past come to surface once I was able to deal with them.

Sponsorship is a very important part of peoples recovery, it is an opportunity for people to come out of their fears and talk about deep seated issues they have never talked about before, it is a very slow process and it is very much the birth of a very close relations and friendships.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave of Beckenham

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler!

I now understand that no one could stop me gambling or being unhealthy, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me taking the easy option all of the time, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me being angry again that had to be my choice.

Me expecting something for nothing was me cheating myself, in talking to sponsors you start to understand often we know what we need to do but are unable to or not willing to.

Do we lack confidence and self esteem, do we think that someone or something is going to fix us and heal us, it was never going to happen that way.

How could it take me over 23 years to understand step one, it is one single paragraph, was I not willing to listen, or unable to.

What is important for my recovery to understand that the gambling and drink and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally unhealthy long before my addictions and obsessions.

It is important for my recovery understanding step one for me complete acceptance surrender and understanding my life was emotionally unmanageable long before my addictions and obsessions.

My emotional triggers were my pains my fears my frustrations my loneliness and my boredom.

After having my last bet I needed to understand which emotional trigger that caused me to go back to gamble once more. It could have been just one single trigger or several triggers.

The hardest emotional triggers to understand were my frustrations due to my expectations of other people and life.

Today I have no expectations of other people, today however I have high expectations of myself, courage to change the things I can. Wow that is me. How simpler can it get.

If I am not willing to write things down I am cheating myself, if I am not willing or able to work my recovery program then I am not able to blame other people for my failings.

By not having expectations of other people by doing things unconditionally I am free of frustrations and the pain I caused myself.

I use to blame everyone else for my stress and my anger, today understand I am responsible for my anger, I am responsible for my happiness, I am responsible for my unhealthy reaction to people and life.

I am responsible for my stress which is fear based.

Controlling people are fear based issues, yet is it possible to face those fears and accept serenity, is control and strength the same thing, is our courage based up on us doing spiritual actions and saying spiritual words.

Me trying to control people means I am not accepting or understanding the power of my own serenity.

Do you need to practice small baby steps to reach a point where you will face procrastination as being unhealthy.

I am no longer happy reacting in an unhealthy way of any sort or reacting to fear to everyone and everything.

Am I productive today in my actions, do I fill my needs today, is cleaning the home about cleaning the home, no it is about me being proud about myself and caring about myself.

Is going to the dentist about the dentist, no it is about me being proud about myself and caring about myself.

Is eating properly about food, no it is about me caring about myself.

Is giving up smoking about the smoking, no it is about me being more caring and respectful about myself.

Is giving up drinking too much alcohol about the alcohol, no it is about me being more caring and respectful about myself.

Is giving up gambling about the gambling, no it is about me being more caring and respectful about myself.

I no longer want to hurt myself abuse myself or hurt other people today.

By attending spiritual recovery meetings I am learning how to cope with the tests of life and people around me.

Gambling was an addiction and places where I use to go to escape how I use to feel within myself, in the gambling establishments I could pretend that I had no emotional problems in my life, in the gambling establishments I did not care about myself or other people.

I use to think that life was unmanageable because of gambling and the lack of money, that was not true my life became unmanageable when I was abused in my child hood before I was even seven years of age.

I suffered emotional abuse, I suffered physical abuse, I suffered sexual abuse, which had a very serious impact on my growing up to be an emotional healthy person.

In the recovery I was going to set up boundaries for myself, to say to myself just for today I will not gamble, it has nothing to do about gambling or money.

As we grow our thinking changes from just for today I will not to just for today I will that is when we become productive with our time and our energy.

When I went to gamble establishments I was giving up all faith and hope in myself, when I went to gamble establishments I was saying that I did not deserve a nice holiday nice cloths healthy eating.

Yet gambling was not the only form of abuse I caused myself, smoking was a statement that said I did not care about my health it was another form of self abuse, getting drunk which affected my brain was a statement that said I did not care about my health, speeding recklessly was a statement that said I did not care about my health or my well being.

In time I gave up abusing myself in every form and started to slow down my life style, driving with consideration and respect of other people indicated that I was considerate and respectful of myself.

When I am being intolerant and impatient with other people and life was an indicator I was being intolerant and impatient with myself.

I got in to the habit of arriving early for appointments, arriving early for meetings, arriving early at airports, even having bags packed day before we were leaving on flights because I was more relaxed.

I now understand that other people did not stress me out, the truth was I stressed myself out, I also understand that stress is fear based.

For me nervous talking is nervousness and is fear based, anxiety is fear based, procrastination is fear based, depression is fear based, yet how long to face and deal with my fears.

I have found out recently that my oxygen levels have dropped from 97% to being about 90% which is not healthy at all.

Shirley finds it hard to understand why I do not get angry at the things that at one time use to drive me crazy with anger, yet I feel more at peace with myself today.

Things that use to drive me crazy with anger now make me laugh.

People in the rooms use to make me feel very uncomfortable at early stages of my recovery, I use to get very frustrated with people who could not or would not let go of their past and talk about them self today.

Every time a person processes a situation in a healthy way I learn from their experiences wisdom and maturity.

It is very important to ask for help, it is very important to ask someone to sponsor you, it is very important to ask questions about every stage of our recovery and to understand why we do steps in certain sequence.

It is very important to exchange unhealthy habits in to healthy habits, as we do we are able to listen to our own conscience and follow spiritual values and behave in a much healthier spiritual way.

Our healthy conscience tells us deep down we are good people, yet why do we go against our own conscience and go against spiritual values, fear is the reason we would do and say such unhealthy things.

A beaten dog does not have a choice but to react in fear and shake with fear, we have learned to hide and not admit our fears, in time once we open up more we live in less fear and become comfortable being our true self.

The spiritual program does not tell us you have to, the spiritual program really means to say to people it is highly recommended for your own benefit that you do or do not do certain things, that for your own benefit that you do the recovery program in certain sequences.

Our spiritual actions and words demonstrate what recovery is all about, our fearless spiritual actions and words demonstrate what recovery is all about, our honesty demonstrate what recovery is all about, our feelings comfortable in our self demonstrate what recovery is all about.

Only once I understood my unhealthy reaction in anger is not healthy for me I could do something about it, anger is an unhealthy reaction to my pains I am unable to heal and nurture.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my fears I am unable to or not willing to face.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my unhealthy frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people, that my unreasonable expectations of life and people caused me pains from a very early age.

Any form of addiction obsessive behavior escape or deviating my feelings and life is an unhealthy action for me.

Yet at one time I use to think that abstaining on its own was recovery, that abstaining on its own would make me happy, that once I paid back all of my debts would make me happy, once I paid back all of my debts I would no longer feel or guilty or ashamed about myself.

Yes it was hard to admit t myself and other how much money I had lost even hard to admit how many lies I told and even harder to admit to the fact how many times I made my family hide from me.

Then the point comes where you move on from war stories and talking about money and start to talk about the confusion in my head, where does recovery truly start, when do you start to understand yourself and the way you react to life and other people.

I was emotionally traumatized on walking in to recovery, due to pain caused to me by others and pains I caused myself I had no choice but to live in so many unidentified fears.

When it came to making amends I did it first time because I needed to and was very scared, then I made amends again because I wanted to and because I wanted to repair the damage I had caused other people and myself.

It is very important to take full responsibility for our unhealthy actions and for our unhealthy words, no justifications, no excuses because if we do not take full responsibility we are cheating our self.

I understand in the old days I really did not have a choice but to turn towards one form of addiction or obsession, you cannot go through so much emotional abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse with it affecting our self and our spiritual values.

For me any form of addiction or obsession causes a decline in my spiritual interactions with other people, any form of addiction or obsession was an indicator that there was still some pains and fears lingering within me.

I think that when we are born we have certain spiritual values and are certainly innocent in so many ways, we are completely fearless, we are able to be completely honest, we are able to give of our self unconditionally, we are to be unconditionally trusting of every one, and then we grow up those spiritual values decline.

For me many kinds of pain causes many different kinds of fears in us, how important is it for us to face those fears, how important is it for us to heal and nurture our pains, surely recovery is about is all about healing.

Sadly people can go through their whole life living in fear of family and parents is that in any way healthy.

Dysfunctional people escape responsibility, dysfunctional people do not like recovery because it will ask us to be accountable to our self, dysfunctional people will often use guilt to control other people, dysfunctional people are unhealthy people.

Just because we understand more about spiritual recovery it will not swing or change other dysfunctional people in changing their childhood programming or their unhealthy belief system.

I so much wanted to be normal on arriving in the spiritual recovery program, now I understand what is classed as normal is not very healthy, what is classed to be normal today is not very healthy.

What normal people do and say to each other is not very spiritually healthy, and sadly normal people will justify their unhealthy actions and words and say they want justice when in fact they are being vengeful bitter and twisted.

I do not react in an unhealthy way to aggression and confrontation the same way I use react in an unhealthy way due to my parents aggression and confrontation when I was less than seven years of age.

I have been told that my father use to beat me with the buckle end of his belt when I was less than seven years of age, I have no scares to my body so found it hard to believe, yet there was pains and fears towards my father in my adult years.

Then one day I faced him and told him that if he did something again that was unhealthy he would not see me again, I expected to get beaten up by my own father yet he just agreed to my new found boundaries.

There was still pains in my body that came to surface after he died, I went to his burial place and I said I love you Ernie, there was a stabbing pain in my through like a knife cutting in to me.

I repeatedly said I love you Ernie until there was no pain any more, now I feel empathy towards that poor unhealthy man who never found his spiritual values once more before he died, he did unto to me those things that were done to me.

Sadly because of the abuse in my child hood I assumed it was something not quite right with me.

Then the light came on certain people will pick on the most vulnerable people who are unable to defend them self because of their own internal unhealthy insecurity issues.

Bullies are in fact very weak inadequate insecure unhealthy people who take advantage of vulnerable people or weak people.

For me to no longer remain a victim I needed first of all to be able to articulate my feelings express myself in a healthy way, to not be aggressive or confrontational, to talk from a place of peace.

It took me two years of doing karate to learn that simple fact that my fears of aggression and confrontation came from my parents aggression and confrontation towards each other and towards me when I was less than seven years of age.

Each person talks about peace of mind yet what is it, is it being completely free of all fears, is it being completely content with in yourself, peace of mind is it about no longer being angry or aggression with yourself or others.

Peace of mind is it being completely content with who you are and what you are today, peace of mind can you find it all the time you are living in pains and fears.

Peace of mind can it be that you are living your life to the full today in an emotional way in a physical way and in a sexual way.

Where do we start dealing with our own insecurities, confidence comes with practicing healthy spiritual actions and spiritual words, pride comes with practicing healthy spiritual actions and spiritual words.

Where do we start in our spiritual growth, my mind use to be so mixed up and confused I did not know where to begin to peel back the onion and expose that hurt little child.

Surely we need to understand the reasons behind each of those spiritual values, we also need to understand why we became so unhealthy spiritually.

Some people even get confused in to thinking that being fearless means you are a non caring person, that is not true, being fearless means you will try anything and understand that every experience you go through and you give your best effort is a learning and growing curve.

There is no such thing as failure in doing spiritual recovery, one day without an unhealthy addiction or unhealthy obsession is healthier day clean days cannot be lost, healthy days are never lost we have lived them and experienced them.

I use to fear computers, I use to fear putting my hand out, I use to fear people being nice and kind to me, I use to fear talking to my family honestly.

Sadly people who are not into recovery will adversely react in an unhealthy way to our new found recovery, some people will feel jealous and envious, some people will try to undermine us by saying that is a complete waste of time, some people will think it is about blaming other people for our actions, some people will try and tempt us back in to unhealthy habits by trying to wind us up.

It is important to not allow other people to undermine or unsettle us in putting every effort in to our recovery.

Some people will think that recovery is all about religion yet that is not so it is a spiritual recovery program which helps us heal and live a healthy life with or without any religious beliefs what so ever.

Our unity and our honesty is our strength, yes people will lie and not put enough time and energy in to their recovery and will blame other people for their failings.

Step four is not about who is right or wrong but more about what are healthy or unhealthy habits for us today.

Once any society takes withdraws religious education they cheat their society of spiritual guidance, spiritual guidance is what true recovery is all about.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham

aka Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person, yet I am not a religion person.

With all the questions on walking in to the spiritual recovery program was an indicator of how immature how inadequate how inept I was and how insecure I felt within myself.

I would like to think that when I got married that I was the only person with unresolved emotional baggage of my youth.

If I understand that depression anxiety worry nervousness and stress are all fear based issues do I understand that living in fear is not healthy.

Did I honestly think that people and life stressed me out, or was the truth simple I stressed myself, making mountains out of the simplest of mole ***.

Writing things down was an important part of my maturing and becoming accountable to myself, I talked recently with Shirley and after some discussions we understood that giving lines as children we both associated writing as punishment.

There is no doubt in my mind that I could not find recovery and healing on my own, it was simply not possible, I needed to hear other peolpes therapies to learn about myself.

Talking about money and gambling would get me o where healthy, yet I needed to cross that line and talk from the heart. To expose myself more and more with time.

Every religion has healthy spiritual guidance yet we can become healthy without religions I like many people questioned what is spiritual.

Spiritual Values stand alone from every religion known and are what our own conscience was based up on from birth and should be valued and embraced every day.

Spiritual actions and our spiritual values and our unconditional actions are unconditional loving and forgiving apologizing caring trusting patience tolerance humble sincere honest faithful loyal optimistic self assured punctual courteous respectful considerate grateful content productive creative sharing nurturing encouraging oneself and others.

If I betray deceive lie hurt or offend anyone I am going against spiritual values. I am also hurting myself.

When we were born we were completely fearless that is a spiritual value, when we were born we were completely honest that is a spiritual value, when we were born we were able to give of our self completely unconditionally that is a spiritual value, when we were born we were completely trusting that is a spiritual value.

If we were able to have those Spiritual Values already in our self earlier in our life then relearning those Spiritual Values can be done once more.

It is said that honesty is the best policy why did people find it hard to be honest, could it be that by being honest people associate being honest as being painful or being honest would cause abandonment leaving us feeling rejected unloved hurt or ridiculed.

It is possible to be honest without being cruel and not have an adverse effect on another person.

When we say we have forgiven some is that true, have we healed our pains and no longer fear or resent the person that caused us harm.

By buying and suppressing pains we become over sensitive an react in anger far too quickly.

People can be suppressive aggressives or they can burst out with uncontrolled rage, is either way healthy.

Sadly as I have leanred when people react in rage they often clam up afterwards and isolate themselves from other people, if we watch and see new born children they can show fearlessness and can make amends both quickly and effectively.

Because of my painful childhood I grew to fear emotional intimacy I was not able to or willing to expose that hurt child in me.

So today do I understand that reacting in anger is not healthy for me.

If I am angry I am not healing my pains, if I am angry I am not facing my fears, if I am angry I am having unreasonable expectations of other people or life.

The hardest pain to recognize was my expectations of life and people. That started from a very early age.

Before recovery I was afraid to be honest and accountable because as a child when I was honest I was often punished for being honest through physical pains emotional pains or due to humiliation or redicule.

I have survived some very cruel people in my life that caused me emotional abuse, physical abuse and sexual abuse, and I would say that with every pain caused on me the perpetrators also transferred their pains fears and frustrations on to me time and time again.

Today is that inner child completely healed, is that inner child completely fearless today, in mentioning abuse in my life am a victim wanting sympathy and pitty, or do I mention it because if I can heal from such painful traumatic experiences anyone else can do the same.

At what point in my life did I understand that my fears inhibited me from reaching my full potential. Is living in any kind of fear in any way healthy for me today.

Understanding anonymity and the reasons why it is important, if we admit that walking in to the spiritual recovery program we experienced pains that were not healed or resolved.

With every pain we experience in our life comes fears, did we understand that we went against our own conscience and against spiritual values, yes sadly it did not stop us continuing with our unhealthy habits.

So by us being honest to our self we reduce our internal fears, that it was no possible to talk from the heart about our feelings from day one.

So once we cross that invisible line move from war stories and talking about money to where we talk about our feelings we learn to articulate our self in a healthy non threatening way in a meeting.

I was talked in to doing a work shop in Calgary some years ago, before hand I lost all a**l retension the fear was so great in me.

I asked myself do I have notes, do I talk from the heart, do I ask people for questions I was an emotional mess for sure.

I did the work shop and today I am unable to tell you how I filled my time with those people yet one thing was very clear I was very much surprised by the number of people that wanted to thank me shake my hand and more importantly give me hugs.

Did what I say or do change another persons life, no yet I understand that every ones conscious decision to become healthy is all up to them, no me or spiritual recovery.

You can only get healthy when you admit to yourself that you are unhealthy, understanding that every unhealthy action or unhealthy words has unhealthy consequences.

I am very grateful for the spiritual recovery program, you start off by reading the text and books and over time that wisdom becomes part of my actions.

When someone said at meeting I do not have a gambling problem he said I have an emotional problem my reaction to that truth helped me so much.

The things I use to laugh at because of my nervous based fear system has changed I do not react in such a unhealthy volatile way to other peoples sharing.

One of the biggest impacts on my recovery were certain Lonon meetings which were both will and able to talk about therapies in more depth.

Meetings after meetings use to go on for some time afterwards because people felt so alive and excited at the new found understandings and new aspects about their own recovery.

I have now got my form to go to the UK 50th anniversary and I will probably be one the longer term people in the UK.

I am hoping that a lot of people that I knew in GA in 1969 wil be there, yet I know that would be unrealistic.

In my life there were some very spiritual people not all religious who gave off a sense of security and inner peace with in them self, at that time I did not understand what spiritual was all about and that a person can be spiritual yet not religious.

I think a lot of people are scared away from the spiritual recovery because people push religion on them, to imply that a person is unable to find recovery without being religious is detrimental to the name of spiritual recovery.

If I had walked in to the spiritual recovery and from that day everything went perfect for me every day I would not have got stronger in myself.

Abstaining was and is not enough for e on its own today, understanding that my recovery is dependant up on how well I understand deal with my emotional triggers.

I am excited when people ask questions and challenge the program, in fact when I chair when we read I ask people to comment on all aspects of the recovery program.

As we give our opinion and views of what each questions means to us we often see our self in other people both the healthy and unhealthy.

Sadly because I did not know how to read body language when I told people I had broken out I read other peoples body language as disappointment, when in fact they were often feeling for me and my pains.

No matter what happens in my life today I know I am not alone, due to illness I have for sure slowed down, it looks like I might have to get my prostate gland check dot also.

The more I love care protect and respect myself and the less fears I have I am able to love care and respect people close to me.

I use to break out on a regular basis gambling I even thought at what point why do I go to meetings, yet no matter how many times I broke out gambling I was told it was a lesson if I was willing to learn from each bet.

Step one is understanding my emotional triggers which caused me to escape in fear, when I could not cope with people and life, how much writing would I need to put to paper in order to get to know myself.

There was no one that could stop me gambling, that at the end of the day was going to be my conscious decision which was a form of boundary I was setting up for myself.

Today I am an emotional survivor, today I am able to face things that at one time made me mad and angry, today I am able to ask for help, today I am able to admit my ignorance, today I am able to be more patient and tolerant with myself, today I am able to more and more fearless.

In recovery we often think that because we are the same distance to people we know in recovery that we have not progressed, that is not so.

Every time I feel comfortable, every time I am able to be honest without being cruel, every time I put my hand out in friendship and give people hugs I am working my recovery program.

Why did it take me so long to understand that in the past I could not help myself, I was not stupid bad evil or dumb, when I walked in to the spiritual recovery in time I would understand that spiritual behavior had nothing to do about religion.

I am a non religious yet I am very spiritual, I use to think that humble spiritual people were weak people, how wrong could I have been.

If a person is secure in them self and in their own belief system or their religious belief they will not have a need to push their belief system on to other people.

In being sponsored by other people it is important that their sponsor name should remain anonymous and what they share more importantly should remain completely anonymous

When a person in recovery seeks advice it is also important they seek answers from as many people as possible because once any one commits to their actions the consequences of those actions become their own responsibility.

It is highly recommended that a sponsor does not take any credit what so ever for another persons progress and their recovery or their new found healthy habits, and the pace of a persons recovery is set by the person being sponsored.

I am so very grateful for the people who do very good healthy work behind the scenes of this web site.

Over the years people have been asked not to put graphics on this web site yet such wishes or requests fell on deaf ears, I have grown to respect this site.

How could it take me over twenty years to *****, surrender was easy and simple enough that by my addiction I was in spiritual decline and getting more and more unhealthy.

My life was emotionally unmanageable long before my addictions and obsessions.

Being in recovery is and was a very good investment of my time and my healthy interactions with other people.

I am finding being in doors resting is easier than I use to do, I think that I am more patient tolerant and caring towards myself these days.

Today I understand that healthy relationships are based up on my honesty, that if I have a facade or put on a show or lie to people I am hurting myself.

Every lie caused my fears to grow yet I could not be honest because I feared rejection and abandonment.

Every time I lied was an indicator of how much fear I was living in, and with each lie came more fear until I went in to panic mode and could not think things out straight or clearly.

Step one life being unmanageable was all about my emotional state of mind, my emotional triggers were pains fears frustrations loneliness and boredom.

Me being over sensitive and getting angry and resentful quickly over simple every day things was an indicator that there were pains and unresolved and unhealed trauma and pains of my past.

I was born completely fearless as a child and due to unhealthy pains and trauma they caused me to live in more and more fears.

For me today love is a healthy emotional intimate relationship with other people or with animals.

To love I started to understand that I needed to become completely fearless, and to accept that by being loving I am willing to give of myself unconditionally.

It took me even longer to understand my frustrations, my frustrations were due to my unhealthy unreasonable expectations of people and life, this was also tied to the fact that my actions towards other people were conditional that if I did something I expected something in return.

Sadly as a child I internalized so much of what unhealthy people did to me, I felt it was all about me.

So to do step one was about understanding my emotional triggers, to talk to a person before I gambled and best deal with my emotions before I hurt myself.

Boredom was a way of life for me not feeling content within myself, the recovery first taught me to think today I will not then once abstaining my thinking changed to today I WILL and overcome I became more productive, fulfilling my needs wants and goals.

I was in a state of self destruction before recovery taking my loved ones with me, everything in my life was going in to decline.

I am not alone today even when I am alone today, I speak from an emotional level, I know that when I feel vulnerable I make a telephone call to a healthy person in recovery.

Unhealthy actions have unhealthy consequences,

Healthy actions have healthy consequences, no actions on my part is I remain stuck being unhealthy and not improving my life and how I feel.

Calling myself evil stupid dumb bad useless and worthless is unhealthy and I am beating myself up emotionally and causing myself further pain which is unhealthy and detrimental to my recovery and I am emotionally humiliating undermining and belittling myself.

The “I have to” talking and thinking was an indicator that not all was well with me and that I was obsessive.

Only by understanding my wants needs and goals could I mature and become a healthier sufficient person day by day.

It took me attending over 4 meetings most weeks just to abstain from gambling, that was how vulnerable I was for over 30years.

For me to be healthy I understand I need to fulfill my wants needs and goals, physically and emotionally.

That is part of what being a healthy adult is all about.

To accept understand and surrender completely and in whole to the serenity prayer.

Gratitude is about healthy spiritual values yet people do not need to be religious to be healthy spiritual people. Often what we want from others we need to fulfill in our self.

Am I in touch with my inner child, do any of my family fear me today, can I be completely healthily honest with my family and my friends. Am I free to be emotionally intimate with all people. Does fear and doubt hold me back in any way with relationships today.

Do I avoid and fear any person what so ever today. Am I able to respect myself more than I respect all other people today. Do I respect other people or fear them in any way.

No one could stop me gambling, no one could stop me smoking, no one could stop me escaping in another form of addiction or obsession that was going to be my own conscious decision to want to become healthy and give up my unhealthy life of my past.

In sharing with many people I am very surprised how deep people can go these days, in talking about things I avoided facing over 20 - 30 years.

I am not a victim today I do not want pity or sympathy, I do not want people to do things for me that I can do for myself, I do not want to hear war stories or people go on about money and the gambling.

There are or were three unhealthy roles I played in my life, I was for sure a victim living in the pity of my pains of my past, I was also a perpetrator on to other people transferring my pains fears and frustrations on to other people, in recovery I was playing the rescuer rather than focus on the unhealthy parts of myself.

I do want people to show me how to do things I am often ignorant about myself, I want people to advise me the best day to do things in my life, I do enjoy the spiritual recovery program and feel like it is a second family to me.

I use to fear the opposite s*x, I use to fear my mother father step father and my wife, I use to fear being honest, I use to fear being accountable, I use to fear apologizing, I use to fear failure.

For me failure is not trying new things, failure is not trying to fulfill my wants and my needs, failure is not trying to plan and have goals.

For me failure is giving up all faith and hope in myself.

Being in control or controlling other people was a fear based issue, controlling other people was an indicator of how inept inadequate and insecure I was in myself.

The serenity prayer use to mean to me if I am a victim I am not able to change that fact, I set boundaries if people do not respect my boundaries I walk away from those unhealthy people.

Boundaries is not about controlling other people, boundaries are about me valuing myself, I use to say that I wanted to be normal now I found that supposedly normal is not a very high standard.

So for me the spiritual recovery program is about raising the bar each day, not to impress or person please or get approval but for me to understand that each day I do the very best at whatever I do.

The start of my recovery was Just for today I WILL not gamble.

Next step and part of my recovery was Just for today I WILL not smoke.

Next part of my recovery was Just for today I WILL not get drunk.

Next part of my recovery was Just for today I WILL put every effort and time in to my steps my spiritual recovery and open up more.

My recovery great change was moving from I WILL not to I WILL.

Today I WILL is about moving in baby steps to become the person I knew I could be.

I now understand that it is possible for me to heal from pain today.

For me to heal from pain I had to give up most forms of unhealthy living and stop undermining myself in every way.

One of the things I sought was approval from other people, that was due to my unreasonable expectations of other people from a very early age.

Seeking unreasonable expectations of other people caused me a lot of pain and was not healthy, so in time my lack of confidence lack of self esteem, my lack of values was replaced with me doing healthy actions saying healthy words and paying myself compliments and giving myself approval.

How can a person feel guilty for someone being kind to you, how can a person feel embarrassed for someone paying a compliment to me, how can a person feel uncomfortable being kind to yourself and for fulfilling your own wants and needs and having healthy goals.

You can take away the money and fuel for the addiction from someone yet you can take away the desire in me to want to gamble, today at this minute I do not want or need to gamble.

Today I am emotionally detached from gambling I do not hate it or love it, it is just nothing to me.

In hating anything or anyone in my life I only hurting myself.

In resenting anything or anyone in my life I only hurting myself.

The serenity prayer helps me understand what I can change and those things I am unable to change, for the fear filled control freak in me it was not something I did want to accept or listen to.

It sounds strange that by giving up unhealthy control gives you gain more control and healthy choices in your life today.

Before mum died last year I saw her laugh, I saw her cry, I saw her with a glint in her eye and I even saw that little girl in her.

I was able to stroke her head and when she was hot I was able to bathe her head with a cool face clothe, I can only say that most of my life I was not there for her physically or emotionally.

Yet before she died I knew that I saw and felt that little hurt girl in her being at peace with herself and with the world.

As a person fades away the material things in our life are no longer important, knowing that loved ones are there for you is the most important thing in their life.

My trust of Shirley my wife has nothing to do about her and everything to do about me and my own security.

To be fearless and spiritual is very healthy.

To be fearless is an indicator that I have healed the pains and emotional trauma of my past experiences.

I did not have a clue how lonely and isolated I was before my spiritual recovery, I could not even admit the simple things like I was frightened of the post man, I was frightened of the telephone ringing and I was frightened of strangers coming to our home.

As I opened up more I become slightly more comfortable with going in to meetings, yet felt very uncomfortable about some abusive foul mouthed bitter twisted aggressive confrontational people who were not willing or not able to heal their pains, face their fear or face their own frustrations.

I now understand that I could not do spiritual recovery on my own, it is like expecting a defective computer to repair itself.

I used to be like a rat in a wheel going faster and faster getting nowhere, and yet could not see or feel that what I was doing all the time was a complete waste of time and energy it was a very unhealthy self destructive activity in my addictions and obsessions.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave L Calgary

AKA Dave of Beckenham

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person each day, yet I am not a religion person.

The time and effort I put in to my recovery means that I am today less likely to go back to unhealthy habits.

By me being more honest my relationship improves with myself and with other people, some of the people in the spiritual recovery feel uncomfortable with my kind of honesty and the emotional intimacy I share with them.

By me talking about my past is not about blame it is not about venting my pains fear or frustrations on to other people.

By me sharing about the pains of my past I help people understand that I was a victim long before my addictions and obsessions, I use to fear going to school and use to fear going home, what kind of life is that.

I was so insecure that I feared the opposite s*x, I now understand that fear was due to the fact that when I talked to the opposite s*x, they were not laughing at me they were giggling because they were nervous creatures yet I internalized that for a large part of my life.

Was I in pain when I walked in to the spiritual recovery program, yes i was emotionally traumatized in so many ways, I could understand or explain what i was feeling or thinking.

I was unable to articulate my feelings in a healthy way, I was a very lost inadequate insecure people, after over eleven counsellors and many decades writing my therapies on many web sites I am now able to heal my pains today.

I am also able to face my fears and no longer go in to panic mode, I do not want or need to lie today about anything, I know that every lie causes me to live in fear once more.

Every painful experience in my life caused me to live in so many fears, abandonment was a big one, there was lots of emotional abandonment in my life because people were with draw emotional intimacy because they could not deal with how they felt within them self and of course there was physical abandonment which would I was also suffering emotional abandonment.

When I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I was chewing my thumb nails down till they bled, my legs were twitching because I was living on my nerves all of the time.

I was lying to myself and other people long before my addictions and obsessions took hold of me, the addictions and obsessions were an indicator that I was not able to cope with life and people.

I was in a lot of physical pain last night and took a pain killer which is something I do not like to do, my eating habits are much healthier today.

How sad that I use to think that by smoking would release me of stress, it never did that, smoking was a crutch I use to use because I could not cope with life and people.

By me smoking I self abusing myself, smoking was going to reduce the quality of my life in my later years.

I am glad that I am being healthy in my eating habits because of my extra weight I was being told that I was going to be a diabetic in the future, I am able to listen to good advice and learning from life experiences from other healthy growing people since willingly being in the spiritual recovery program.

I really did not have a choice to stop gambling without being the spiritual recovery program, it was by my own actions that I grew healthier.

Being a victim is more than just being hurt and living in the pains of my past, being a victim is not being able to speak up for yourself from a healthy place, being a victim is feeling that nothing I did or said would change my destiny in my life, being a victim is feeling disconnected from another people and feeling alone most of my life, being a victim is not being able to have emotional intimacy with other people.

Being a victim is not being able to learn from my mistakes, being a victim is feeling that any thing you do or say is waste of time.

Did I believe those people when they told me they were 1 day to ten years off gambling, of course I did not believe them it because I felt it was impossible to abstain from being a compulsive gambler for even one day today.

Yet being the spiritual recovery program I found out that I needed to abstain before I could recover and heals the pains of my past, when I was in action I was causing myself pain and it is not possible to ehal from pain if you are still hurting yourself.

So for me the spiritual recovery program enabled me to abstain, once I was abstaining only then can healing work for me, yet the spiritual recovery program was not going to fix me, the spiritual recovery program was going help me help myself, the more work I did in my recovery the sooner I would learn and the sooner I would grow healthier.

The spiritual recovery program is only a manual from which we all learn to live healthier lives, the reason it is anonymous is because in order for us to learn to trust once more, our honesty in recovery needed to be respected and that what I shared in recovery should not be repeated outside of the rooms.

My success today is not based up money on how much I have or how much money I do not have, but my recovery is based up on how healthy I am in my relationship with other people.

As I get healthier people are less afraid to be honest with me and are able to talk about thing to do with life and our experiences.

Setting up boundaries and setting up goals were big decisions for me to make about my direction in life, I felt so limited on walking in to the rooms of the spiritual recovery program, there were times however I felt very frustrated with the rooms because people living in their pasts.

I could nothing about my fears until I was willing and able to recognize all of my fears simply one at a time.

Even though fear was a way of self preservation, fear was going to limit me in achieving anything worthwhile in my life and with my time.

The spiritual recovery program was very much baby steps for me, first of all it was all about just for today I will not gamble, then as I got stronger it was all about just for today I will do or say something healthy.

Admitting I was ignorant took some time for me to do, I had put up a facade for so long I tried very hard to appear confident and in control of my life, that was all a big lie.

It took me far too long to learn and understand that life being unmanageable had nothing to do about money, that life being unmanageable was about me not being able to cope emotionally with life challenges and other people.

I use to think that I was responsible for how other people felt, that started from a very early age feeling that my mother and father aggression and confrontation was all about me.

Today I have been resting and I had a lung function test which showed that my lunges are not as good as they could be.

I use to fear getting old and living and use to fear dying, today I am excited at being able to get healthy once more.

I use to live in fear of dentists and doctors, now I take it all in my own pace.

Whenever I take the easy option in life I am cheating myself, when I use to tell lies I had no choice but to live in my fears.

I use to fear living and now I am excited by life and getting things done, today by working the spiritual recovery program I have grown more talents and skills in facing life and people and feel less inept in myself in so many ways.

The spiritual recovery program gives us healthy choices each day, I could only do the spiritual recovery program only when I was truly ready for it.

When I was willing to get work done today, spiritual recovery became real for me.

I like many people went to GA because I had run out of excuses and I had been found it far too many times.

I would say that the spiritual recovery helps you become healthier than what we would call normal people, there are things I would not or say today, not because I am trying to impress people, it is I set boundaries that I am not willing to hurt another person in any way.

I do not fear or hate gambling establishments today, I would like to think that I am emotionally detached from all ways of gambling, I do not want or need to gamble today.

Step one understanding my emotional triggers, my being over sensitive and my pains caused me to be angry, being angry was a reaction to my pains my fears and my frustrations.

Step one understanding my emotional triggers pains fear frustrations loneliness and boredom, today I can say one thing I am not bored in any way, I am very productive with my time, yet sadly over recent days I have on the go for about over 16 hours and did feel in my body.

Being 67 years of age I am far more productive than I was in my unhealthy life, yet I often thought that gambling days were not lived, they were very much unhealthy wasted times.

What is spiritual that was the question I often asked myself, today I understand that spiritual times are very healthy and interactive times with another healthy person or with a healthy animal.

Spiritual Values stand alone from every religion known and are what our own conscience was based up on from birth and should be valued and embraced every day.

Spiritual actions and our spiritual values and our unconditional actions are unconditional loving and forgiving apologizing caring trusting patience tolerance humble sincere honest faithful loyal optimistic self assured punctual courteous respectful considerate grateful content productive creative sharing nurturing encouraging oneself and others.

If I betray deceive lie hurt or offend anyone I am going against spiritual values. I am also hurting myself.

When we were born we were completely fearless that is a spiritual value, when we were born we were completely honest that is a spiritual value, when we were born we were able to give of our self completely unconditionally that is a spiritual value, when we were born we were completely trusting that is a spiritual value.

If we were able to have those Spiritual Values already in our self earlier in our life then relearning those Spiritual Values can be done once more.

It is said that honesty is the best policy why did people find it hard to be honest, could it be that by being honest people associate being honest as being painful or being honest would cause abandonment leaving us feeling rejected unloved hurt or ridiculed.

It is possible to be honest without being cruel and to not have an adverse effect on another person in any way or form.

When we have healthy spiritual interactions with people it makes those healthy moments very special and those moments can be the high lights of our life.

Did I feel I could stop gambling on my own, I might have felt that way but it was not true for me and deep down I was willing to give up faith and hope in myself far too easy in those unhealthy days and times.

Gambling had such a hold on me that I felt that I could not survive life and people without gambling.

I would say that I escaped to gamble yet could not admit my fears to myself, I could not admit that had certain emotional triggers.

In the spiritual recovery program I learned that when I gambled I was very unhealthy, that I use to lie to escape responsibility,

Only when I could admit to myself that when I was gambling I was like the rat in the wheel going faster and faster getting nowhere, I could see or feel how unhealthy I was.

Only when I saw myself in others could I see that me being that rat in the wheel going faster and faster getting nowhere was a complete waste of time and energy.

In the spiritual recovery program I learned that I was a very inept inadequate insecure immature hurt child that did not grow up, one of many of the indicators that I was immature was sulking when I could not get my way, not being able to be responsible for my healthy and unhealthy actions and my healthy and unhealthy words and to be responsible for the consequences of my healthy and unhealthy actions and my healthy and unhealthy words.

The spiritual recovery program was only going to ask me to be honest that is all and own up to the healthy and unhealthy actions of my past in by doing so I was going to be able to be myself in so many ways.

I was for sure a victim of unhealthy actions in my childhood, my emotional wants and needs were not fulfilled, I was also not protected from unhealthy people.

So in being accountable for my unhealthy actions I was going to feel my own pains as I learned to heal pain and no longer suppress pains it I was going to be free to be myself.

When I often cried i was not crying for the adult in me I was crying for that little child who was not able to cope with his pains any more.

Do I live a facade in any way today, do I pretend I am fine today that nothing in my life goes pear shaped, are there high walls of fear around me today, do I feel I no longer have any say of my future life events.

Being a victim I felt that nothing I did or said would change my future that everything was just down to luck and other people, did that really sound healthy to me in those days.

We have once again listened to more of Bryan Tracey about achievements and how we can change our life to achieve more.

Yet it all depends on what our wants needs and goals are today, if we do not write them down I am not able to stay focused on them, in writing things down is being accountable to myself in so many ways.

For me today anger is an unhealthy way to live my life, being over sensitive and getting angry at everything and everyone was just an indicator of the pains buried and suppressed in me that were bottled up like a pressure cooker in me and had not been healed or resolved.

Rage was just the way of releasing all of that pent up pain and was self destructive of myself and I hurt other people with my rage.

Having a conscience was an indicator that deep within me I had spiritual values, sadly when people are faced with huge fears and are in panic mode they will do or say anything to escape the situations they find them self in.

It sounds a contradiction that we are unable to explain to other people why we escaped in our addictions and obsessions.

People think we are selfish in our self destructive ways, yet are we selfish, do we buy things for our self do we go to the dentist on regular times, do we dress in our best cloths, do we felt guilt when people are nice and kind to us.

Because of the unhealthy guilt and shame of our past we feel we are not worthy yet did we not feel worthy not before our addictions and obsessions.

In the gambling establishments I gave away good holidays, I gave away good cloths, I gave away the cost of a good home, if someone took those things from me forcibly surely I would feel pain of that theft.

Yet I wasted so much time and money, yet today the time is what is very precious to me, I do not know today how many times went to bed crying in the pains of me being so unhealthy.

Shirley forgave me long before I forgave myself, Shirley is much healthier than I am even today, Shirley is a very giving persona and expects nothing in return, the only things she ask of me is to be honest each day. That is not too much to ask for is it.

The spiritual recovery program was not going to control me or my life, it was the exact opposite, the spiritual recovery program was going to help me hep myself, the spiritual recovery program was going to ask me to be honest just a little to start with.

The 20 twenty questions were very simple enough yet could I be honest with myself from day one, no, the questions remains exactly the same, yet as my answers changed as I got more honest with myself.

By being honest in the spiritual recovery program rooms I was going to grow in myself, today I talk about each one of the twenty questions and my answers.

As the honesty grows in the spiritual recovery program rooms at each meeting that honesty makes us all stronger and I feel less afraid and more trusting in myself.

In time that honesty came in to my life and with my family, does Shirley fear me in any way today, do I fear talking about any avenue of my life, am I able to be myself today, is that healed little child in me able to come out and play once more today.

Is my main focus money today, is money all I value today.

I use to react in anger to gambling establishments I felt that made me gamble.

I now know that no one made me do things if I did not want to do them, to change my thinking and motives in to working recovery was a very challenging change of events.

Come to believe is very much a trust fear based issue very much due to the fact I use to feel so immature insecure and inadequate within myself.

The spiritual recovery program was going to change how much I value myself each day, the spiritual recovery program was going to help me help myself to become healthier during a slow healing process.

Step one is most important step of them all to understand, to accept that the gambling establishments did not beat me up I beat myself, to accept that I was unhealthy and that when I escaped in any way of form I was avoiding life and people in my life.

For me step one is about understanding my emotional triggers, when and why did I try to escape how I felt within myself.

For me my emotional triggers were my pains I could not heal, my emotional triggers were my fears I could not able to face, my emotional triggers were my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations and my unreasonable expectations life.

For me my pains my fears and my frustrations caused me to react in an angry way which caused me to hurt myself and other people and adverse my relationship with them.

For me my emotional triggers were also my feelings of loneliness and my feelings of boredom, my feelings of loneliness were due to me isolating myself from any close intimacy with other people.

Being very productive with every minute of my day I have very little time to have feelings of boredom, I would say that now I am more healthy spiritual and more productive than at any other time in my life.

Only once I understood my emotional triggers was I able to say that my life was more emotionally stable than for many decades even before i was consumed by my addictions and obsessions.

One very emotional time for me was Christmas, I was with 15 people all friends and people and I felt lonely standing there, I knew it was all down to me and how little effort I put in to my relationships and how much I held back with emotional intimacy with other people.

In recent times I am able to take healthier paths in my life, I have far more choices today and the very last thing I want or need to do is gamble.

Those very relaxed healthy interactive times we spend in the spiritual recovery program help us face the times when our steel is being tested during every day tested events.

The spiritual recovery program is a learning curve, slow baby steps first of all but once a person becomes motivated in healthy ways it is a life changer.

From reading text from books we get to feel comfortable being in recovery, being honest becomes an everyday way of life, till people reach a point where they gives therapies from the heart.

The therapies coming from the heart indicates we are comfortable being our self, we start to understand that we were not evil bad or dumb people but were just very unhealthy in our habits.

Once I give healthy therapies from the heart it demonstrates how I deal with unhealthy situation in my life.

When we hear this kind of honesty we see our self in other people both the healthy and unhealthy aspects of our self.

I was completely consumed and filled with fears long before my addictions and my obsessions, in recognizing my fears facing the worst fear first of all as we face each fear each fear after that one becomes easier and easier.

I had many different levels and degrees of fears in my earlier years, fear of rejection, fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear of change, fear of being honest, fear of being hurt, fear of aggression and confrontation, fear of people getting to know the real me.

The spiritual recovery program just happens to be a place where several people meet so that they can find a healthier way of living and they are able to learn from other people healthy and unhealthy experiences in life and in dealing with people and life events.

Even when I am alone I am not alone, so I no longer feel vulnerable when I am on my own, I have set up boundaries that say that I value myself and that today I worth caring loving and respecting myself.

I use to say to myself oh who cares any way, at that point I was saying to myself I am not caring and loving towards myself, it is only by my actions that say I vale and care about myself today.

When I use to be abused physically emotionally and in other ways there was no one there to protect me, in moving from victim I needed to take charge of my life.

Today I am a survivor and I am willing to protect myself, it took me over two years in Karate to learn that I feared aggression and confrontation.

That feared of aggression and confrontation came from my child hood by people bullying each other, today bullying of any form is not acceptable in my life today.

So for me the spiritual recovery program is guide to learning how to live a much healthier life without wanting to escape in any way or form.

I am able to face life and people in a healthy way, there was a time when I thought and felt that spiritual people were weak people, how wrong could I be.

Today am I willing and voluntarily fulfilling my wants needs and my goals, do I have my lists of things I need to do lists of things I want to do and lists of goals I want to do in some time in the future.

If people were able to be in my head as I was over 43 years ago people would have given me any kind of chance of becoming healthy.

Last night I had a discussion with someone about rage taking over, that was me at one time, because I was unable to heal the severe pains of my past I use to lash out in many ways wanting to transfer my pains fears and frustration on to other people.

Did I really want people to fear me, fear is not respecting me.

When I apologize it is not about who is right or wrong but more about repairing relations with people in my life.

The spiritual recovery program is a guide which helps us all find healthier paths in our life, for me recovery means healing and getting healthier, dealing with life and people in a much healthier way.

Another wording is self awareness, understanding how I ticked, some people will find recovery too much and will give up on them self far too quickly, some people will even think that spiritual recovery is only about abstaining without learning what their emotional triggers are all about.

For me the more time and effort I put in to my recovery, the less likely I am going to return back to my addictions and obsessions, the more people I share with or sponsor with which is a two way street for me, the less likely I am going back to unhealthy habits.

Even today I am most certainly a person of habits, the important thing was to exchange unhealthy habits in to healthy habits with slow baby steps.

I use to fear computers and today the computers are a very useful tool for me to learn with, to do lists, spread sheets with finances all laid out nice and clearly for me to see, appointment reminders, sharing with my thoughts and feelings each day, communicating with people I know.

Do I heal my pains today, do I face my fears today, do I reduce my expectations of life and people today, do I make sure I have a healthy spiritual interactions with other people today so that I no longer feel lonely today, am I able to be emotionally intimate with other people today, am I actively busy in my life fulfilling my wants needs and goals today.

Am I patient and tolerant with myself today, do I any way give myself approval and say to myself I did a good job of doing that, and do I do my best at everything I do today.

When it was explained to me that a dysfunctional person family was one that escapes responsibility and will do or say anything to not accept responsibility for their own actions.

We are asked to be open minded even if we do or do not believe in any faith, we are asked to listen and learn from our experiences and our knowledge yet does that mean we are right, no hopefully I learned that I could not become spiritually healthy on my own.

Spiritual values are often demonstrated to us and when a person is spiritually healthy we feel comfortable with those healthy kind of people.

Is control fear based, is stress fear based, is anxiety fear based, is nervousness fear based, is procrastination fear based.

The experts tell me it is healthy to be angry, well for me being angry helps me understand that I am unable to heal my pains, being angry helps me understand that I am unable to face my fears, being angry helps me understand that I am unable to let go of my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

On arriving in to the spiritual recovery program, my motives were often unhealthy in our reluctance, my motives were often conditional, and that also went along with me not valuing myself or other people, because I did not value myself.

Was I a victim before my gambling and my drinking, and if I knew what it felt like I was the victim and how painful it was why would I pass on my pains on to my own family how cruel is that.

Sadly long before I lost my money in the gambling establishments I felt like a victim and a loser and had low self esteem and low self worth and did not like or love myself.

The spiritual recovery program would help me help myself, what did that mean if you need some or something did that imply I was weak, that I was stupid or did not have a clue how to be mature and responsible.

How can that be when it asks me to hand over all money and fiancs to another person, how can that be helpful for me, well I needed to understand that I could not be trusted at the beginning of my recovery and often money was the fuel or the trigger to go to my addictions.

It would take a long time to recognize my emotional triggers and my emotional vulnerability and understand that I was emotional vulnerable from a very early age.

That in time that hurt child would come out and the painful memories of my child hood would be healed and nurtured.

The clue to the fact how do I know a painful traumatic event has been healed and set to rest, is that when I think about that event it is no longer painful yet I can feel sadness and that helps me understand that hurt child is at peace with that event.

Whenever I got angry I caused myself stress, whenever I got angry I was reacting to pains I could not heal, I was reacting to fears I could not face, I was reacting to my unreasonable expectations of other people through my frustrations.

If we understand that spiritual values and spiritual actions are healthy interactions between people and people and people and animals then we can understand that there is no healthy spiritual interactions between us and machines and between us and plastic chips or even spiritual interactions between us and material things in our life.

So are addictions and obsessions the same thing, for me addictions and obsessions are both methods I escape in fear when I am not able to interact with other people in a healthy way.

In my recovery I would learn once more how to have emotional intimacy with people and feel comfortable with in myself.

Addictions and obsessions often put me well out of the balance in my life.

So I understand now that I found that adrenaline rush made me feel like I was alive and use to think that life was very boring.

The truth I was living on the edge of my nerves and was always stressing myself out long before my addiction and obsessions, besides not caring about myself or loving myself I did not respect myself or respect other people.

I was born completely honest, I was born completely free of all fears, I was born to give of myself completely and unconditionally, I was born completely trusting of all people in my life.

It is possible to relearn those spiritual values once more that we were born with and be able to be completely honest once more, that I can relearn how to heal and nurture my own pains and face my own fears.

Healthy unconditional actions have healthy consequences; one of those consequences of healthy actions is pride faith and confidence in oneself which is the opposite of unhealthy actions with unhealthy consequences, guilt shame and embarrassment.

What are my wants and needs and my goals today, do I write them down, is money the most important thing in my life today, I understand that more money gives me more choices but money on its own will not give me happiness.

How could I possible believe that money was such an important thing in my life and that healthy relationships were not that important after all.

How do people measure their success in their life today.

At what point in my life would I understand how important it was that I was to fulfill my own wants and needs yet not at other peoples expense.

It is important to learn that being honest and sincere without hurting another person is very important to my relationship with myself and other people.

Self sufficiency is an important adult value, and every country should be self sufficient in fulfilling their own wants and needs so as to survive in healthy living.

As a young child I use to live in fear of going home and use to fear going to school so where and how could I possibly feel free of my fears.

I am much more confident than the first day I walked in to the spiritual recovery program, I went through a stage where I felt I was very arrogant about my path in my recovery.

I think a time will come when there will make a section of recovery based on spiritual values only, and not try to push any kind of religion on to new members.

Part of maturing and spiritual growth is that out steel is often being tested, once we start working the twelve steps, once we start work on recovery we will be tested on a regular basis.

I now understand that as an adult and as a father it was my responsibility to fulfill my sons wants and needs up to a certain age and then it was my responsibility to help him fulfill his own wants and needs so that he could become self sufficient with his own family.

The wording in red book step three “Gamblers anonymous is a spiritual program, it is not a religious fellowship.”

I now understand that people do not stress me out, it is my reaction to other people that causes me stress.

The spiritual recovery program and speaking to sponsors is a two way street if I am willing to listen and learn.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham

AKA Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person, yet I am not a religion person.

Step one understanding my emotional triggers, how long did it take me to understand that my addictions and obsessions were just symptoms that I could not cope with how I felt within myself.

It is not strange that I would say that I wanted to escape yet not be able to identify my fears.

How often do people switch from one addiction to another, or switch from one obsession to another obsession, when would I admit to myself that I was the problem.

When is a person ready for counseling, for me it was when my fears were reduced and I was willing to listen and share myself with other people.

Why did it take me so long to learn and understand I feared emotional intimacy, is that fear of intimacy due to many kinds of abuse in my life, at what point would I learn to trust once more and have healthy relationships without suspicion and mistrust causing me to hold back from having health time and healthy spiritual interactions.

Once you become healthy you n longer live on the edge of your nerves, the stress is reduced and I often remind people to trust their instincts yet not live in constant fear.

People will come and go and not put enough effort in to their recovery, I like many people walked in to the spiritual recovery program with an attitude I am here now fix me, it was never going to happen that way.

It is by our new found healthy actions and our healthy words that will change how we feel about our self, step four is not about us beating our self up, step four is about recognizing both the healthy and unhealthy habits of our past and learn from them.

People have told me that I am a very selfish person, they seem very surprised when I completely agree with them, yes I am selfish in a very healthy way, this issue about addictions is a very serious life threatening issue and needs to be taken seriously.

People find it strange that people are laughing in the spiritual rooms of recovery, how often people question that those people laughing are really compulsive gamblers, we are and have been through some very painful times in our lives.

Yet today we understand we are survivors who no longer live in fear every day, we have learned to be healthier people today, we will often see and hear our self in other people and because we have forgiven our self we are able to laugh at our self today.

The spiritual rooms of recovery is a place where we learn about our self if we are willing to listen, there was an old saying that people use to say take the cotton wool out of your ears and put it in your mouth.

Not that is not a very complimentary comment in any way, yet at what point was I willing to listen to healthy advice and how would I learn to trust other people once more.

The spiritual recovery program is a place where my life started not ended, yet it only happen I made the decision that life in my addictions was far too painful and I wanted to live a healthy life today, just one day at a time.

It was suggested when I was younger that I should engage my brain before using my mouth, now the person was not trying to hurt or offend me, it was good advice, because what often came of my mouth was not what I was thinking, it was more of my unhealthy reaction to life and people.

How much time and energy am I willing to invest and put in to being healthy and productive today.

Before my spiritual recovery I was very affective in my work, that work was a way of fulfilling my basic needs, yet beyond work I was very ineffective as an adult, as a husband father and son.

The question I asked of myself how could it be that I could do such a good job, yet feel so helpless and unhealthy regards my addictions and my obsessions.

I questioned if I was stupid mad or just plain evil, my conscience told me that lying was unhealthy, yet I still did it.

Lying was unhealthy and was a betrayal of people trust towards me, with each lie comes fears and of course pains from my own conscience, as the fears grew I became less and less connected with other people.

I am very grateful today for who I am where I am and how I am growing maturing and becoming healthier in myself.

My reaction in pain fear and frustrations caused me to be aggressive and confrontational often transferring my pains my fears and my frustrations on to people did not deserve my cruelty.

You will often hear people say that they do not care what people think of them, is that correct, is that what we truly believe in our self.

Os is that a point in time when we are saying we do not care about our self anymore and that we are going to do or say something unhealthy that will adversely affect me and people around me, am I justifying my unhealthy actions.

Am I in any way person pleasing today, what are my motives, do I think I need to pretend to be someone or something else to gain friends in my life.

There is no doubt in my mind that my belief system has changed since me being in the spiritual recovery program,

My questions on first arriving in recovery were due to my insecurities and my being so inept in myself, yet it would take some to admit to myself that the gambling and the alcohol were not my problem I was the problem.

It was going to take me over 23 years to understand step one, to understand my emotional triggers, my unhealthy reaction to my pains my fears my frustration my loneliness and my boredom.

Before I entered the spiritual recovery program I was so vulnerable yet would not admit to myself or other people, in the spiritual recovery program I would learn to quote text yet not put that text in to practice in my life.

You cross that line where you tell war stories and then open up and expose who you truly are, that is when the words out of our mouths become therapies, that little hidden hurt child who lives in fears today and they gains a voice and we learn to articulate our self in a healthy way.

It is important that I do not gamble today, it is important that I give up all forms of self abuse in order for me to respect myself today.

Giving up gambling was not about gambling, giving up getting drunk was not about alcohol, giving up smoking was not about cigarettes, it was learning to respect my body and myself emotionally.

The spiritual recovery program is about an emotional healing process, as well and becoming healthier in my habits and my ways of life.

I use to think and feel that spiritual people were in fact weak people, how more ignorant could I be.

There were some beliefs in my childhood that I laugh at today and sadly people use to think that cruelty will program a person in to healthy habits.

There was an excessive amount of physical abuse in my life yet the most shattering and declining cause in my self esteem and my respect was done from emotional redicule and humiliation.

Some people think and do feel that internal serenity is about not taking control and not changing our life.

I did two years of karate training to understand that I feared aggression and confrontation, during that time I remained a white belt and never took any grades.

New people use to think they could take advantage of my lower grade white belt that was often corrected very quickly.

I was a cunning fighter keep backing off until people moved forward in to my punch and their momentum caused greatest impact.

I walked in to a unknown pub in the UK and a complete stranger man along the bar counter told me he did not want to fight me and he did not even know me.

This comment made me think did my stance expose my karate experience, once I questioned him he had already read my personality and knew I was a sneaky fighter, yet I was fair.

During the two years of karate fighting and it was painful at times yet very much self rewarding if you join club with very strict disciplines.

The reason I did not take grades a man I met went for all grades and once when attacked in London he was attacked by four people armed with offensive weapons.

Even though he fought in self defence he was charged because of his karate training one person did not deserve to die from him defending himself.

That stuck with me, and now I understand that belt did not mean I needed to get approval or indicators of how much I could do if I set my mind to it.

I also used Ikido which was ideal for ladies as it uses other persons energy and force against their attackers.

There is nothing I can or say that will make another person be motivated in a healthy way, if they choose not to.

If people saying that I am fine and it is not true any person that says that is lying to them self also.

How important is showing gratitude and appreciation, for who we are and what we receive, it demonstrates not only do we value more than money or material things but it also means we value our self and our lives.

Most days I have lists of wants and needs, they are planned out days before, they are sequenced in the most efficient way I can do.

Sadly people who have been caused some very deeply traumatized often will not completely come out of it and will not be able to operate and fulfill their wants and needs physical and emotional.

On a daily basis it is important for me to write down each of the following, out of ten my pains not healed, out of ten my fears not faced, out of ten my frustrations not resolved, out of ten how loneliness do I feel today, out of ten how much do I feel bored, in that why am I not motivated those things I know I need to do.

Some of those healthy spiritual people in my life were not religious and some were, the important message this is they helped me on every step of myself in myself discovery.

Those people helped me understand more about what healthy spiritual values were about learning to be more caring sharing nurturing and encouraging and helped me help myself.

Step twelve is about us all demonstrating healthy spiritual actions and words to other people in and out of the rooms.

For me each day healthy spiritual growth is not about not gambling but more about healthy living.

Fear and emotional trauma caused me to exist in a fog of confusion and panic today, panic was just an indicator of how much fear I was inhibited by in at that time, I am more than about just not gambling today.

Life being unmanageable for me was when I was less than seven years of age, life being unmanageable for me was when as a child I was not protected, life being unmanageable for me was when as a child I felt unwanted unloved unnurtured and uncared about.

Life being unmanageable for me was when as a child I was not able to heal my pains and face my fears, fears also stopped me living my life to the full.

Life being unmanageable for me was not about the money or the obsessions, being unmanageable for me was not being able to cope emotionally, that whenever I had pains I could not heal, fears I could not or would not face, frustrations due to my expectations due to my unreasonable expectations of people I caused myself pains.

When I felt also vulnerable was about abandonment issues from my childhood and boredom due to the fact I was not healthy productive with all of my time.

Once I gave up and abstained from gambling I also decided to give up being obsessive, my wording I have to do this I have to do that was obsessive often putting my life out of balance.

Computers were also a way of escaping or my life being controlled by television programs.

I watch television when I need to rest or relax.

Today I understand that panic mode was an indicator that fears in me were far too high, once the fears were faced and reduced the likelihood of going in to panic was reduced more and more.

That panic mode was is when I am not able to think clearly and that I just reacted in a very unhealthy way and not able to think clearly no matter how much common sense was talked to me it was almost like the shutters were down on me hearing or seeing nothing in an common sense way.

Certainly my belief system has changed over time, that is healthy and has helped me be more secure and healthy in my life.

Understanding that healthy interaction with all people is a spiritual thing and has nothing to do about religion for me, every healthy memory in my life was a healthy spiritual interaction helps me understand what was healthy or now addictions and obsessions were unhealthy.

I am today a person of increasing healthy habits, when I hurt or offend people with or without intent I am willing to say sorry not because of who is right or wrong but because I have to live with the consequences of my own actions.

I have spent far to long feeling guilty or ashamed of myself and am willing to do anything to improve how I feel about myself.

In making amends I felt the pains of my words and my actions, being able to feel my pain is part of the healing process, to be able to cry and let those stresses out of my life.

In making amends it can be done directly or indirectly some people find a letter of apology gives them time to articulate their feelings in more details.

As my fears fade I am able to live a healthier life day by day, to be myself who ever that is today.

The serenity helps me understand that even though there will be some very unhealthy people I meet in my life with very unhealthy beliefs I really cannot afford to react in an unhealthy way for it adversely affects my tranquility and peace with myself.

In the spiritual recovery program I was able over time to see the unhealthy habits in other people that I use to do and say, it is not my place to change another persons habits or beliefs, in fact as we become healthier and not react in fear anger to those people it will unsettle those unhealthy people because they do not get the response they want.

In the spiritual recovery program I was able to make a conscious decision that my old unhealthy habits need to be changed in to healthy habits and that takes time along with a healthy spiritual sponsor.

If you are able to feel a person is free of all fears and is very respectful towards all people both in the outside world and in their home then that is one of the spiritual values you look for in a sponsor and also a sponsor that is patient and tolerant with himself and does not beat himself up.

Some people view serenity prayer as limiting us and that is not so, if we feel we are being threatened or offended in any kind of way it is important for us to speak out sooner or later either wise we finish remaining in silence and remaining a victim and speaking out can be done directly or indirectly by our words from a healthy place or by a letter or even by calling police.

A perpetrator will often not listen to logic, with those people it is my way or the highway, that is very much fear based controlling and narrow minded thinking and reacting.

Is a boundary controlling other people not at all, boundary setting is about how much we values our self. We will change other peoples thinking, yet we do not want people to fear us.

Some people may think my life is boring and sad yet in my mind both I and Shirley have a place or peace and comfort and some people might think that we are selfish, yet our place of peace today is important to a stable life.

This last visit helped me understand and feel the pains of my past because in sharing I was able to once more apologize for my unhealthy reactions of my past.

I have been in the spiritual recovery program over 44 years, I am glad that I was a compulsive gambler for without the spiritual recovery program I would never been able to see and learn how unhealthy I was in my life and see how much I was missing from my life.

Serenity prayer helps us understand that the only thing that limits us having a healthy life is us, our self, that it is possible to heal from pains of our past that fears can be faced and we can ask us what is the worst that can happen if I put my hand out in peace, what if I ask for help, what if I say I am sorry, or even say sorry I do not know because I am ignorant of those facts.

Ignorance and not knowing is not stupidity, ignorance and not knowing is not about who is clever but understanding how recovery works and can I do it.

Well I can today that if I can do the spiritual recovery program any one can, I so messed up words do not explain how I use to feel before recovery.

Procrastination it was very much fear based for me, lack of confidence, is it about self and not valuing our self, is it fear of change, do we think that recovery will be painful, do we doubt our self, do we think or feel we do not deserve it.

It is for sure the spiritual recovery program will work if we put the same amount of time and energy in to our self we put in to our addictions and obsessions.

I found that putting down therapies writing down lists was a very scary experience, yet once done and I was committed or a regular basis it became a healthy habit.

The lists of each day, fulfilling my needs first of all, lists of my wants each day rewarding myself for doing the need to do things.

In time dropping those unhealthy wants like unhealthy eating, anything that is risk taking or putting myself at risk is not acceptable today.

I use to think that smoking would reduce my stress, sadly I was causing myself many fear filled stresses that were not real in those days, then Shirley & I gave up smoking and that was that, today I do not want or need gambling or smoking they were just forms of self abuse in so many unhealthy ways.

It is important to understand our needs our wants and our goals.

Most people knew I needed help before I would get honest with myself.

Most people will be fulfilling their basic needs by the time they get to the spiritual recovery program. Yet is that really enough in our life.

Going to work to pays bills and often by the time we get to the spiritual recovery program and even putting that at risk.

In isolating myself and escaping indicated that I was not able to process my feelings in a healthy way.

Had I given up all faith and hope in myself or given up all faith and hope in other people.

Every time I came out of gambling establishments what did I feel, guilt remorse shame failure hopeless and useless, I felt like I was a failure.

Yet some times I was angry and felt that the gambling establishments had cheated me.

Sadly I had cheated myself the gambling establishments had nothing to do how I felt about myself.

The gambling establishments were a place where I went to escape facing myself and the way I felt within myself.

For one thing love is about very healthy interactions with other people or with animals, there is no relationship with a mechanical machine or plastic chips.

It was for sure a very hard struggle and took me over 23 years to understand step one life being unmanageable emotionally.

The other thing I learned is that did not know how to give myself approval or compliment myself I was always putting myself down and always saw my failings I did not see my successes.

If I did a job and got 95% of it right I would only see that %5 as my failing. How sad is that.

Even one day without gambling was a success to me from the start of my recovery, if you take every compulsive gambler on this planet and each one had one day off gambling that would represent a whole life time free of gambling for one person.

If you have time off gambling and then one day you gamble people tend to think that they have lost their free time of gambling, no people lost that one day, it is almost like a reaction to the compulsive gambler to beat them self up time and time again.

The spiritual recovery program is about character building, not using bullying or threats but to help people come out of them self.

Anything healthy should be done with encouragement and nurturing, the recovery program wants people to be feel free of all fears, the recovery program wants people to get the very best out of life.

Whatever emotional resolve I want with the world I needed to give to myself first of all, that may sound very nutty yet I found it works.

Take my patience and tolerance usually when I am not patience and tolerance with other people it is an indicator that I am not very patience and tolerance with myself and often being hard on myself.

To feel more caring and loving I needed to be caring and loving towards myself, and that was very hard for me to do.

How can I expect other people to respect me if I do not respect myself.

So a point comes where I am gambling free for a considerable period of time, is that what true recovery is all about.

Once I abstained from most unhealthy on once could I start to heal and become a healthier person.

How could I possible heal from my pain if on a daily basis I was still causing myself more pain, to heal from pains I needed to stop hurting myself in every way.

My unreasonable expectations of life and people caused me a lot of pains which I use to bottle up within myself.

I had great fears of aggression and confrontations, that was very much an emotional based issue not physical.

I remained a victim for so long and because I did not speak out for myself I remained a victim of my silence.

Guilt shame embarressments nervousness were for me living in the pains of the past not only because of my unhealthy actions and words towards other people but also because of the shame of those things that were done to myself by unhealthy people.

In understanding who was the person I had the biggest fear towards, that was my biggest goal, to understand why I feared that person and what pains that person caused me.

Some times as we question our self as to whom or what we fear the most then we can put our fears to rest one day at a time, sometimes we recognize that by facing our fears we can face seeing that person or place once more without cringing inside again.

I am not alone today because simply the recovery program is like a second family to me, knowing that I can talk about anything in my life and find resolve.

Self pity indicates that I have not healed my pains of the things that were done to me with or with intent.

Sadly living in self pity we want sympathy and because pain is not healed we remain victims of our past time and time again and feel that we are not able to get on with our life with the pains we are carrying.

Two things stunted my growth living in resentments and my pains of my past and the fears of tomorrow, those two alone restricted me so much.

That the pains of our past become our strength one day, one day I realized that I had experienced everything painful in my life and that by being fearless today I am stronger than ever before.

For me my addictions and obsessions were a form of self abuse, I view gambling as one the unhealthiest things I can do with my time today, I do not fear gambling that would be unhealthy, I do fear the consequences of gambling again.

No matter how long since my last bet I accept that I can longer think or feel that I can control my gambling, I know that having another bet would mean I am giving up all faith and hope in myself in resolving emotional issues in my life.

Things that use to cause me to be angry in my past I am able to laugh at today.

My recovery is tested every day yet I would like to think I do not do or say unhealthy things any more, but that would not be true.

I am in a learning curve which helps me be accountable to myself and say sorry when I am out of order.

Maturity is being accountable to myself, maturity is being able to say sorry and mean it, maturity is being able to ask for help, maturity is being able to set up new goals, maturity is not sulking, maturity is being able to ask for a sponsor and working steps on a slow basis.

The number of people who mentioned step four as being fearful of doing it, yet once you do step four you are able to understand the unhealthy nature of certain habits, yet being able to see we do have some very healthy habits.

On arriving in the spiritual recovery I did not know how unhealthy I was, it makes me laugh that when I answered the twenty questions I could even be honest with myself.

Did I associate honesty as being a always being a painful experience for me, yes nearly every time I was honest I was punished for it, there was only one time in my life I can say that I was being rewarded for being honest.

I went to gambling establishments and gave them my holidays my rent my house car and many other things, was that a statement I did not deserve the nice things in life, that my family not deserve the nice things in life.

Did I value myself on walking in to recovery program, how much time and effort was I willing to put in to getting a sponsor, how much time and effort was I willing to write things down, how much time and effort was I willing to put in to understanding and writing out my wants my needs and my goals.

I reached appoint where I attended 4- 5 meetings a week just to abstain, that was not enough.

I was gambling free for 11 months and 2 weeks and broke out, did I truly understand step one and my emotional vulnerability.

Am I a walker or just a talker, that is my choice today.

There was a time when I could not trust myself with money.

Money was a great emotional trigger for me.

What is healthy living all about.

For me Gambling was just like me being the rat in the wheel going faster and faster and getting nowhere but unhealthy.

Wasting all that money time and energy and finishing up at end of each unhealthy day living in regret and traumatically abusing myself time and time again thinking that money would resolve my emotional.

Money was never going to resolve my emotional issues.

Money was never going to help me be at peace with myself.

There was a time when I thought and felt I did not deserve to have the love of people towards me.

The experts tell me it is healthy to be angry, well for me being angry helps me understand that I am unable to heal my pains, being angry helps me understand that I am unable to face my fears, being angry helps me understand that I am unable to let go of my unreasonable expectations of others.

On arriving in to the spiritual recovery program, my motives were often unhealthy reluctance, my motives were often conditional, and that also went along with me not valuing myself or others.

One would think that my reluctance to take responsibility was just immaturity, well for me it was more than just that.

In the spiritual recovery program I would be encouraged to be honest and it would not be painful, in the spiritual recovery program I would be encouraged to be more mature and in doing so would be more accountable to myself.

Was I a victim long before my gambling and my drinking, and if I knew what it felt like to be the victim and how painful it was why would I pass on my pains on to my own family how cruel is that.

The spiritual recovery program would help me help myself, what did that mean if you need some or something did that imply I was weak, that I was stupid or did not have a clue how to be mature and responsible.

How can that be when it asks me to hand over all money and fiancs to another person how can that be helping me, well I needed to understand that I could not be trusted at the beginning of my recovery and often money was the fuel or the trigger to go to my addictions.

It would take a long time to recognize my emotional triggers and my emotional vulnerability and understand that I was emotional vulnerable from a very early age.

That in time that hurt child would come out and the painful memories of my child hood would be healed and nurtured.

Whenever I got angry I caused myself stress, whenever I got angry I was reacting to pains I could not heal, I was reacting to fears I could not face, I was reacting to my unreasonable expectations of other people through my frustrations.

Addictions and obsessions often put me well out of the balance in my life.

The truth I was living on the edge of my nerves and was always stressing myself out long before my addiction and obsessions, besides not caring about myself or loving myself I did not respect myself or respect other people.

I was born completely honest, I was born completely free of all fears, I was born to give of myself completely and unconditionally, I was born completely trusting of all people in my life.

It is possible to relearn those spiritual values once more and be able to be completely honest once more, that I can relearn how to heal and nurture my own pains and face my own fears.

Healthy unconditional actions have healthy consequences, one of those consequences of healthy actions is faith pride and confidence in oneself which is the opposite of unhealthy actions with unhealthy consequences.

What are my wants and needs today, is money the most important thing in my life today, I understand that more money gives me more choices but money on its own will not give my happiness.

How do people measure their success in life.

It is important to learn that being honest and sincere without hurting another person is very important to my relationship with myself and other people.

Self sufficiency is an important adult value, and every country should be self sufficient in fulfilling their own wants and needs so as to survive in healthy living.

How long did it take me to recognize each fear I had as an adult came from unhealthy child hood programming, sadly in those days people thought that causing children pain would make them healthy people.

I use to live in fear of going home and use to fear going to school so where and how could I possibly feel free of my fears.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave of Beckenham

AKA Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person each day, yet I am not a religion person.

When I walked in to the spiritual rooms of recovery did I think that I was the only compulsive gambler and that those people smiling and laughing in the rooms did not feel as bad as I did that first day.

Did I understand that being consumed by my addictions and obsessions that I was dysfunctional, that by me lying in so many ways was an indicator that I had never healed from the pains of my past.

I was unable to listen or to understand my unhealthy reaction to life and people.

I use to question if I was dumb stupid or just plain evil.

No matter how many times people told me that it was the lies that hurt them I could not understand that as I main focus in life was money and gambling.

It is a very sad fact that a certain percentage of people do not find the spiritual recovery program, and for those that do go to 12 step meetings very few take it seriously.

Every time I escaped to my addictions and obsessions I was in effect abandoning my family emotionally, I might have been at family functions yet was not able to be there emotionally.

I questioned if my addictions and obsessions was just a family thing passed on from generation to generation, today I feel that is not so, that my addictions and obsessions were an indicator that I was not able to cope emotionally with life and people.

I left school with no qualifications what so ever, my first job was working at a fair ground, I did not in any way understand my full potential. That today I now understand that I was going to limit myself in my life due to fears and lack of confidence.

I walked in to the spiritual recovery program back in 1969, it was meetings held in Victoria London, I did not have any clue how much the spiritual program was going to change my life.

The only thing that was asked of me was to attend meetings for 90 days, at that age that seemed such a hard commitment to me.

I married in 1970 to Shirley, when I was in that church making my oaths I did not have a clue what commitment was all about, I thought just be getting married my life would get better because of another being with me.

There was no way that I understood that both of us had a lot of emotional baggage.

As I attended the spiritual recovery program there was a lot of war stories in those days, just talking about money and gambling, and then I made that very important decision to give a therapy not to talk from logic but to talk about my feelings and emotions.

Well that day I gave my first therapy I honestly expected to be banned from attending meetings, not so yet that kind of honesty was very unsettling for a lot of people.

I have lost count of the number of people told me that what I was able to say in my therapy what exactly how they felt but could not put in to words.

Some people even said it was like I was in their heads, over time that kind of honesty spread, people moved on from talking war stories and people started to build healthier relationships with those people giving honest therapies.

The therapies would mean that people were more comfortable with being honest in the rooms of recovery, yet were not able to or willing to be that honest in a family enviroment.

My questioning everything about the recovery program was my own insecurity because lack of faith and low self esteem and I did not understand how it worked.

The word spiritual often is taken in a religion context, I think that spiritual values are a part of who we are today and that when we do or say something that adversely affects us or other people we do in fact hurt our self.

Having a conscience means that deep down we are healthy people it is because we are so filled with fear and panic we were unable to think clearly and reacted in such an unhealthy way that fear caused me to do or say something to escape being accountable for our unhealthy actions and unhealthy words.

The expectations and anticipation of me in my addiction was thinking that money would resolve all of my emotional issues, I even use to think that money would make me happy.

On listening to Bryan Tracey cds on achievements was a very slow learning curve, yet at one time I use to think that successful people goals were to become rich and that money was their main goal.

Today I now understand that people main goals were to be successful, that money was the reward for them being successful, the spiritual recovery program is about being successful in our new found healthy actions and healthy words.

That every unhealthy action or unhealthy word has unhealthy consequences, that being committed towards spiritual values every, that over time every healthy action or healthy word has healthy consequences, we gain pride in our self, pride is self rewarding our self.

I so much wanted people to give me approval and to validate myself before recovery, now today I am able to say that I did a good job and that very small baby steps got me to where I am today.

Do I react in an unhealthy way if people do not get or understand what the spiritual recovery program is all about. Do I react in an unhealthy way if people beliefs do not agree with my own beliefs.

My unhealthy reaction to other people has to do everything about my own insecurity, part of the spiritual recovery program is to on an every changing belief system and with those changing comes every changing boundary.

When I say just for today I will not gamble is a healthy is a boundary I set up for myself, that I am not willing to hurt myself through gambling today.

Once you set one boundary for yourself each boundary after that first one becomes easier, a boundary is about me starting to value myself.

I was emotionally traumatized when I first walked in to the spiritual recovery, yet the emotional trauma started from a very age, long before I was seven years of age.

I use to think that on walking in to the spiritual recovery program that hugs were very much sexual, I now understand that hugs are part of our nurturing process that was lacking in my life.

When that first person put their hand out in friendship I was very suspicious, now it is a natural thing to shake hands with people.

My sexuality today is far more stable and not feel threatened by other peoples sexuality whatever it is, that is part of me feeling secure in myself.

Am I in touch with that hurt child today, do I live on my nerves today or am I at peace with myself today, am I content with who I am today, have I lost that bitterness and resentments that use to cause me to react in anger towards other people today and life.

Today I can honestly say that I am glad that I am compulsive gambler today, if it was not for the spiritual recovery program I doubt I would never found out how much I was missing from my life living in fear.

Because I am not living in emotional trauma today I am more aware of people and life today, I have also learned to trust my instincts today, yet not live in fear or self doubt today.

The spiritual recovery is a slow learning curve from day one, yet as we grow together our life becomes more productive not just at work but with relationships with other people.

In time emotional intimacy was an everyday thing, in time I learned to feel comfortable in so many ways, when things do not go my way my steel is being tested.

I have no expectations of other people today, expectations of other people caused me a lot of pain for far too long, my unreasonable expectations came from my child hood and caused me a lot of pain from a very early age.

My father loved me yet was not able to say it or express his love, that was so much me when walking in the spiritual recovery program.

My fears made me unlovable, my fears stopped me from having healthy relationships with other people.

Healthy relationships are based up on honesty, how honest can I be today without being cruel, how much unconditional effort am I willing to put in to my relationships today, not person pleasing but because I want to.

As I become more committed to increasing my healthy actions and my healthy habits I found that I changed how I felt about myself, I started to value myself, yet one of the hardest two single things I found to resolve was my impatience and intolerance and my expectations of life and other people and even in myself.

Abstaining was and is today not enough for me, sitting on hands not gambling on its own was not enough for me earlier and not enough for me today.

Courage to change, such fear of change, now each day change is part of my everyday life and my spiritual growth.

Serenity prayer helped me understand that my recovery is my responsibility today, that my anger is my responsibility today, that my being content is my responsibility today, that exchanging unhealthy habits in to healthy habits is my responsibility today.

Am I fully focused on my wants needs and goals today, do I live in the past in any way today. Or do I learn from my past today.

I did not know how much I was missing from my life and with other people because I was consumed and on a very slow slippery decline that caused me to go against spiritual values and caused me to make promises I could not keep.

Yet I had given up all faith and hope in myself long before my addictions and obsessions.

It took me a long time to write down my lists and get focused and more motivated getting things done in my life.

It took me 23 years to learn what step one was all about, yet I can say today I have grasped step one seriously, only once I was able to ***** and understand step one could I move on to other steps.

I do not want or need to gamble today, I do not want or need to smoke today, I do not want or need to get drunk today, I do not want or need to be angry resentful or angry today, I do not want or need to lie to any one today, I no longer want or need to waste my time or energy being idle today.

The money and gambling were not my problem I was the problem, if you take away the money the fuel for the addiction you do not take the compulsion or obsessive behaviours.

Most people think that serenity is about two things surrendering to the fact that unhealthy people can say and do things to us and we should not speak up for our self.

To remove myself from being a victim of other people was not about lashing out in anger or to bully bullies back it was me being able to articulate myself in a clear way so they understand you are not willing to put up with the unhealthy consequences of their unhealthy actions any more.

I did not know it that when I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I did not have a choice but to turn towards an addiction or obsession, I was in a self destructive addiction or obsession that caused me to go against my own conscience and go against several spiritual values.

To stop our self from being a victim we can do it directly or indirectly in order to protect our self from threatening and abusive people.

When I look back on my life as it was there is no doubt in my mind that I was a very weak immature inept lost inadequate insecure person but could admit it to myself.

How Shirley and I finished up with each other I do not understand it, yet now understand that Shirley my wife is a very spiritual person and a strong person to have put up with so much pain and abuse I caused her.

Shirley demonstrated to me what unconditional love and unconditional giving of your self was all about, Shirley demonstrated to me what loyalty and being faithful was all about.

In time I was able to say and mean that I could and would love a person no matter what they said or did I would still love them.

There was many times I wanted to run away for our marriage not because of Shirley but because of my own emotional issues.

Shirley seems to find it hard that she is in fact stronger in strength than I am, Shirley is also wiser than me.

If a person heals from their pains of their past that healed traumatic pain becomes our strength.

I use to think it was a sign of weakness to ask for help or ask for directions, I now understand asking for help is a sign of strength.

When I first started sponsoring there were some things I felt was very important, that sponsoring is a two way street, that sponsoring is about questioning everything and making sure you understand why you do things in certain order.

That sponsoring is about helping another person help them self, and over time for them to take person responsibility, credit and feel pride when things they do healthy habits and ways with healthy consequences.

During the early stages of your recovery there will be people who will try to manipulate and bully you and try to control you in unhealthy ways.

There will be people who say you “have to do this” or “you have to do that”, we learn that you do certain things when you are truly ready to do those things.

It is important to be accountable to our self and question what level of pain do I feel today, question what level of fear do I feel today, to also question what level of frustration do I feel today, what level of loneliness do I feel today and what level of boredom do I feel today.

It is important to feel you trust the person you are working on sponsorship with. And do follow your instincts.

I find it is important to remain anonymous about who you sponsor both ways, and the recovery program suggests we do not sponsor people of the opposite s*x.

That I feel is down to the individual people and dependant on how far a person has found their own recovery. There are complications when there is insecurity and lack of trust about certain other issues in a married relationship.

When I went to counselling which was about 11 times I met with more females than male counsellors and once i was free of my fears and was comfortable it was not important which s*x I shared with.

Some people think and feel that s*x is the most important part of a relationship, yet sadly s*x only represents less than 5% of any relationship.

Then there is the point also about a persons own security about their own sexuality, and if they feel threatened by a certain s*x or people of a certain sexuality persuasion.

For me what people do in their own private life does not bother me or their sexuality.

I think it is important that love of any kind is spiritual and being loving and caring is very healthy.

Sadly some people have been so hurt or betrayed in their lives that they feel they can only trust pets or animals in their life.

Shirley and I often know what the other person is thinking or feeling, I think our banter and sarcasm is healthy and keeps us sharp and alert yet not afraid.

I am very pleased that Shirley can very honest with me about everything in our life, her likes and dislikes, and it is very healthy that Shirley no longer fears me.

What I have today is a new life, if I did not find the spiritual rooms of recovery I would never have found out how unhealthy I was, I would never have found out how many traumatic painful events I had buried and blanked out, I would never have found out how many fears I lived in, I would never have found out how much I mistrusted other people, I would never have found out why I use to get so frustrated, and I would never have found out at such a deep level how lonely I was and how much i was holding back from living my life to the full.

I am sure Shirley often thinks I am an a** hole, I am sure Shirley often thinks that I still have a lot of growing up and maturing to do and I am not going to mention about closing down the toilet lid when I flush.

It is hard to believe that we can laugh today at each other and even laugh at our self, and it can be hard to believe how much pain and fear I caused my family over a long period of time.

The past cannot be changed undone, unhealthy pains aggressive words cannot be undone, unhealthy actions and lies cannot be undone.

Yet is who I am today that counts, and what I do today that counts are my actions healthy and am my family free of fearing and mistrusting me today.

Once I was in the spiritual recovery program and when I went back to unhealthy habits, who did I blame for my failing, the spiritual recovery program never failed me I failed to put any energy and effort in to working the recovery program it is as simple as that can be.

Was it fear of failure and lack of trust that caused me to hold back from doing the recovery work, was it the fact I had lost all faith and hope in myself some many times.

The beginning of my recovery when in the meetings when my legs were crossed over my other knee they use to twitch up and down, both of my thumb nails were half chewed away till they bled yet if you asked me how I was I would tell you I was fine.

Once in the spiritual recovery program I and others thought I would be cured over night that somehow my life would improve very quickly.

That was not the case it took me over half of my life 50% of my life to get that unhealthy did I think I would be fixed in a couple of days, that once I abstained that was what recovery was all about.

That by reading text and books would fix me, that by quoting quotes and copying text would get me back to be healthy once more.

It is almost like buying a service manual for your car and then think that by having the service manual the car would fix itself.

I even thought that the recovery program was about it controlling my life, how insane was that one, the recovery program was going to help me help myself when i was ready to do it.

I have difficulty in remembering when I was last angry, in the old days I was very resentful most of the time. Yet could not be honest and admit it to myself.

In me being resentful vengeful guilty and ashamed indicated that I did not know how to heal the pains of my past, who was going to help me learn to heal my emotional pains of the past and not live in the pains as a consequence of pains is living in my fears also.

I am very selfish indeed and write for myself, over time I would change how I felt about myself and improve my low self esteem in to becoming a proud person due to my spiritual actions.

For me there is no end to recovery is it an ongoing healing and maturing process, sometimes it is very hard to do the healthy thing and say the healthiest we can say at the most difficult times in our life.

Once in recovery our steel gets tested on a regular basis daily basis, each test we do our best at makes us stronger and more mature.

One of the hardest things I wanted and needed to do was to apologise to someone I had strangled and was willing to leave to die.

It took me a very long time to make that call, and when I did the person had blanked the event out of their memory and suppressed the experience.

I not only telephoned him but also called all of his brothers and every one had suppressed that painful traumatic experience, even the person who cut him free and saved his life.

At that time did I justify my actions, was the rage in me out of control at that time, did that experience change who I had become, did that experience make me aware of how unhealthy I was from that age.

Later it was explained to me that what that family went through was far worse than what I had done and that family was already traumatized long before my rage was leashed on those people and that family.

How many people will justify transferring their pains fears and frustrations onto other people time and time again and will justify their actions time and time again.

You would think that because I was a victim for the first 10% of my life through emotional and physical abuse that I would have more and empathy and respect of people I victimized through my unhealthy actions.

I was also a victim for the next 10% of my life through emotional abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse and was already in to suppressing memories pains I could not deal with or heal.

I reached appoint in my addiction that I was feeling depressed worthless useless hopeless faithless inept frustrated filled with so many fears that I reached a point beyond panic mode and the pains I was causing myself and my family were far beyond imagination at 5am and after a few hours sleep I was able to bury and suppress all of those mixed up feelings that it was the easy option to focus on money only, so much so it became an all day obsession.

Evening kidding myself that by getting money back would fix everything I did or said that was unhealthy and painful to myself and others.

No one can relate to the roller coaster rides I put myself and my family through time and time again, I even felt that I did not deserve any one love me or to be my friend.

I walked in to the spiritual recovery program back in 1969 I felt like and looked like a loser, is that expressive of the money I lost, no it was about me willing to give up all faith and hope in myself far too easily.

To me the money I lost was the very least of my problems every time I gambled I lied stole and hurt the very people who loved and trusted me the most, that hurt my family not because of the money lost but because lying and stealing betrayed their trust in me.

Funny thing was that everyone was able to forgive me long before I was able to or willing to forgive myself.

Yet what was often questioned what is forgiving, is it blanking things out, is it suppressing and ignoring the pains we all went through, well if we are able to and willing to heal and nurture pain it becomes so easy over time.

How can we tell if we have buried suppressed or healed pain in a healthy way, well the answer is in our sub conscious and in how we react to a person who has caused us pain to help them out.

If we know of a perpetrator and they ask us to do some thing for t hem our instant reaction is to have a handful of excuses why we are not able to help them out.

To process and move on from feeling like a victim I did not need to face the perpetrators that hurt me, I just needed to face the fears those persons caused me.

In facing my fears I went to people buildings school homes churches and faced my fears there, and often once I went back to historic people and events there was no more fear associated any more, sometimes I was even able to laugh it all off.

Things go wrong often in life and sometimes I can even laugh them off it surprises Shirley my wife because she is not used to me laughing when things went wrong in my life.

When things go wrong it is a test of our steel, each time we break out gambling is another test of our steel, and each break out can be a lesson if we are willing to learn from it.

Abstaining was not enough for me in the old days and it is not enough for me today, the spiritual recovery program is about spiritual healing and maturing to be a healthy spiritual person once more.

In fact to be a healthy spiritual person as I was when I was first born in to this world.

For me we are born with certain spiritual values long before other belief systems kick in, that each of us are born completely free of all fears, that each of us are born able to trust unconditionally, that each of us is born able to embarrassing honest unconditionally, and that each of us has the ability to nurture and be nurtured.

What happens to us we reach maturity cynical misbelieving holding back our self holding back from giving of our self we become conditional about what we do and we say and sadly we hide our feelings because we feel vulnerable exposing our self.

How can any of that be healthy in any way.

Most people do not find resolve of their emotional issues before they get married and most people take their emotional baggage in to their marriages and then blame each other when things do not go their way.

Gamanon people will often marry the same kind of personality not once, not twice, but three or four times and not question their own choices.

Each of one of us when taking inventory make our own decision as to what is healthy and what is unhealthy about our actions and our words.

What is acceptable one day may not be acceptable another day, yet our goal is to become the healthiest person we can be each day one day at a time.

Once we find out how healthy we can be we no longer want to go back to a life of pain and fear.

Do I fear gambling establishments today, do I resent the fact that other people can gamble and enjoy them self, because gambling establishments gave me free drinks and sandwiches do I think that they cheated me of my money, did the gambling establishments make me do anything I did not want to do.

Money and gambling were the most important things in my life at one time, today I am the most important thing in my life and my family and my loved ones and friends come second place.

Do I fear gambling establishments today, do I hate gambling establishments today, or do I feel at peace with myself and those gambling establishments today.

None of my emotional issues were resolved with money or lack of money, money gives me more choices with what I can buy and where I can go.

I was once described as an accident looking for some where to happen, sadly I really thought they were talking about my driving.

I was an adrenaline J****E from a very early age, risk taking in so many ways yet that was a very early indicator that I did not value myself or respect myself.

Yet I was often the instigator of aggression and confrontation in my family, did I use fear aggression and confrontation to control and regulate my family.

Yes I did because deep down I was a weak immature inadequate insecure inept person as a man as a husband as a father and as a person.

It took me a long time to recognize that my motives for doing most things in my life were often resentful and unhealthy or conditional, it was in fact other people in my life but more so Shirley who demonstrated unconditional love and unconditional of themselves that helped me learn spiritual values were still alive and present in my life.

For me unconditional giving came about when I was able to give more time and energy to myself by being caring gentle tolerant and patient with myself, in giving of myself and in being myself helps build healthy relationships.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham.

AKA Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person each day, yet I am not a religion person.

At one time I thought that I loved certain things.

Did I know what true love was all about.

I think my actions were conditional in the old days. I owe you you owe me etc.

Now because my actions and words are unconditional I expect nothing in return. I am a very spiritual person at this time.

I have for certain changed as did my values, I use to justify my cruel words and actions.

Are my words and actions nurturing and encouraging today.

Am I fully accountable to myself today.

Do I feel threatened by another person insecurities, if questioned do I in any way feel threatened by questions today.

A childs innocence is very healthy. I was born free of all fears and over time because of unresolved and unhealed pains fears grew that inhibited me from being the person I knew I could be.

Do I fear any one or anything today.

Do I face my fears today.

Do I take inventory of myself each day, can I improve in myself.

Can I face new challenges today.

In the spiritual recovery program my steel is often tested in several ways and that is healthy for me.

Do I embrace spiritual values in my life today. Are my relationships based on honesty today.

If I treat people like children they will behave like children.

My healthy actions speak much louder than words today.

Do I in my actions demonstrate spiritual growth today.

Do I values the love of people around me today.

Do I understand that true love is unconditional today.

Do I think that other people will fulfill my wants needs and goals today. Am I self sufficient or isolating today.

How much more can I learn today.

Am I in any way responsible for how other people feel today.

I did not have clue how unhealthy I was on walking in to the spiritual recovery program.

I use to fear being honest before my recovery, now every day my honesty grows as I mature.

Just because you take away source of money from addict will not stop the addict from trying to escape in other ways.

The spiritual recovery program will work for those people are willing to put a great deal of time and effort in to working the recovery program.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was emotionally traumatized long before my addictions and obsessions, the addictions and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was not able to cope emotionally with life and people.

The recovery program starts off by us reading text, then after time rather than talk from our logic and from the brain we start to talk and be aware of our feelings, we get to talk from the heart, once we open up our hearts we begin our trip in to therapies.

Giving honest therapies means we are not able to express our self without being aggressive or confrontational and without using offensive words, then as we open up we start to relate to other people experiences and how we can once again become healthy survivors.

It takes some time for people to move beyond war stories and to talk from the heart, once there is that kind of honesty I could relate to other people lives and experiences also being able to cope emotionally with life issues today.

So do I interact in a healthy spiritual way with all people in my life, or at any point do I still react in an unhealthy way from pains fear or my frustrations.

Being content was a skill that I learned over time, I use to be impatient intolerant and hard on myself, not being able to give myself approval or be able to say to myself that I did a good job.

Pride is the reward we give our self, in being healthy and having healthy relationships with full honesty enables us to have close intimate relationships with other people.

To be honest and fearless is very powerful, to have faced and dealt with our past we are not longer hindered by the guilt pain and shame of our past unhealthy words and unhealthy actions of our past.

I now understand that in the past I did not have any choice but to be unhealthy and I use to live in fear of being honest because I figured every time I am honest was painful.

Being in the spiritual recovery program I was going to be able to feel the full spectrum and range of emotions and feelings, I would be able to cry for that hurt inner child, and over time my emotional age and physical age gap would reduce to being equal.

The honest I learned in the rooms of spiritual recovery would then spread in to my everyday life, the honest was going to be a part of my every day family life.

As we are more honest and as we progress as a group we grow together yet some times the difference between each of us seems the same, in time we ask some very simple questions as reference to our recovery out of ten what level do we feel today regards certain feelings.

Out of ten what level of fear do I feel in my recovery today, what level of fear did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of pain do I feel in my recovery today, what level of pain did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of frustration do I feel in my recovery today, what level of frustration did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of loneliness do I feel in my recovery today, what level of loneliness did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of boredom do I feel in my recovery today, what level of boredom did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

The answers were for me, to understand how much progress there was in my spiritual recovery.

How many fears did I have, in which order did they appear serious to me from day one in my recovery, fear of being honest due to fear of abandonment and rejection was one of the more serious fears I had.

Fear of failure because I associated that the only success I had from day one was to get easy money, no matter how well I did my job I could not give myself any kind of approval or credit for good work I did.

Fear of change, I am for sure a creature of habits, yet now I am extended myself more and more, I am able to do things that once I thought were impossible for me.

Fear of appearing vulnerable, appearing weak, appearing stupid or ignorant, and fear of losing control, yet the fact I wanted to control was very much fear based issues for me.

I now understand that every time I went to an addiction or obsession I just simply made things worse, by not facing myself I went to in to more fear than before.

With each lie fear grows, the fear got so great that I went in to panic mode where I could not think clearly, hence having a sponsor is important because deep down we know what we need to do yet because we have lost all confidence and self worth and esteem in our self.

Having an anonymous sponsor is important part of recovery, in being a sponsor is a two way street, it is like having a friend who you trust completely, yet it is important you follow your instincts regards trusting the right person.

Is spiritual recovery about 100 per cent recovery, no not so if by being honest you hurt yourself your profession or hurt other people it is not wise to damage or hurt other people.

The same with honesty you can be honest without hurting other people and this is where the line of nurturing and encouraging another person as against cowardly bullying which has adverse effects on other people recovery and hurts our self.

The idea is to learn from our mistakes not cause our self pains, there is always a healthy or unhealthy way of doing recovery, when sponsoring we do recovery at our own pace, when we sponsor someone else we do it at their pace.

When sponsoring it is very important it is anonymous, and very important that a person gets different answers from different people and discusses different paths and different paths in their recovery.

I do believe that when dealing with a person we ask, which is your biggest fear today, in facing each fear we work down wards so that once you face each fear it gets simpler and easier.

Before recovery I suppressed and buried my pains I did not heal from them, the clue to buried and suppressed pains was being over sensitive and angry very quickly with even thinking about it.

Often my reaction of anger from that buried hurt little child in me, people seem to use the expression acting out, saying acting out implies the pain is not real and that is not true.

As we get self enlightened as to our reaction to life and people a strange thing happens we start to understand our deepest emotions and feelings, as we do so we see our self in other people.

So for me the spiritual recovery was exactly we call it is a recovery program, healing from our unhealthy past, if due to our painful actions or due to painful actions or words of others towards us.

Do I want or need sympathy or pity from other people today, if so I am playing the victim, am I any way trying to regulate or control other people if so I am using different techniques of bullying which implies I am a coward and that I still have fears in me.

Do I think that I am going to rescuer another person in embracing the spiritual recovery program, this is a conscious decision that people will need or want to make for them self.

On entering the spiritual recovery I did not know that I feared emotional intimacy, I did not know why I feared being honest, I did not know that i was running away from facing myself and my feelings.

Yet over time because I was so mixed up and confused the jumbled jig saw picture started to take form, and over time I understood why I react in such extreme unhealthy ways towards people and life.

It confused me that during my need to do time at work I did a very good job, yet outside of work I felt such a failure and today I feel successful, I did not know I felt so inept in myself and lacked so many interactive skills in life and dealing with people.

I even use to read body language in the wrong way, that took time and talking with people how they reacted to certain things in their life.

This web site is a previlage which enables us to relate to other people success experiences and their recovery.

Am I healthy spiritually today, are my fears fading and am I able to interact with all people without taking things and other people issues personally.

I am so pleased with myself that I am able to lose over 20 pounds in weight in the last two months, very simple I have given up all bread, all cakes except one naughty day once per week, and given up all fizzy drinks yet I do drink fruit drinks and I am eating fruit as well.

Recovery is all about slow steady baby steps one day at a time, I abstain from gambling, I gave up smoking one day at a time, to no longer get drunk one day at a time, to be more caring respectful of myself one day at a time.

I have completed two books where I have transcribed both large books in to web site both all text and all photographs transfered, it was a very deep long commitment on my part.

I am much closes with Shirley my wife than I have been before, I now understand how important the love of a person is to me.

I have both paid and booked up my attending GA 50th anniversary 5 - 7 September 20014 and am looking forward to being there, it is very likely that people I knew back in 1969 would have not stuck with the spiritual recovery course as long as I have done.

It was interesting that requests for people to do telephone duty was nothing to do about counselling people that all you are expected to do by GA is just give out meeting places addresses.

I am not willing to do that just give our addresses if someone is in any kind of pain, I am willing to talk people through painful events and times. If I am not able to do the job properly I am not willing to do less than my best.

I think people in the recovery program have lost sight of what recovery is all about.

My reaction to life and people through anger seems like it was something I could not help myself with, now it seems like I am unable to remember when I was last angry.

When I see myself in other people I can laugh at myself today, the rooms I go to are very healthy and very honest yet non threatening.

When people start preaching to people saying you have to do this or you have that it scares people away, it took me a long time to be nurturing and encouraging yet non threatening.

Am I preaching recovery or demonstrating it, do my actions match my words, in any way am I a facade, do my family fear me today, is my fears fading once I understood that being honest was a healthy way to live my life today.

Did I remove myself with associating with unhealthy people, did I place boundaries so that I can protect myself today, is being fully aware of my instincts in any way associated with my fear today.

Serenity prayer helped me understand that my recovery is my responsibility today, that my anger is my responsibility today, that my being content is my responsibility today, that exchanging unhealthy habits in to healthy habits is my responsibility today.

Am I fully focused on my wants needs and goals today, do I live in the past in any way today. Or do I learn from my past today.

I now understand that no one could stop me gambling or stop me being unhealthy, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me taking the easy option all of the time, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me being angry again that had to be my choice.

Do we lack confidence and self esteem long before entering the recovery program, do we think that someone or something is going to fix us and heal us, it was never going to happen that way.

How could it take me over 23 years to understand step one, it is one single paragraph, was I not willing to listen, or unable to.

What is important for my recovery to understand that the gambling and drink and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally unhealthy long before my addictions and obsessions.

It is important for my recovery understanding step one for me complete acceptance surrender and understanding my life was emotionally unmanageable long before my addictions and obsessions.

My emotional triggers were my pains my fears my frustrations my loneliness and my boredom.

After having my last bet I needed to understand which emotional trigger that caused me to go back to gamble once more. It could have been just one single trigger or several triggers.

The hardest emotional triggers to understand were my frustrations due to my expectations of other people and life.

Today I have no expectations of other people what so ever, today however I have high expectations of myself, courage to change the things I can. Wow that is me. How simpler can it get.

If I am not willing to write things down I am cheating myself, if I am not willing or able to work my recovery program then I am not able to blame other people for my failings.

By not having expectations of other people by me doing things unconditionally I am free of frustrations and the pain I caused myself.

I use to blame everyone else for my stress and my anger, today understand I am responsible for my anger, I am responsible for my happiness, I am responsible for my unhealthy reaction to people and life.

I am responsible for my stress which is fear based.

Controlling other people are fear based issues, yet is it possible to face those fears and accept serenity, is control and strength the same thing, is our courage based up on us doing spiritual actions and saying spiritual words.

I am no longer happy reacting in an unhealthy way of any sort or reacting to fear to everyone and everything. It is very unhealthy living that way.

Am I productive today in my actions, do I fill my needs today, is cleaning the home about cleaning the home, no it is about me being proud about myself and caring about myself.

I no longer want to hurt myself or abuse myself or hurt other people today.

By attending spiritual recovery meetings I am learning how to cope with the tests of life and people around me.

Gambling was an addiction and places where I use to go to escape how I use to feel within myself, in the gambling establishments I could pretend that I had no emotional problems in my life, in the gambling establishments I did not care about myself or other people.

I use to think that life was unmanageable because of gambling and the lack of money, that was not true my life became unmanageable when I was abused in my child hood before I was even seven years of age.

I suffered much emotional abuse, I suffered much physical abuse, I suffered sexual abuse, which had a very serious impact on my growing up to be a emotional healthy person.

In my recovery I was going to set up boundaries for myself, to say to myself just for today I will not gamble, it has nothing to do about gambling or money.

As we grow our thinking changes from just for today I will not to just for today I will that is when we become productive with our time and our energy.

When I went to gamble establishments I was giving up all faith and hope in myself, when I went to gamble establishments I was saying that I did not deserve a nice holiday nice cloths healthy eating.

In time I gave up abusing myself in every form and started to slow down my life style, driving with consideration and respect of other people indicated that I was considerate and respectful of myself.

When I am being intolerant and impatient with other people and life was an indicator I was being intolerant and impatient with myself.

I got in to the habit of arriving early for appointments, arriving early for meetings, arriving early at airports, even having bags packed day before we were leaving on flights because I was more relaxed.

I now understand that other people did not stress me out, the truth was I stressed myself out by my reaction, I also understand that stress is fear based.

I have found out recently that my oxygen levels have dropped from 97% to being about 90% which is not healthy at all.

Things that use to drive me crazy with anger now make me laugh.

People in the rooms use to make me feel very uncomfortable at early stages of my recovery, I use to get very frustrated with people who could not or would not let go of their past and talk about them self today.

Every time a person processes a situation in a healthy way I learn from their experiences wisdom and maturity.

It is very important for me to ask for help, it is very important to ask someone to sponsor you, it is very important to ask questions about every stage of our recovery and to understand why we do steps in certain sequence.

It is very important to exchange unhealthy habits in to healthy habits, as we do we are able to listen to our own conscience and follow spiritual values and behave in a much healthier spiritual way.

Our healthy conscience tells us deep down we are good people, yet why do we go against our own conscience and go against spiritual values, fear is the reason we would do and say such unhealthy things.

A beaten dog does not have a choice but to react in fear and shake with fear, we have learned to hide and not admit our fears, in time once we open up more we live in less fear and become comfortable being our true self.

The spiritual program does not tell us you have to, the spiritual program really means to say to people it is highly recommended for your own benefit that you do or do not do certain things, that for your own benefit that you do the recovery program in certain sequences.

Our spiritual actions and words demonstrate what recovery is all about, our fearless spiritual actions and words demonstrate what recovery is all about, our honesty demonstrate what recovery is all about, our feelings comfortable in our self demonstrate what recovery is all about.

Only once I understood my unhealthy reaction in anger was not healthy for me I could do something about it, anger is an unhealthy reaction to my pains I am unable to heal and nurture.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my fears I am unable to or not willing to face.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my unhealthy frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people, that my unreasonable expectations of life and people caused me pains from a very early age.

Any form of addiction obsessive behavior of escape or deviating my feelings and life is an unhealthy action for me.

Yet at one time I use to think that abstaining on its own was recovery, that abstaining on its own would make me happy, that once I paid back all of my debts would make me happy, once I paid back all of my debts I would no longer feel or guilty or ashamed about myself.

Yes it was hard to admit t myself and other how much money I had lost even hard to admit how many lies I told and even harder to admit to the fact how many times I made my family hide from me.

Then the point comes where you move on from war stories and talking about money and start to talk about the confusion in my head, where does recovery truly start, when do you start to understand yourself and the way you react to life and other people.

I was emotionally traumatized on walking in to recovery, due to pain caused to me by others and pains I caused myself I had no choice but to live in so many unidentified fears.

When it came to making amends I did it first time because I needed to and was very scared, then I made amends again because I wanted to and because I wanted to repair the damage I had caused other people and myself.

It is very important to take full responsibility for our unhealthy actions and for our unhealthy words, no justifications, no excuses because if we do not take full responsibility we are cheating our self.

I understand in the old days I really did not have a choice but to turn towards one form of addiction or obsession, you cannot go through so much emotional abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse with it affecting our self and our spiritual values.

For me any form of addiction or obsession causes a decline in my spiritual interactions with other people, any form of addiction or obsession was an indicator that there was still some pains and fears lingering within me.

I think that when we are born we have certain spiritual values and are certainly innocent in so many ways, we are completely fearless, we are able to be completely honest, we are able to give of our self unconditionally, we are to be unconditionally trusting of every one, and then we grow up those spiritual values decline.

For me many kinds of pain causes many different kinds of fears in us, how important is it for us to face those fears, how important is it for us to heal and nurture our pains, surely recovery is about is all about healing.

Sadly people can go through their whole life living in fear of family and parents is that in any way healthy.

Dysfunctional people escape responsibility, dysfunctional people do not like recovery because it will ask us to be accountable to our self, dysfunctional people will often use guilt to control other people, dysfunctional people are unhealthy people.

Just because we understand more about spiritual recovery it will not swing or change other dysfunctional people in changing their childhood programming or their unhealthy belief system.

I so much wanted to be normal on arriving in the spiritual recovery program, now I understand what is classed as normal is not very healthy, what is classed to be normal today is not very healthy.

What normal people do and say to each other is not very spiritually healthy, and sadly normal people will justify their unhealthy actions and words and say they want justice when in fact they are being vengeful bitter and twisted.

I do not react in an unhealthy way to aggression and confrontation the same way I use react in an unhealthy way due to my parents aggression and confrontation when I was less than seven years of age.

I was been told that my father use to beat me with the buckle end of his belt when I was less than seven years of age, I have no scares to my body so found it hard to believe, yet there was pains and fears towards my father in my adult years.

Then one day I faced him and told him that if he did something again that was unhealthy he would not see me again, I expected to get beaten up by my own father yet he just agreed to my new found boundaries.

There was still pains in my body that came to surface after he died, I went to his burial place and I said I love you Ernie, there was a stabbing pain in my through like a knife cutting in to me.

I repeatedly said I love you Ernie until there was no pain any more, now I feel empathy towards that poor unhealthy man who never found his spiritual values once more before he died, he did unto to me those things that were done to me.

Sadly because of the abuse in my child hood I assumed it was something not quite right with me.

Then the light came on certain people will pick on the most vulnerable people who are unable to defend them self because of their own internal unhealthy insecurity issues.

Bullies are in fact very weak inadequate insecure unhealthy people who take advantage of vulnerable people or weak people.

For me to no longer remain a victim I needed first of all to be able to articulate my feelings express myself in a healthy way, to not be aggressive or confrontational, to talk from a place of peace.

It took me two years of doing karate to learn that simple fact that my fears of aggression and confrontation came from my parents aggression and confrontation towards each other and towards me when I was less than seven years of age.

People talk about peace of mind yet what is it, is it being completely free of all fears, is it being completely content with in yourself, peace of mind is it about no longer being angry or aggression with yourself or others.

Peace of mind is it being completely content with who you are and what you are today, peace of mind can you find it all the time you are living in pains and fears.

Peace of mind can it be that you are living your life to the full today in an emotional way in a physical way and in a sexual way.

Where do we start dealing with our own insecurities, confidence comes with practicing healthy spiritual actions and spiritual words, pride comes with practicing healthy spiritual actions and spiritual words.

Where do we start in our spiritual growth, my mind use to be so mixed up and confused I did not know where to begin to peel back the onion and expose that hurt little child.

Surely we need to understand the reasons behind each of those spiritual values, we also need to understand why we became so unhealthy spiritually.

Some people even get confused in to thinking that being fearless means you are a non caring person, that is not true, being fearless means you will try anything and understand that every experience you go through and you give your best effort is a learning and growing curve.

There is no such thing as failure in doing spiritual recovery, one day without an unhealthy addiction or unhealthy obsession is healthier day clean days cannot be lost, healthy days are never lost we have lived them and experienced them.

I use to fear computers, I use to fear putting my hand out, I use to fear people being nice and kind to me, I use to fear talking to my family honestly.

Sadly people who are not into recovery will adversely react in an unhealthy way to our new found recovery, some people will feel jealous and envious, some people will try to undermine us by saying that is a complete waste of time, some people will think it is about blaming other people for our actions, some people will try and tempt us back in to unhealthy habits by trying to wind us up.

It is important to not allow other people to undermine or unsettle us in putting every effort in to our recovery.

Some people will think that recovery is all about religion yet that is not so it is a spiritual recovery program which helps us heal and live a healthy life with or without any religious beliefs what so ever.

Our unity and our honesty is our strength, yes people will lie and not put enough time and energy in to their recovery and will blame other people for their failings. They are cheating them self.

Step four is not about who is right or wrong but more about what are healthy or unhealthy habits for us today.

I did not know how much I was missing from my life and with other people because I was consumed and on a very slow slippery decline that caused me to go against spiritual values and caused me to make promises I could not keep.

Yet I had given up all faith and hope in myself long before my addictions and obsessions.

It took me a long time to write down my lists and get focused and more motivated getting things done in my life.

It took me 23 years to learn what step one was all about, yet I can say today I have grasped step one seriously, only once I was able to ***** and understand step one could I move on to other steps.

I do not fear gambling establishments today.

I do not fear facing myself today.

I do not want or need to gamble today, I do not want or need to smoke today, I do not want or need to get drunk today, I do not want or need to be angry resentful or angry today, I do not want or need to lie to any one today, I no longer want or need to waste my time or energy being idle today.

The money and gambling were not my problem I was the problem, if you take away the money the fuel for the addiction you do not take the compulsion or obsessive behaviours.

Most people think that serenity is about two things surrendering to the fact that unhealthy people can say and do things to us and we should not speak up for our self.

To remove myself from being a victim of other people was not about lashing out in anger or to bully bullies back it was me being able to articulate myself in a clear way so they understand you are not willing to put up with the unhealthy consequences of their unhealthy actions any more.

I did not know it that when I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I did not have a choice but to turn towards an addiction or obsession, I was in a self destructive addiction or obsession that caused me to go against my own conscience and go against several spiritual values.

To stop our self from being a victim we can do it directly or indirectly in order to protect our self from threatening and abusive people.

When I look back on my life as it was there is no doubt in my mind that I was a very weak immature inept lost inadequate insecure person but could admit it to myself.

How Shirley and I finished up with each other I do not understand it, yet now understand that Shirley my wife is a very spiritual person and a strong person to have put up with so much pain and abuse I caused her.

Shirley demonstrated to me what unconditional love and unconditional giving of your self was all about, Shirley demonstrated to me what loyalty and being faithful was all about.

In time I was able to say and mean that I could and would love a person no matter what they said or did I would still love them.

There was many times I wanted to run away from our marriage not because of Shirley but because of my own emotional issues.

If a person heals from their pains of their past, that healed traumatic pain becomes our strength today.

I use to think it was a sign of weakness to ask for help or ask for directions, I now understand asking for help is a sign of strength.

When I first started sponsoring there were some things I felt was very important, that sponsoring is a two way street, that sponsoring is about questioning everything and making sure you understand why you do things in certain order.

That sponsoring is about helping another person help them self, and over time for them to take person responsibility, credit and feel pride when things they do healthy habits and ways with healthy consequences.

During the early stages of your recovery there will be people who will try to manipulate and bully you and try to control you in unhealthy ways.

There will be people who say you “have to do this” or “you have to do that”, we learn that you do certain things when you are truly ready to do those things.

It is important to feel you trust the person you are working on sponsorship with. And do follow your instincts.

I find it is important to remain anonymous about who you sponsor both ways, and the recovery program suggests we do not sponsor people of the opposite s*x.

That I feel is down to the individual people and dependant on how far a person has found their own recovery. There are complications when there is insecurity and lack of trust about certain other issues in a married relationship.

When I went to counselling which was about 11 times I met with more females than male counsellors and once i was free of my fears and was comfortable it was not important which s*x I shared with.

Some people think and feel that s*x is the most important part of a relationship, yet sadly s*x only represents less than 5% of any relationship.

Then there is the point also about a persons own security about their own sexuality, and if they feel threatened by a certain s*x or people of a certain sexuality persuasion.

For me what people do in their own private life does not bother me or their sexuality.

I think it is important that love of any kind is spiritual and being loving and caring is very healthy.

Shirley and I often know what the other person is thinking or feeling, I think our banter and sarcasm is healthy and keeps us sharp and alert yet not afraid.

I am very pleased that Shirley can very honest with me about everything in our life, her likes and dislikes, and it is very healthy that Shirley no longer fears me.

What I have today is a new life, if I did not find the spiritual rooms of recovery I would never have found out how unhealthy I was, I would never have found out how many traumatic painful events I had buried and blanked out, I would never have found out how many fears I lived in, I would never have found out how much I mistrusted other people, I would never have found out why I use to get so frustrated, and I would never have found out at such a deep level how lonely I was and how much i was holding back from living my life to the full.

I am sure Shirley often thinks I am an a** hole, I am sure Shirley often thinks that I still have a lot of growing up and maturing to do and I am not going to mention about closing down the toilet lid when I flush.

It is hard to believe that we can laugh today at each other and even laugh at our self, and it can be hard to believe how much pain and fear I caused my family over a long period of time.

The past cannot be changed undone, unhealthy pains aggressive words cannot be undone, unhealthy actions and lies cannot be undone.

Yet is who I am today that counts, and what I do today that counts are my actions healthy and am my family free of fearing and mistrusting me today.

Once I was in the spiritual recovery program and when I went back to unhealthy habits, who did I blame for my failing, the spiritual recovery program never failed me I failed to put any energy and effort in to working the recovery program it is as simple as that can be.

Was it fear of failure and lack of trust that caused me to hold back from doing the recovery work, was it the fact I had lost all faith and hope in myself some many times.

Once in the spiritual recovery program I and others thought I would be cured over night that somehow my life would improve very quickly.

That was not the case it took me over half of my life 50% of my life to get that unhealthy did I think I would be fixed in a couple of days, that once I abstained that was what recovery was all about.

That by reading text and books would fix me, that by quoting quotes and copying text would get me back to be healthy once more.

It is almost like buying a service manual for your car and then think that by having the service manual the car would fix itself.

I even thought that the recovery program was about it controlling my life, how insane was that one, the recovery program was going to help me help myself when i was ready to do it.

I have difficulty in remembering when I was last angry, in the old days I was very resentful most of the time. Yet could not be honest and admit it to myself.

In me being resentful vengeful guilty and ashamed indicated that I did not know how to heal the pains of my past, who was going to help me learn to heal my emotional pains of the past and not live in the pains as a consequence of pains is living in my fears also.

I am very selfish indeed and write for myself, over time I would change how I felt about myself and improve my low self esteem in to becoming a proud person due to my spiritual actions.

For me there is no end to recovery is it an ongoing healing and maturing process, sometimes it is very hard to do the healthy thing and say the healthiest we can say at the most difficult times in our life.

Once in recovery our steel gets tested on a regular basis daily basis, each test we do our best at makes us stronger and more mature.

For me unconditional giving came about when I was able to give more time and energy to myself by being caring gentle tolerant and patient with myself, in giving of myself and in being myself helps build healthy relationships.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham.

AKA Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person each day, yet I am not a religion person.

I have dropped down by over 20 pounds in recent months and it is not hard for me to value myself today.

Step one was something I needed to understand fully.

Step one acceptance surrender and life being unmanageable.

Acceptance that due to ways of escaping life and people each time I gambled I made thing much worse, at no time did gambling improve my life in any way.

Surrender that all the time I was consumed by my addictions I was beating myself up and causing myself emotional pain time and time again, that all the time I gambled I could not win and that I was becoming more and more of a loser.

Life being unmanageable

Was all about my emotional triggers, pains I could not or would not heal, I just got in the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my pains not healing them.

Fears I was not able to identify or willing to face.

Frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people. My unreasonable expectations caused me a lot of pain from a very early age.

Loneliness due to two things abandonment issues from my child hood and fears that caused me to isolate myself and I was able to have emotional intimacy with other people.

Boredom due to the fact I was not able to put all my effort in to things outside of my work life, I had in fact become a stunted with regards not taking on new challenges in my life.

Gambling was risk taking, gambling for me was an adrenaline rush, the bigger the risk the bigger the buzz, yet I was self destructing myself and my family.

Gambling for me was growing to not care about myself or other people.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way was the moment I was willing to do unhealthy things with myself and my life.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way I was willing to give up all faith and hope in myself.

How does the spiritual recovery program work, for me it was a healing process, it helps us heal our self and become more spiritually aware of the fact I was the rat in the wheel going faster and faster and was getting nowhere healthy.

Being consumed by my addictions and obsessions my life was out of balance.

Every time I lied the fears grew within me each time, fear got so great that I reached appoint where I went in to panic mode and made some very unhealthy decisions.

I had to admit to myself I could not be trusted with money, that I did not value money I did not value myself or that I did not value other people.

The emotional scars that caused me to become weak and live in my fears were buried and suppressed over many decades of my life.

My emotional age and physical age did not match up.

The gambling establishments were not my problem I was the problem.

Today I do not want to gamble in any way, yes it would be nice to not have to worry about money, yet I needed to get honest with myself and admit that I worried about everything I had no control over what so ever.

Even though we live in fear to protect our self we need to stop living in fear so that we can get far more from our life today.

I use to blame the gambling establishments for how I use to feel, I use to blame everyone else for how I use to feel.

I now understand that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to pains I was not able to heal, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to fears I would not face, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

Am I able to heal my pains today, am I able to identify each fear and face them today, am I able to reduce my unreasonable expectations of other people and life today.

Do I talk from the logical part of my brain today, or do I talk from the heart today.

Reading text on its own is not enough for me today.

The recovery program is only a manual to help me help myself today by my own actions.

How many people justify not getting a sponsor today, how many people are not willing to invest a lot of time and energy in to their recovery, how many people are reluctant and use every excuse to write things down to paper.

I am going to attend GA 50th birthday in the UK September 2014 I first walked in to GA recovery back in 1969 and I did not have a clue how unhealthy I was.

My thought that if I was able to abstain from gambling I would be happy once more, did not happen that way, I thought that if I was able pay back money I owed people I would be happy, did not happen that way.

Content being at peace with myself were just words to me, I could not relate to them, was I a victim in my life, yes for sure I suffered every form of abuse there was.

When I walked in to the recovery program i was for sure emotionally traumatized in so many ways.

You peel back that onion and the inner child starts to cry, you peel back that onion and expose that little child who was never able to grow up and mature, over time you no longer sulk, you become more and more honest.

The abandonment issues had devastating traumatic effects on me, in time I would cry for that inner child who so much that he wanted to be nurtured and mothered, that inner child would come out to play and to be himself today.

As my honesty grew people would feel threatened by my honesty, as I gave deeper therapies some will run and hide and some people would relate to my deepest feelings and feel connected with me.

Therapies would enable me to be an open book with living in fear of my past any more.

Did I know what true love was all about.

I think my actions were conditional in the old days. I owe you you owe me etc.

Now because my actions and words are unconditional I expect nothing in return. I am a very spiritual person at this time.

I have for certain changed as did my values, I use to justify my cruel words and actions.

Are my words and actions nurturing and encouraging today.

Am I fully accountable to myself today.

Do I feel threatened by another person insecurities, if questioned do I in any way feel threatened by questions today.

A childs innocence is very healthy. I was born free of all fears and over time because of unresolved and unhealed pains fears grew that inhibited me from being the person I knew I could be.

Do I fear any one or anything today.

Do I face my fears today.

Do I take inventory of myself each day, can I improve in myself.

Can I face new challenges today.

In the spiritual recovery program my steel is often tested in several ways and that is healthy for me.

Do I embrace spiritual values in my life today. Are my relationships based on honesty today.

My healthy actions speak much louder than words today.

Do I in my actions demonstrate spiritual growth today.

Do I values the love of people around me today.

Do I understand that true love is unconditional today.

Do I really think that other people will fulfil my wants needs and goals today. Am I self sufficient or isolating today.

How much more can I learn today.

Am I in any way responsible for how other people feel today.

I did not have clue how unhealthy I was on walking in to the spiritual recovery program.

I use to fear being honest before my recovery, now every day my honesty grows as I mature.

Just because you take away source of money from addict will not stop the addict from trying to escape in other ways.

The spiritual recovery program will work for those people are willing to put a great deal of time and effort in to working the recovery program.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was emotionally traumatized long before my addictions and obsessions, the addictions and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was not able to cope emotionally with life and people.

The recovery program starts off by us reading text, then after time rather than talk from our logic and from the brain we start to talk and be aware of our feelings, we get to talk from the heart, once we open up our hearts we begin our trip in to therapies.

Giving honest therapies means we are not able to express our self without being aggressive or confrontational and without using offensive words, then as we open up we start to relate to other people experiences and how we can once again become healthy survivors.

It takes some time for people to move beyond war stories and to talk from the heart, once there is that kind of honesty I could relate to other people lives and experiences also being able to cope emotionally with life issues today.

So do I interact in a healthy spiritual way with all people in my life, or at any point do I still react in an unhealthy way from pains fear or my frustrations.

Being content was a skill that I learned over time, I use to be impatient intolerant and hard on myself, not being able to give myself approval or be able to say to myself that I did a good job.

Pride is the reward we give our self, in being healthy and having healthy relationships with full honesty enables us to have close intimate relationships with other people.

To be honest and fearless is very powerful, to have faced and dealt with our past we are not longer hindered by the guilt pain and shame of our past unhealthy words and unhealthy actions of our past.

I now understand that in the past I did not have any choice but to be unhealthy and I use to live in fear of being honest because I figured every time I am honest was painful.

Being in the spiritual recovery program I was going to be able to feel the full spectrum and range of emotions and feelings, I would be able to cry for that hurt inner child, and over time my emotional age and physical age gap would reduce to being equal.

The honest I learned in the rooms of spiritual recovery would then spread in to my everyday life, the honest was going to be a part of my every day family life.

As we are more honest and as we progress as a group we grow together yet some times the difference between each of us seems the same, in time we ask some very simple questions as reference to our recovery out of ten what level do we feel today regards certain feelings.

Out of ten what level of fear do I feel in my recovery today, what level of fear did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of pain do I feel in my recovery today, what level of pain did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of frustration do I feel in my recovery today, what level of frustration did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of loneliness do I feel in my recovery today, what level of loneliness did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of boredom do I feel in my recovery today, what level of boredom did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

The answers were for me, to understand how much progress there was in my spiritual recovery.

How many fears did I have, in which order did they appear serious to me from day one in my recovery, fear of being honest due to fear of abandonment and rejection was one of the more serious fears I had.

Fear of failure because I associated that the only success I had from day one was to get easy money, no matter how well I did my job I could not give myself any kind of approval or credit for good work I did.

Fear of change, I am for sure a creature of habits, yet now I am extended myself more and more, I am able to do things that once I thought were impossible for me.

Fear of appearing vulnerable, appearing weak, appearing stupid or ignorant, and fear of losing control, yet the fact I wanted to control was very much fear based issues for me.

I now understand that every time I went to an addiction or obsession I just simply made things worse, by not facing myself I went to in to more fear than before.

With each lie fear grows, the fear got so great that I went in to panic mode where I could not think clearly, hence having a sponsor is important because deep down we know what we need to do yet because we have lost all confidence and self worth and esteem in our self.

Having an anonymous sponsor is important part of recovery, in being a sponsor is a two way street, it is like having a friend who you trust completely, yet it is important you follow your instincts regards trusting the right person.

Is spiritual recovery about 100 per cent recovery, no not so if by being honest you hurt yourself your profession or hurt other people it is not wise to damage or hurt other people.

The same with honesty you can be honest without hurting other people and this is where the line of nurturing and encouraging another person as against cowardly bullying which has adverse effects on other people recovery and hurts our self.

The idea is to learn from our mistakes not cause our self pains, there is always a healthy or unhealthy way of doing recovery, when sponsoring we do recovery at our own pace, when we sponsor someone else we do it at their pace.

When sponsoring it is very important it is anonymous, and very important that a person gets different answers from different people and discusses different paths and different paths in their recovery.

I do believe that when dealing with a person we ask, which is your biggest fear today, in facing each fear we work down wards so that once you face each fear it gets simpler and easier.

Before recovery I suppressed and buried my pains I did not heal from them, the clue to buried and suppressed pains was being over sensitive and angry very quickly with even thinking about it.

Often my reaction of anger from that buried hurt little child in me, people seem to use the expression acting out, saying acting out implies the pain is not real and that is not true.

As we get self enlightened as to our reaction to life and people a strange thing happens we start to understand our deepest emotions and feelings, as we do so we see our self in other people.

So for me the spiritual recovery was exactly we call it is a recovery program, healing from our unhealthy past, if due to our painful actions or due to painful actions or words of others towards us.

Do I want or need sympathy or pity from other people today, if so I am playing the victim, am I any way trying to regulate or control other people if so I am using different techniques of bullying which implies I am a coward and that I still have fears in me.

Do I think that I am going to rescuer another person in embracing the spiritual recovery program, this is a conscious decision that people will need or want to make for them self.

On entering the spiritual recovery I did not know that I feared emotional intimacy, I did not know why I feared being honest, I did not know that i was running away from facing myself and my feelings.

Yet over time because I was so mixed up and confused the jumbled jig saw picture started to take form, and over time I understood why I react in such extreme unhealthy ways towards people and life.

It confused me that during my need to do time at work I did a very good job, yet outside of work I felt such a failure and today I feel successful, I did not know I felt so inept in myself and lacked so many interactive skills in life and dealing with people.

I even use to read body language in the wrong way, that took time and talking with people how they reacted to certain things in their life.

This web site is a previlage which enables us to relate to other people success experiences and their recovery.

Am I healthy spiritually today, are my fears fading and am I able to interact with all people without taking things and other people issues personally.

I am so pleased with myself that I am able to lose over 20 pounds in weight in the last two months, very simple I have given up all bread, all cakes except one naughty day once per week, and given up all fizzy drinks yet I do drink fruit drinks and I am eating fruit as well.

Recovery is all about slow steady baby steps one day at a time, I abstain from gambling, I gave up smoking one day at a time, to no longer get drunk one day at a time, to be more caring respectful of myself one day at a time.

I have completed two books where I have transcribed both large books in to web site both all text and all photographs transfered, it was a very deep long commitment on my part.

I am much closes with Shirley my wife than I have been before, I now understand how important the love of a person is to me.

I have both paid and booked up my attending GA 50th anniversary 5 - 7 September 20014 and am looking forward to being there, it is very likely that people I knew back in 1969 would have not stuck with the spiritual recovery course as long as I have done.

It was interesting that requests for people to do telephone duty was nothing to do about counselling people that all you are expected to do by GA is just give out meeting places addresses.

I am not willing to do that just give our addresses if someone is in any kind of pain, I am willing to talk people through painful events and times. If I am not able to do the job properly I am not willing to do less than my best.

I think people in the recovery program have lost sight of what recovery is all about.

My reaction to life and people through anger seems like it was something I could not help myself with, now it seems like I am unable to remember when I was last angry.

When I see myself in other people I can laugh at myself today, the rooms I go to are very healthy and very honest yet non threatening.

When people start preaching to people saying you have to do this or you have that it scares people away, it took me a long time to be nurturing and encouraging yet non threatening.

Am I preaching recovery or demonstrating it, do my actions match my words, in any way am I a facade, do my family fear me today, is my fears fading once I understood that being honest was a healthy way to live my life today.

Did I remove myself with associating with unhealthy people, did I place boundaries so that I can protect myself today, is being fully aware of my instincts in any way associated with my fear today.

Serenity prayer helped me understand that my recovery is my responsibility today, that my anger is my responsibility today, that my being content is my responsibility today, that exchanging unhealthy habits in to healthy habits is my responsibility today.

Am I fully focused on my wants needs and goals today, do I live in the past in any way today. Or do I learn from my past today.

I now understand that no one could stop me gambling or stop me being unhealthy, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me taking the easy option all of the time, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me being angry again that had to be my choice.

Do we lack confidence and self esteem long before entering the recovery program, do we think that someone or something is going to fix us and heal us, it was never going to happen that way.

How could it take me over 23 years to understand step one, it is one single paragraph, was I not willing to listen, or unable to.

What is important for my recovery to understand that the gambling and drink and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally unhealthy long before my addictions and obsessions.

It is important for my recovery understanding step one for me complete acceptance surrender and understanding my life was emotionally unmanageable long before my addictions and obsessions.

My emotional triggers were my pains my fears my frustrations my loneliness and my boredom.

After having my last bet I needed to understand which emotional trigger that caused me to go back to gamble once more. It could have been just one single trigger or several triggers.

The hardest emotional triggers to understand were my frustrations due to my expectations of other people and life.

Today I have no expectations of other people what so ever, today however I have high expectations of myself, courage to change the things I can. Wow that is me. How simpler can it get.

If I am not willing to write things down I am cheating myself, if I am not willing or able to work my recovery program then I am not able to blame other people for my failings.

By not having expectations of other people by me doing things unconditionally I am free of frustrations and the pain I caused myself.

I use to blame everyone else for my stress and my anger, today understand I am responsible for my anger, I am responsible for my happiness, I am responsible for my unhealthy reaction to people and life.

I am responsible for my stress which is fear based.

Controlling other people are fear based issues, yet is it possible to face those fears and accept serenity, is control and strength the same thing, is our courage based up on us doing spiritual actions and saying spiritual words.

I am no longer happy reacting in an unhealthy way of any sort or reacting to fear to everyone and everything. It is very unhealthy living that way.

Am I productive today in my actions, do I fill my needs today, is cleaning the home about cleaning the home, no it is about me being proud about myself and caring about myself.

I no longer want to hurt myself or abuse myself or hurt other people today.

By attending spiritual recovery meetings I am learning how to cope with the tests of life and people around me.

Gambling was an addiction and places where I use to go to escape how I use to feel within myself, in the gambling establishments I could pretend that I had no emotional problems in my life, in the gambling establishments I did not care about myself or other people.

I use to think that life was unmanageable because of gambling and the lack of money, that was not true my life became unmanageable when I was abused in my child hood before I was even seven years of age.

I suffered much emotional abuse, I suffered much physical abuse, I suffered sexual abuse, which had a very serious impact on my growing up to be a emotional healthy person.

In my recovery I was going to set up boundaries for myself, to say to myself just for today I will not gamble, it has nothing to do about gambling or money.

As we grow our thinking changes from just for today I will not to just for today I will that is when we become productive with our time and our energy.

When I went to gamble establishments I was giving up all faith and hope in myself, when I went to gamble establishments I was saying that I did not deserve a nice holiday nice cloths healthy eating.

In time I gave up abusing myself in every form and started to slow down my life style, driving with consideration and respect of other people indicated that I was considerate and respectful of myself.

When I am being intolerant and impatient with other people and life was an indicator I was being intolerant and impatient with myself.

I got in to the habit of arriving early for appointments, arriving early for meetings, arriving early at airports, even having bags packed day before we were leaving on flights because I was more relaxed.

I now understand that other people did not stress me out, the truth was I stressed myself out by my reaction, I also understand that stress is fear based.

I have found out recently that my oxygen levels have dropped from 97% to being about 90% which is not healthy at all.

Things that use to drive me crazy with anger now make me laugh.

People in the rooms use to make me feel very uncomfortable at early stages of my recovery, I use to get very frustrated with people who could not or would not let go of their past and talk about them self today.

Every time a person processes a situation in a healthy way I learn from their experiences wisdom and maturity.

It is very important for me to ask for help, it is very important to ask someone to sponsor you, it is very important to ask questions about every stage of our recovery and to understand why we do steps in certain sequence.

It is very important to exchange unhealthy habits in to healthy habits, as we do we are able to listen to our own conscience and follow spiritual values and behave in a much healthier spiritual way.

Our healthy conscience tells us deep down we are good people, yet why do we go against our own conscience and go against spiritual values, fear is the reason we would do and say such unhealthy things.

A beaten dog does not have a choice but to react in fear and shake with fear, we have learned to hide and not admit our fears, in time once we open up more we live in less fear and become comfortable being our true self.

The spiritual program does not tell us you have to, the spiritual program really means to say to people it is highly recommended for your own benefit that you do or do not do certain things, that for your own benefit that you do the recovery program in certain sequences.

Our spiritual actions and words demonstrate what recovery is all about, our fearless spiritual actions and words demonstrate what recovery is all about, our honesty demonstrate what recovery is all about, our feelings comfortable in our self demonstrate what recovery is all about.

Only once I understood my unhealthy reaction in anger was not healthy for me I could do something about it, anger is an unhealthy reaction to my pains I am unable to heal and nurture.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my fears I am unable to or not willing to face.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my unhealthy frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people, that my unreasonable expectations of life and people caused me pains from a very early age.

Any form of addiction obsessive behavior of escape or deviating my feelings and life is an unhealthy action for me.

I was emotionally traumatized on walking in to recovery, due to pain caused to me by others and pains I caused myself I had no choice but to live in so many unidentified fears.

It is very important to take full responsibility for our unhealthy actions and for our unhealthy words, no justifications, no excuses because if we do not take full responsibility we are cheating our self.

For me any form of addiction or obsession causes a decline in my spiritual interactions with other people, any form of addiction or obsession was an indicator that there was still some pains and fears lingering within me.

For me many kinds of pain causes many different kinds of fears in us, how important is it for us to face those fears, how important is it for us to heal and nurture our pains, surely recovery is about is all about healing.

Dysfunctional people escape responsibility, dysfunctional people do not like recovery because it will ask us to be accountable to our self, dysfunctional people will often use guilt to control other people, dysfunctional people are unhealthy people.

Bullies are in fact very weak inadequate insecure unhealthy people who take advantage of vulnerable people or weak people.

People talk about peace of mind yet what is it, is it being completely free of all fears, is it being completely content with in yourself, peace of mind is it about no longer being angry or aggression with yourself or others.

Where do we start dealing with our own insecurities, confidence comes with practicing healthy spiritual actions and spiritual words, pride comes with practicing healthy spiritual actions and spiritual words.

Where do we start in our spiritual growth, my mind use to be so mixed up and confused I did not know where to begin to peel back the onion and expose that hurt little child.

Surely we need to understand the reasons behind each of those spiritual values, we also need to understand why we became so unhealthy spiritually.

Some people even get confused in to thinking that being fearless means you are a non caring person, that is not true, being fearless means you will try anything and understand that every experience you go through and you give your best effort is a learning and growing curve.

There is no such thing as failure in doing spiritual recovery, one day without an unhealthy addiction or unhealthy obsession is healthier day clean days cannot be lost, healthy days are never lost we have lived them and experienced them.

Some people will think that recovery is all about religion yet that is not so it is a spiritual recovery program which helps us heal and live a healthy life with or without any religious beliefs what so ever.

Our unity and our honesty is our strength, yes people will lie and not put enough time and energy in to their recovery and will blame other people for their failings. They are cheating them self.

Step four is not about who is right or wrong but more about what are healthy or unhealthy habits for us today.

Yet I had given up all faith and hope in myself long before my addictions and obsessions.

It took me a long time to write down my lists and get focused and more motivated getting things done in my life.

I do not fear gambling establishments today.

I do not fear facing myself today.

I do not want or need to gamble today, I do not want or need to smoke today, I do not want or need to get drunk today, I do not want or need to be angry resentful or angry today, I do not want or need to lie to any one today, I no longer want or need to waste my time or energy being idle today.

The money and gambling were not my problem I was the problem, if you take away the money the fuel for the addiction you do not take the compulsion or obsessive behaviours.

I did not know it that when I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I did not have a choice but to turn towards an addiction or obsession, I was in a self destructive addiction or obsession that caused me to go against my own conscience and go against several spiritual values.

To stop our self from being a victim we can do it directly or indirectly in order to protect our self from threatening and abusive people.

When I look back on my life as it was, there is no doubt in my mind that I was a very weak immature inept lost inadequate insecure person but could admit it to myself.

If a person heals from their pains of their past, that healed traumatic pain becomes our strength today.

When I first started sponsoring there were some things I felt was very important, that sponsoring is a two way street, that sponsoring is about questioning everything and making sure you understand why you do things in certain order.

That sponsoring is about helping another person help them self, and over time for them to take person responsibility, credit and feel pride when things they do healthy habits and ways with healthy consequences.

There will be people who say you “have to do this” or “you have to do that”, we learn that you do certain things when you are truly ready to do those things.

It is important to feel you trust the person you are working on sponsorship with. And do follow your instincts.

I find it is important to remain anonymous about who you sponsor both ways, and the recovery program suggests we do not sponsor people of the opposite s*x.

Some people think and feel that s*x is the most important part of a relationship, yet sadly s*x only represents less than 5% of any relationship.

I think it is important that love of any kind is spiritual and being loving and caring is very healthy.

I am very pleased that Shirley can very honest with me about everything in our life, her likes and dislikes, and it is very healthy that Shirley no longer fears me.

The spiritual recovery program never failed me I failed to put any energy and effort in to working the recovery program it is as simple as that can be.

It is almost like buying a service manual for your car and then think that by having the service manual the car would fix itself.

In me being resentful vengeful guilty and ashamed indicated that I did not know how to heal the pains of my past, who was going to help me learn to heal my emotional pains of the past and not live in the pains as a consequence of pains is living in my fears also.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham.

AKA Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person each day, yet I am not a religion person.

When I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I was very vulnerable weak inept and insecure, I felt that I could not help myself that the gambling controlled me.

I even felt I was not responsible for my actions, yet being a physical as an adult that seemed a weird kind of concept yet due to unhealed traumatic experiences in my life I had built up huge walls built on fears.

Sadly I had got in to the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my pains and was not healing them.

I felt very unsettled by the rooms of recovery because there were very few therapies to give a resolve in how I felt within myself.

I had been very clever by putting up a facade to pretend I was confident and knew the answers to everything and that I was in full control, yet that in itself was living a lie, the facade was hiding all the cracks in my well being.

I had even been able to suppress all memories about me trying to take my own life as a teenager because I was unable to heal the pains I was going through at that time.

In those painful days I felt I could not talk to anyone and feel comfortable with exposing any part of my vulnerability.

My time in the spiritual recovery program it is not about religion but more about me getting healthy once more and embracing spiritual values.

Spiritual value which are character building such as unconditional loving forgiving apologizing caring trusting patience tolerance humble sincere honest faithful loyal punctual courteous respectful considerate grateful content productive creative sharing nurturing encouraging awareness stable open minded and calm and at peace with oneself.

Spiritual Values stand alone from all religion and politics and are what our own conscience is based up on.

Spiritual Values are what our conscience is based up on.

Each time I went against my own conscience I hurt myself in so many ways, yet why did I lie, why did I try to escape life and people, could it simply be unresolved pain and fear based issues.

In time I would learn that I feared being honest because I felt that people would no longer like or love me anymore, was that fear of rejection or fear of abandonment, could it be that simple.

When I started to get honest first of all it was in the rooms of recovery, in time I would to be able to articulate my feelings and understand how I ticked.

The spiritual recovery program was never going to fix me, yet the spiritual recovery program was going to help me help myself by learning slow baby steps.

The honesty started from within me, simple 20 questions would ask me to be honest with myself, it was simple enough yes or no, in time the honesty grew in me and my yes answers grew as I got more honest with myself.

Now in time I would recognize and see myself in other people, sometimes seeing things I did not like seeing.

Yet in time the honesty in me grew, as I grew each meeting I attended grew with me, and our therapies got deeper.

I use to isolate myself in so many ways, some people call it escaping or deviating in not dealing with situations and people in my life.

Then suddenly I would recognize that during my life I had played two roles, victim and perpetrator even knowing how painful it was being the victim even though I justified my actions my lies and cheating would hurt other people.

So by abstaining from gambling was it enough on its own, no for me not so, just by abstaining I was stopping hurting myself and others, by abstaining on its own was not healing the pains of my past.

People as k me at what time do people consider counselling, my answer when you are free f***l fears and able to talk about every aspect of your life and not hold anything back.

In the recovery program comes the word boundaries and dysfunctional, they were confusing words which I did not understand.

Boundaries were going to be for me, boundaries are not about trying to control and regulate another person, but more about saying I value myself and I am not willing to do or do certain unhealthy things.

The first boundary we set is just for today I will not gamble, then just for today I will not smoke, just for today I will not say or do anything that hurts myself or another person.

The word dysfunctional could be expressed as not working normally, for me dysfunctional means I was not able to have healthy spiritual interactions with other people due to my fears of my past.

The word dysfunctional could be said to mean unable to interact in healthy ways with other people without reacting in an unhealthy way, anger resentments trsut issues.

The word dysfunctional could mean that I was ignorant and inept in how to interact with other people and lacked healthy social skills.

Yet in the spiritual recovery program that ability would improve without feeling uncomfortable with other peoples honesty.

Being able to articulate my feelings in a healthy way was a way people with me knew what emotional state of mind I was at that moment in time without them feeling threatened by me.

For me anger is an unhealthy reaction to my pains fears and frustrations.

When I first heard that simple fact I could not believe it was that simple.

Some people will refer to people acting out in anger, that is not a healthy way to explain a person real feaalings, it is not an act and often their anger is very real to them.

People being angry do not know how to process their feelings in a healthy way.

People who are angry resentful bitter and twisted are often not healing the pains of their past, healing is a very important pat of the spiritual recovery program.

So my understanding is that pains causes us fears, if those pains are not resolved or healed they leave us with fear we do not understand.

Frustrations were a consequence of unresolved child hood issues, my expectations of my life were not met, and I internalized the fact my emotional wants and needs were not fulfilled as a young child.

I internalized most things in my life and felt that I was not wanted or loved, that there must have been something not right or wrong with me.

I now understand that because my emotional wants and needs were not met had nothing to do about me what so ever.

In the spiritual recovery I would recognize that I did not fully appreciate what love was all about, did I understand what love was all about.

I got the point where I thought I was unlovable, then I understood that love is about healthy interactions with other people.

It was fear that made me unlovable and my inability to put greater unconditional effort in to my relationships with other people.

For most of my life my actions and motives were very unhealthy and conditional, in the spiritual recovery I would start to do things for the wrong unhealthy reasons, in time I would give of myself unconditionally.

In not having expectations of other people or life I started to understand that be being healthy I started to feel proud of myself, every healthy actions has healthy consequences.

So in time I would give up escaping to gambling, I would give up escaping to drink, I would give up escaping to watch television, I would give up escaping to computer games.

So today my time is much more filled with healthy motives and healthy actions, no more person pleasing, no more doing things out of penance, in being motivated in healthy ways and not living a facade I am able to live my life to the full.

Accepting the serenity prayer helped me in so many ways, there is nothing I can say that will change another person to become healthy, that is their conscious choice, unhealthy people will justify their unhealthy actions and unhealthy words no matter how much you explain to them the consequences of their unhealthy actions and unhealthy words up on you.

The serenity prayer helps me understand that I have to make the conscious choice to become healthy, that by starting o value myself I am no longer willing to be unhealthy or use unhealthy actions or unhealthy words up on other people.

Courage to change is and was overcoming my fears and low self esteem.

Step one was something I needed to ***** and understand fully.

Step one acceptance surrender and life being unmanageable.

Acceptance that due to ways of escaping life and people each time I gambled I made thing much worse, at no time did gambling improve my life in any way.

Surrender that all the time I was consumed by my addictions I was beating myself up and causing myself emotional pain time and time again, that all the time I gambled I could not win and that I was becoming more and more of a loser.

Life being unmanageable

Was all about my emotional triggers, my pains I could not or would not heal, I just got in the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my pains not healing them.

Fears I was not able to identify or willing to face and over come.

Frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people. My unreasonable expectations caused me a lot of pain from a very early age.

Loneliness due to two things abandonment issues from my child hood and fears that caused me to isolate myself and I was able to have emotional intimacy with other people.

Boredom due to the fact I was not able to put all my effort in to things outside of my work life, I had in fact become a stunted with regards not taking on new challenges in my life.

Today is very clear to me that worrying about things I could not change caused me far too much stress, worrying was about juggling to many balls in the air and it was inevitable I was going to crash one way or another.

Gambling was risk taking, gambling for me was very much an adrenaline rush for me, the bigger the risk the bigger the buzz, yet I was self destructing myself and my family.

Gambling for me was declining to respect myself was declining to care about myself or other people.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way was the moment I was willing to do unhealthy things with myself and my life.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way I was willing to give up all faith and hope in myself.

How does the spiritual recovery program work, for me it was a healing process, it helps us heal our self and become more spiritually aware of the fact I was the rat in the wheel going faster and faster and was getting nowhere healthy.

Being consumed by my addictions and obsessions my life was out of balance.

Every time I lied the fears grew within me each time, fear got so great that I reached appoint where I went in to panic mode and made some very unhealthy decisions.

I had to admit to myself I could not be trusted with money, that I did not value money I did not value myself or that I did not value other people.

The emotional scars that caused me to become weak and live in my fears were buried and suppressed over many decades of my life.

My emotional age and physical age did not match up.

The gambling establishments were not my problem I was the problem.

Today I do not want to gamble in any way, yes it would be nice to not have to worry about money, yet I needed to get honest with myself and admit that I worried about everything I had no control over what so ever.

Even though we live in fear to protect our self we need to stop living in fear so that we can get far more from our life today.

I use to blame the gambling establishments for how I use to feel, I use to blame everyone else for how I use to feel.

I now understand that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to pains I was not able to heal, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to fears I would not face, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

Am I able to heal my pains today, am I able to identify each fear and face them today, am I able to reduce my unreasonable expectations of other people and life today.

Do I talk from the logical part of my brain today, or do I talk from the heart today.

Reading text on its own is not enough for me today.

The recovery program is only a manual to help me help myself today by my own actions.

How many people justify not getting a sponsor today, how many people are not willing to invest a lot of time and energy in to their recovery, how many people are reluctant and use every excuse to write things down to paper.

I am going to attend GA 50th birthday in the UK September 2014 I first walked in to GA recovery back in 1969 and I did not have a clue how unhealthy I was.

My thought that if I was able to abstain from gambling I would be happy once more, did not happen that way, I thought that if I was able pay back money I owed people I would be happy, did not happen that way.

Content being at peace with myself were just words to me, I could not relate to them, was I a victim in my life, yes for sure I suffered every form of abuse there was.

When I walked in to the recovery program i was for sure emotionally traumatized in so many ways.

You peel back that onion and the inner child starts to cry, you peel back that onion and expose that little child who was never able to grow up and mature, over time you no longer sulk, you become more and more honest.

The abandonment issues had devastating traumatic effects on me, in time I would cry for that inner child who so much that he wanted to be nurtured and mothered, that inner child would come out to play and to be himself today.

As my honesty grew people would feel threatened by my honesty, as I gave deeper therapies some will run and hide and some people would relate to my deepest feelings and feel connected with me.

Therapies would enable me to be an open book with living in fear of my past any more.

Did I know what true love was all about.

I think my actions were conditional in the old days. I owe you you owe me etc.

Now because my actions and words are unconditional I expect nothing in return. I am a very spiritual person at this time.

I have for certain changed as did my values, I use to justify my cruel words and actions.

Are my words and actions nurturing and encouraging today.

Am I fully accountable to myself today.

Do I feel threatened by another person insecurities, if questioned do I in any way feel threatened by questions today.

A childs innocence is very healthy. I was born free of all fears and over time because of unresolved and unhealed pains fears grew that inhibited me from being the person I knew I could be.

Do I fear any one or anything today.

Do I face my fears today.

Do I take inventory of myself each day, can I improve in myself.

How much more can I learn today.

I use to fear being honest before my recovery, now every day my honesty grows as I mature.

Just because you take away source of money from addict will not stop the addict from trying to escape in other ways.

The spiritual recovery program will work for those people are willing to put a great deal of time and effort in to working the recovery program.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was emotionally traumatized long before my addictions and obsessions, the addictions and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was not able to cope emotionally with life and people.

The recovery program starts off by us reading text, then after time rather than talk from our logic and from the brain we start to talk and be aware of our feelings, we get to talk from the heart, once we open up our hearts we begin our trip in to therapies.

It takes some time for people to move beyond war stories and to talk from the heart, once there is that kind of honesty I could relate to other people lives and experiences also being able to cope emotionally with life issues today.

So do I interact in a healthy spiritual way with all people in my life, or at any point do I still react in an unhealthy way from pains fear or my frustrations.

Being content was a skill that I learned over time, I use to be impatient intolerant and hard on myself, not being able to give myself approval or be able to say to myself that I did a good job.

Pride is the reward we give our self, in being healthy and having healthy relationships with full honesty enables us to have close intimate relationships with other people.

To be honest and fearless is very powerful, to have faced and dealt with our past we are not longer hindered by the guilt pain and shame of our past unhealthy words and unhealthy actions of our past.

I now understand that in the past I did not have any choice but to be unhealthy and I use to live in fear of being honest because I figured every time I am honest was painful.

Being in the spiritual recovery program I was going to be able to feel the full spectrum and range of emotions and feelings, I would be able to cry for that hurt inner child, and over time my emotional age and physical age gap would reduce to being equal.

The honesty I learned in the rooms of spiritual recovery would then spread in to my everyday life, the honest was going to be a part of my every day family life.

As we are more honest and as we progress as a group we grow together yet some times the difference between each of us seems the same, in time we ask some very simple questions as reference to our recovery out of ten what level do we feel today regards certain feelings.

Out of ten what level of fear do I feel in my recovery today, what level of fear did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of pain do I feel in my recovery today, what level of pain did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of frustration do I feel in my recovery today, what level of frustration did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of loneliness do I feel in my recovery today, what level of loneliness did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of boredom do I feel in my recovery today, what level of boredom did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

The answers were for me, to understand how much progress there was in my spiritual recovery.

How many fears did I have, in which order did they appear serious to me from day one in my recovery, fear of being honest due to fear of abandonment and rejection was one of the more serious fears I had.

Fear of failure because I associated that the only success I had from day one was to get easy money, no matter how well I did my job I could not give myself any kind of approval or credit for good work I did.

Fear of change, I am for sure a creature of habits, yet now I am extended myself more and more, I am able to do things that once I thought were impossible for me.

Fear of appearing vulnerable, appearing weak, appearing stupid or ignorant, and fear of losing control, yet the fact I wanted to control was very much fear based issues for me.

I now understand that every time I went to an addiction or obsession I just simply made things worse, by not facing myself I went to in to more fear than before.

With each lie fear grows, the fear got so great that I went in to panic mode where I could not think clearly, hence having a sponsor is important because deep down we know what we need to do yet because we have lost all confidence and self worth and esteem in our self.

Having an anonymous sponsor is important part of recovery, in being a sponsor is a two way street, it is like having a friend who you trust completely, yet it is important you follow your instincts regards trusting the right person.

The same with honesty you can be honest without hurting other people and this is where the line of nurturing and encouraging another person as against cowardly bullying which has adverse effects on other people recovery and hurts our self.

When sponsoring it is very important it is anonymous, and very important that a person gets different answers from different people and discusses different paths and different paths in their recovery.

I do believe that when dealing with a person who is willing we ask, which is your biggest fear today, in facing each fear we work down wards so that once you face each fear it gets simpler and easier.

Before recovery I suppressed and buried my pains I did not heal from them, the clue to buried and suppressed pains was being over sensitive and angry very quickly with even thinking about it.

Often in my past my unhealthy reaction of anger from that buried hurt little child in me, people seem to use the expression acting out, saying acting out implies the pain is not real and that is not true.

On entering the spiritual recovery I did not know that I feared emotional intimacy, I did not know why I feared being honest, I did not know that i was running away from facing myself and my feelings.

It confused me that during my need to do time at work I did a very good job, yet outside of work I felt such a failure and today I feel successful, I did not know I felt so inept in myself and lacked so many interactive skills in life and dealing with people.

I even use to read body language in the wrong way, that took time and talking with people how they reacted to certain things in their life.

This web site is a willing previlage and process which enables us to relate to other people success experiences and their recovery.

Am I healthy spiritually today, are my fears fading and am I able to interact with all people without taking things and other people issues personally.

I am so pleased with myself that I am able to lose over 20 pounds in weight in the last two months, very simple I have given up all bread, all cakes all biscuits except one naughty day once per week, and given up all fizzy processed sugar drinks yet I do drink fruit drinks and I am eating fruit as well.

Recovery is all about slow steady baby steps one day at a time, I abstain from gambling, I gave up smoking one day at a time, to no longer get drunk one day at a time, to be more caring respectful of myself one day at a time.

Recovery is all about healthy progress not perfection.

I am much closes with Shirley my wife than I have been before, I now understand how important the love of a person is to me.

I have both paid and booked up my attending GA 50th anniversary 5 - 7 September 20014 and am looking forward to being there, it is very likely that people I knew back in 1969 would have not stuck with the spiritual recovery course as long as I have done.

When I see myself in other people I can laugh at myself today, the rooms I go to are very healthy and very honest yet non threatening.

When people start preaching to people saying you have to do this or you have that it scares people away, it took me a long time to be nurturing and encouraging yet non threatening to people.

Am I preaching recovery or demonstrating it, do my actions match my words, in any way am I a facade, do my family fear me today, is my fears fading once I understood that being honest was a healthy way to live my life today.

Did I remove myself with associating with unhealthy people, did I place boundaries so that I can protect myself today, is being fully aware of my instincts in any way associated with my fear today.

Serenity prayer helped me understand that my recovery is my responsibility today, that my anger is my responsibility today, that my being content is my responsibility today, that exchanging unhealthy habits in to healthy habits is my responsibility today.

Am I fully focused on my wants needs and goals today, do I live in the past in any way today. Or do I learn from my past today.

I now understand that no one could stop me gambling or stop me being unhealthy, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me taking the easy option all of the time, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me being angry again that had to be my choice.

Do we lack confidence and self esteem long before entering the recovery program, do we think that someone or something is going to fix us and heal us, it was never going to happen that way.

How could it take me over 23 years to understand step one, it is one single paragraph, was I not willing to listen, or unable to.

My emotional triggers were my pains my fears my frustrations my loneliness and my boredom.

After having my last bet I needed to understand which emotional trigger that caused me to go back to gamble once more. It could have been just one single emotional trigger or several emotional triggers.

The hardest emotional triggers to understand were my frustrations due to my expectations of other people and life.

Today I have no expectations of other people what so ever, today however I have high expectations of myself, courage to change the things I can. Wow that is me. How simpler can it get.

If I am not willing to write things down I am cheating myself, if I am not willing or able to work my recovery program then I am not able to blame other people for my failings.

I am responsible for my stress which is fear based.

Controlling other people are fear based issues, yet is it possible to face those fears and accept serenity, is control and strength the same thing, is our courage based up on us doing spiritual actions and saying spiritual words.

I am no longer happy reacting in an unhealthy way of any sort or reacting to fear to everyone and everything. It is very unhealthy living that way.

Am I productive today in my actions, do I fill my needs today, is cleaning the home about cleaning the home, no it is about me being proud about myself and caring about myself.

By attending spiritual recovery meetings I am learning how to cope with the tests of life and people around me.

In my recovery I was going to set up boundaries for myself, to say to myself just for today I will not gamble, it has nothing to do about gambling or money.

As we grow our thinking changes from just for today I will not to just for today I will that is when we become productive with our time and our energy.

When I am being intolerant and impatient with other people and life was an indicator I was being intolerant and impatient with myself.

I got in to the healthy habit of arriving early for appointments, arriving early for meetings, arriving early at airports, even having bags packed day before we were leaving on flights because I was more relaxed.

I have found out recently that my oxygen levels have dropped from 97% to being about 90% which is not healthy at all.

Things that use to drive me crazy with anger now make me laugh.

People in the rooms use to make me feel very uncomfortable at early stages of my recovery, I use to get very frustrated with people who could not or would not let go of their past and talk about them self today.

Every time a person processes a situation in a healthy way I learn from their experiences wisdom and maturity.

It is very important for me to ask for help, it is very important to ask someone to sponsor you, it is very important to ask questions about every stage of our recovery and to understand why we do steps in certain sequence.

It is very important to exchange unhealthy habits in to healthy habits, as we do we are able to listen to our own conscience and follow spiritual values and behave in a much healthier spiritual way.

Our healthy conscience tells us deep down we are good people, yet why do we go against our own conscience and go against spiritual values, fear is the reason we would do and say such unhealthy things.

A beaten dog does not have a choice but to react in fear and shake with fear, we have learned to hide and not admit our fears, in time once we open up more we live in less fear and become comfortable being our true self.

The spiritual program does not tell us you have to, the spiritual program really means to say to people it is highly recommended for your own benefit that you do or do not do certain things, that for your own benefit that you do the recovery program in certain sequences.

Only once I understood my unhealthy reaction in anger was not healthy for me I could do something about it, anger is an unhealthy reaction to my pains I am unable to heal and nurture.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my fears I am unable to or not willing to face.

Anger can also be an unhealthy reaction to my unhealthy frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people, that my unreasonable expectations of life and people caused me pains from a very early age.

Any form of addiction obsessive behavior of escape or deviating my feelings and life is an unhealthy action for me.

I was emotionally traumatized on walking in to recovery, due to pain caused to me by others and pains I caused myself I had no choice but to live in so many unidentified fears.

It is very important to take full responsibility for our unhealthy actions and for our unhealthy words, no more justifications, no more excuses because if we do not take full responsibility we are cheating our self.

For me many kinds of pain causes many different kinds of fears in us, how important is it for us to face those fears, how important is it for us to heal and nurture our pains, surely recovery is about is all about healing.

Bullies are in fact very cowardly weak inadequate insecure unhealthy people who take advantage of vulnerable people or weak people.

Some people will think that recovery is all about religion yet that is not so it is a spiritual recovery program which helps us heal and live a healthy life with or without any religious beliefs what so ever.

I did not know it that when I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I did not have a choice but to turn towards an addiction or obsession, I was in a self destructive addiction or obsession that caused me to go against my own conscience and go against several spiritual values.

When I look back on my life as it was, there is no doubt in my mind that I was a very weak immature inept lost inadequate insecure person but could admit it to myself.

If a person heals from their pains of their past, that healed traumatic pain becomes our strength today.

There will be people who say you “have to do this” or “you have to do that”, we learn that you do certain things when you are truly ready to do those things.

It is important to feel you trust the person you are working on sponsorship with. And do follow your instincts.

I find it is important to remain anonymous about who you sponsor both ways, and the recovery program suggests we do not sponsor people of the opposite s*x.

In me being resentful vengeful guilty and ashamed indicated that I did not know how to heal the pains of my past, who was going to help me learn to heal my emotional pains of the past and not live in the pains as a consequence of pains is living in my fears also.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham.

AKA Dave L

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler! I am becoming a healthy spiritual person each day, yet I am not a religion person.

By being committed to doing lots of healthy work in my recovery there have been many changes in my life.

For me the spiritual program has nothing to do about religion, even though I am a more spiritual person, I learned soon enough by going back to gambling that my recovery is down to me, yet I know now that I could not do it on my own.

Each time I went back to gambling was a lesson if i was willing to learn from it.

I make sure that people understand that no matter when you had your last bet we as a fellowship want to see you back in the rooms of recovery, even if you do not have any money we want to see you back in recovery.

Each of you have something to offer us and to give us help in order we see our self in you at different stages of our recovery.

Fear was often the reason I went back to gambling, I then found out that fear alone was not going to stop me go back gambling again.

For me anxiety stress worry depression nervousness were all fear based issues, procrastination was often fear based issues.

I am now down 23 pounds in weight and am feeling more positive in looking after myself, I respect myself more today, I love myself more today, I am able to feel proud of myself today, my past unhealthy actions and words ahev been processed in a healthy way today.

I use to attend 4 - 5 meeting per week just to be able to abstain from my unhealthy gambling.

Now I am proud to attend 2 meetings per week, I am looking forward to being at the 50th Anniversary of GA in the UK.

As I get spiritually healthy I am less likely to lie, I live a fearless life today, that hurt inner child in me is able to come out and have fun today.

I use to be so reluctant before my recovery, I did things resentfully and I cheated myself, I did things conditionally and I cheated myself,

Today was a very productive day, we ate out, we did yard work, we tend to work as a team today.

Even though I am limited due to COPD Asthma and other medical conditions I put as much effort in to my life that is physically possible.

I do have pain killers yet only use them at the end of the day, being healthy I have plans goals and thoughts that are healthy creative and original.

There were times in my recovery I needed to look certain words up because I was ignorant of their meaning, it helped me able to articulate clearly my thoughts feelings and emotions.

Being ignorant is not being stupid, for me to open up and ask questions was very healthy for my progress.

I have transcribed two large books with text and pictures to my family tree, there over 16,000 names, it was a challenge and commitment for me, it was healthy yet long to get all those things done.

The computer is a very healthy tool, yet it is not a way for me to escape now, having balance and healthy interactions in my life is very important to me today and my recovery.

The spiritual recovery program is a second family to me, it is also a place where there is loads of wisdom and experience and even though people belief systems vary their healthy out come in the essential goal.

If people do not agree with certain people often there is a rift and disconnection between people, in our meetings people have different ideas about the spiritual recovery program which is very healthy.

I would say that I was very much a loner because I live a facade built of fear before my recovery, my fears made me unlovable, my mistrust and unhealed pains of my past were going to restrict me from having healthy intimate relationships with other people, having healthy intimate relationships with other people was nothing to do about s*x.

I have been in the spiritual recovery program for over 44 years, the question people often ask of me do I need to still go to meetings if I have not gambled in over 22 years.

The answer is very much yes for me, the spiritual recovery program is about character building, it is about maturing and healing, it is about me becoming the person I should have been if I had not been brutalized and victimized as a child.

I have made a conscious decision and set boundaries that I am not willing to do or say unhealthy things that adversely affect myself or my relationship with other people.

That empowers me, if at the end of each of my days I can say to myself that I extended myself and improved in my life I am working my recovery program.

Spiritual values which are character building such as unconditional loving forgiving apologizing caring trusting patience tolerance humble sincere honest faithful loyal optimistic confidence punctual courteous respectful considerate grateful content productive creative sharing nurturing encouraging awareness stable open minded and calm and at peace with oneself.

Spiritual values stand alone from all religion and politics and are what our own conscience is based up on. Spiritual Values are what our conscience is based up on.

When I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I was very vulnerable weak inept and insecure, I felt that I could not help myself that the gambling controlled me.

I even felt I was not responsible for my actions, yet being a physical as an adult that seemed a weird kind of concept yet due to unhealed traumatic experiences in my life I had built up huge walls built on fears.

Sadly I had got in to the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my pains and was not healing them.

I felt very unsettled by the rooms of recovery because there were very few therapies to give a resolve in how I felt within myself.

I had been very clever by putting up a facade to pretend I was confident and knew the answers to everything and that I was in full control, yet that in itself was living a lie, the facade was hiding all the cracks in my well being.

I had even been able to suppress all memories about me trying to take my own life as a teenager because I was unable to heal the pains I was going through at that time.

In those painful days I felt I could not talk to anyone and feel comfortable with exposing any part of my vulnerability.

My time in the spiritual recovery program it is not about religion but more about me getting healthy once more and embracing spiritual values.

Spiritual value which are character building such as unconditional loving forgiving apologizing caring trusting patience tolerance humble sincere honest faithful loyal punctual courteous respectful considerate grateful content productive creative sharing nurturing encouraging awareness stable open minded and calm and at peace with oneself.

Spiritual Values stand alone from all religion and politics and are what our own conscience is based up on.

Spiritual Values are what our conscience is based up on.

Each time I went against my own conscience I hurt myself in so many ways, yet why did I lie, why did I try to escape life and people, could it simply be unresolved pain and fear based issues.

In time I would learn that I feared being honest because I felt that people would no longer like or love me anymore, was that fear of rejection or fear of abandonment, could it be that simple.

When I started to get honest first of all it was in the rooms of recovery, in time I would to be able to articulate my feelings and understand how I ticked.

The spiritual recovery program was never going to fix me, yet the spiritual recovery program was going to help me help myself by learning slow baby steps.

The honesty started from within me, simple 20 questions would ask me to be honest with myself, it was simple enough yes or no, in time the honesty grew in me and my yes answers grew as I got more honest with myself.

Now in time I would recognize and see myself in other people, sometimes seeing things I did not like seeing.

Yet in time the honesty in me grew, as I grew each meeting I attended grew with me, and our therapies got deeper.

I use to isolate myself in so many ways, some people call it escaping or deviating in not dealing with situations and people in my life.

Then suddenly I would recognize that during my life I had played two roles, victim and perpetrator even knowing how painful it was being the victim even though I justified my actions my lies and cheating would hurt other people.

So by abstaining from gambling was it enough on its own, no for me not so, just by abstaining I was stopping hurting myself and others, by abstaining on its own was not healing the pains of my past.

People as k me at what time do people consider counselling, my answer when you are free f***l fears and able to talk about every aspect of your life and not hold anything back.

In the recovery program comes the word boundaries and dysfunctional, they were confusing words which I did not understand.

Boundaries were going to be for me, boundaries are not about trying to control and regulate another person, but more about saying I value myself and I am not willing to do or do certain unhealthy things.

The first boundary we set is just for today I will not gamble, then just for today I will not smoke, just for today I will not say or do anything that hurts myself or another person.

The word dysfunctional could be expressed as not working normally, for me dysfunctional means I was not able to have healthy spiritual interactions with other people due to my fears of my past.

The word dysfunctional could be said to mean unable to interact in healthy ways with other people without reacting in an unhealthy way, anger resentments trsut issues.

The word dysfunctional could mean that I was ignorant and inept in how to interact with other people and lacked healthy social skills.

Yet in the spiritual recovery program that ability would improve without feeling uncomfortable with other peoples honesty.

Being able to articulate my feelings in a healthy way was a way people with me knew what emotional state of mind I was at that moment in time without them feeling threatened by me.

For me anger is an unhealthy reaction to my pains fears and frustrations.

When I first heard that simple fact I could not believe it was that simple.

Some people will refer to people acting out in anger, that is not a healthy way to explain a person real feaalings, it is not an act and often their anger is very real to them.

People being angry do not know how to process their feelings in a healthy way.

People who are angry resentful bitter and twisted are often not healing the pains of their past, healing is a very important pat of the spiritual recovery program.

So my understanding is that pains causes us fears, if those pains are not resolved or healed they leave us with fear we do not understand.

Frustrations were a consequence of unresolved child hood issues, my expectations of my life were not met, and I internalized the fact my emotional wants and needs were not fulfilled as a young child.

I internalized most things in my life and felt that I was not wanted or loved, that there must have been something not right or wrong with me.

I now understand that because my emotional wants and needs were not met had nothing to do about me what so ever.

In the spiritual recovery I would recognize that I did not fully appreciate what love was all about, did I understand what love was all about.

I got the point where I thought I was unlovable, then I understood that love is about healthy interactions with other people.

It was fear that made me unlovable and my inability to put greater unconditional effort in to my relationships with other people.

For most of my life my actions and motives were very unhealthy and conditional, in the spiritual recovery I would start to do things for the wrong unhealthy reasons, in time I would give of myself unconditionally.

In not having expectations of other people or life I started to understand that be being healthy I started to feel proud of myself, every healthy actions has healthy consequences.

So in time I would give up escaping to gambling, I would give up escaping to drink, I would give up escaping to watch television, I would give up escaping to computer games.

So today my time is much more filled with healthy motives and healthy actions, no more person pleasing, no more doing things out of penance, in being motivated in healthy ways and not living a facade I am able to live my life to the full.

Accepting the serenity prayer helped me in so many ways, there is nothing I can say that will change another person to become healthy, that is their conscious choice, unhealthy people will justify their unhealthy actions and unhealthy words no matter how much you explain to them the consequences of their unhealthy actions and unhealthy words up on you.

The serenity prayer helps me understand that I have to make the conscious choice to become healthy, that by starting o value myself I am no longer willing to be unhealthy or use unhealthy actions or unhealthy words up on other people.

Courage to change is and was overcoming my fears and low self esteem.

Step one was something I needed to ***** and understand fully.

Step one acceptance surrender and life being unmanageable.

Acceptance that due to ways of escaping life and people each time I gambled I made thing much worse, at no time did gambling improve my life in any way.

Surrender that all the time I was consumed by my addictions I was beating myself up and causing myself emotional pain time and time again, that all the time I gambled I could not win and that I was becoming more and more of a loser.

Life being unmanageable

Was all about my emotional triggers, my pains I could not or would not heal, I just got in the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my pains not healing them.

Fears I was not able to identify or willing to face and over come.

Frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people. My unreasonable expectations caused me a lot of pain from a very early age.

Loneliness due to two things abandonment issues from my child hood and fears that caused me to isolate myself and I was able to have emotional intimacy with other people.

Boredom due to the fact I was not able to put all my effort in to things outside of my work life, I had in fact become a stunted with regards not taking on new challenges in my life.

Today is very clear to me that worrying about things I could not change caused me far too much stress, worrying was about juggling to many balls in the air and it was inevitable I was going to crash one way or another.

Gambling was risk taking, gambling for me was very much an adrenaline rush for me, the bigger the risk the bigger the buzz, yet I was self destructing myself and my family.

Gambling for me was declining to respect myself was declining to care about myself or other people.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way was the moment I was willing to do unhealthy things with myself and my life.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way I was willing to give up all faith and hope in myself.

How does the spiritual recovery program work, for me it was a healing process, it helps us heal our self and become more spiritually aware of the fact I was the rat in the wheel going faster and faster and was getting nowhere healthy.

Being consumed by my addictions and obsessions my life was out of balance.

Every time I lied the fears grew within me each time, fear got so great that I reached appoint where I went in to panic mode and made some very unhealthy decisions.

I had to admit to myself I could not be trusted with money, that I did not value money I did not value myself or that I did not value other people.

The emotional scars that caused me to become weak and live in my fears were buried and suppressed over many decades of my life.

My emotional age and physical age did not match up.

The gambling establishments were not my problem I was the problem.

Today I do not want to gamble in any way, yes it would be nice to not have to worry about money, yet I needed to get honest with myself and admit that I worried about everything I had no control over what so ever.

Even though we live in fear to protect our self we need to stop living in fear so that we can get far more from our life today.

I use to blame the gambling establishments for how I use to feel, I use to blame everyone else for how I use to feel.

I now understand that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to pains I was not able to heal, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to fears I would not face, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

Am I able to heal my pains today, am I able to identify each fear and face them today, am I able to reduce my unreasonable expectations of other people and life today.

Do I talk from the logical part of my brain today, or do I talk from the heart today.

Reading text on its own is not enough for me today.

The recovery program is only a manual to help me help myself today by my own actions.

How many people justify not getting a sponsor today, how many people are not willing to invest a lot of time and energy in to their recovery, how many people are reluctant and use every excuse to write things down to paper.

I am going to attend GA 50th birthday in the UK September 2014 I first walked in to GA recovery back in 1969 and I did not have a clue how unhealthy I was.

My thought that if I was able to abstain from gambling I would be happy once more, did not happen that way, I thought that if I was able pay back money I owed people I would be happy, did not happen that way.

Content being at peace with myself were just words to me, I could not relate to them, was I a victim in my life, yes for sure I suffered every form of abuse there was.

When I walked in to the recovery program i was for sure emotionally traumatized in so many ways.

You peel back that onion and the inner child starts to cry, you peel back that onion and expose that little child who was never able to grow up and mature, over time you no longer sulk, you become more and more honest.

The abandonment issues had devastating traumatic effects on me, in time I would cry for that inner child who so much that he wanted to be nurtured and mothered, that inner child would come out to play and to be himself today.

As my honesty grew people would feel threatened by my honesty, as I gave deeper therapies some will run and hide and some people would relate to my deepest feelings and feel connected with me.

Therapies would enable me to be an open book with living in fear of my past any more.

Did I know what true love was all about.

I think my actions were conditional in the old days. I owe you you owe me etc.

Now because my actions and words are unconditional I expect nothing in return. I am a very spiritual person at this time.

I have for certain changed as did my values, I use to justify my cruel words and actions.

Are my words and actions nurturing and encouraging today.

Am I fully accountable to myself today.

Do I feel threatened by another person insecurities, if questioned do I in any way feel threatened by questions today.

A childs innocence is very healthy. I was born free of all fears and over time because of unresolved and unhealed pains fears grew that inhibited me from being the person I knew I could be.

Do I fear any one or anything today.

Do I face my fears today.

Do I take inventory of myself each day, can I improve in myself.

How much more can I learn today.

I use to fear being honest before my recovery, now every day my honesty grows as I mature.

Just because you take away source of money from addict will not stop the addict from trying to escape in other ways.

The spiritual recovery program will work for those people are willing to put a great deal of time and effort in to working the recovery program.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was emotionally traumatized long before my addictions and obsessions, the addictions and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was not able to cope emotionally with life and people.

The recovery program starts off by us reading text, then after time rather than talk from our logic and from the brain we start to talk and be aware of our feelings, we get to talk from the heart, once we open up our hearts we begin our trip in to therapies.

It takes some time for people to move beyond war stories and to talk from the heart, once there is that kind of honesty I could relate to other people lives and experiences also being able to cope emotionally with life issues today.

So do I interact in a healthy spiritual way with all people in my life, or at any point do I still react in an unhealthy way from pains fear or my frustrations.

Being content was a skill that I learned over time, I use to be impatient intolerant and hard on myself, not being able to give myself approval or be able to say to myself that I did a good job.

Pride is the reward we give our self, in being healthy and having healthy relationships with full honesty enables us to have close intimate relationships with other people.

To be honest and fearless is very powerful, to have faced and dealt with our past we are not longer hindered by the guilt pain and shame of our past unhealthy words and unhealthy actions of our past.

I now understand that in the past I did not have any choice but to be unhealthy and I use to live in fear of being honest because I figured every time I am honest was painful.

Being in the spiritual recovery program I was going to be able to feel the full spectrum and range of emotions and feelings, I would be able to cry for that hurt inner child, and over time my emotional age and physical age gap would reduce to being equal.

The honesty I learned in the rooms of spiritual recovery would then spread in to my everyday life, the honest was going to be a part of my every day family life.

As we are more honest and as we progress as a group we grow together yet some times the difference between each of us seems the same, in time we ask some very simple questions as reference to our recovery out of ten what level do we feel today regards certain feelings.

Out of ten what level of fear do I feel in my recovery today, what level of fear did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of pain do I feel in my recovery today, what level of pain did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of frustration do I feel in my recovery today, what level of frustration did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of loneliness do I feel in my recovery today, what level of loneliness did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

Out of ten what level of boredom do I feel in my recovery today, what level of boredom did I feel from day one entering the recovery program.

The answers were for me, to understand how much progress there was in my spiritual recovery.

How many fears did I have, in which order did they appear serious to me from day one in my recovery, fear of being honest due to fear of abandonment and rejection was one of the more serious fears I had.

Fear of failure because I associated that the only success I had from day one was to get easy money, no matter how well I did my job I could not give myself any kind of approval or credit for good work I did.

Fear of change, I am for sure a creature of habits, yet now I am extended myself more and more, I am able to do things that once I thought were impossible for me.

Fear of appearing vulnerable, appearing weak, appearing stupid or ignorant, and fear of losing control, yet the fact I wanted to control was very much fear based issues for me.

I now understand that every time I went to an addiction or obsession I just simply made things worse, by not facing myself I went to in to more fear than before.

With each lie fear grows, the fear got so great that I went in to panic mode where I could not think clearly, hence having a sponsor is important because deep down we know what we need to do yet because we have lost all confidence and self worth and esteem in our self.

Having an anonymous sponsor is important part of recovery, in being a sponsor is a two way street, it is like having a friend who you trust completely, yet it is important you follow your instincts regards trusting the right person.

The same with honesty you can be honest without hurting other people and this is where the line of nurturing and encouraging another person as against cowardly bullying which has adverse effects on other people recovery and hurts our self.

When sponsoring it is very important it is anonymous, and very important that a person gets different answers from different people and discusses different paths and different paths in their recovery.

I do believe that when dealing with a person who is willing we ask, which is your biggest fear today, in facing each fear we work down wards so that once you face each fear it gets simpler and easier.

Before recovery I suppressed and buried my pains I did not heal from them, the clue to buried and suppressed pains was being over sensitive and angry very quickly with even thinking about it.

Often in my past my unhealthy reaction of anger from that buried hurt little child in me, people seem to use the expression acting out, saying acting out implies the pain is not real and that is not true.

On entering the spiritual recovery I did not know that I feared emotional intimacy, I did not know why I feared being honest, I did not know that i was running away from facing myself and my feelings.

It confused me that during my need to do time at work I did a very good job, yet outside of work I felt such a failure and today I feel successful, I did not know I felt so inept in myself and lacked so many interactive skills in life and dealing with people.

I even use to read body language in the wrong way, that took time and talking with people how they reacted to certain things in their life.

This web site is a willing previlage and process which enables us to relate to other people success experiences and their recovery.

Am I healthy spiritually today, are my fears fading and am I able to interact with all people without taking things and other people issues personally.

I am so pleased with myself that I am able to lose over 20 pounds in weight in the last two months, very simple I have given up all bread, all cakes all biscuits except one naughty day once per week, and given up all fizzy processed sugar drinks yet I do drink fruit drinks and I am eating fruit as well.

Recovery is all about slow steady baby steps one day at a time, I abstain from gambling, I gave up smoking one day at a time, to no longer get drunk one day at a time, to be more caring respectful of myself one day at a time.

Recovery is all about healthy progress not perfection.

I am much closes with Shirley my wife than I have been before, I now understand how important the love of a person is to me.

I have both paid and booked up my attending GA 50th anniversary 5 - 7 September 20014 and am looking forward to being there, it is very likely that people I knew back in 1969 would have not stuck with the spiritual recovery course as long as I have done.

When I see myself in other people I can laugh at myself today, the rooms I go to are very healthy and very honest yet non threatening.

Am I preaching recovery or demonstrating recovery, do my actions match my words, in any way am I a facade, do my family fear me today, is my fears fading once I understood that being honest was a healthy way to live my life today.

Serenity prayer helped me understand that my recovery is my responsibility today, that my anger is my responsibility today, that my being content is my responsibility today, that exchanging unhealthy habits in to healthy habits is my responsibility today.

Am I fully focused on my wants needs and goals today, do I live in the past in any way today. Do I learn from my past today.

I now understand that no one could stop me gambling or stop me being unhealthy, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me taking the easy option all of the time, that had to be my choice, no one could stop me being angry again that had to be my choice.

My emotional triggers were my pains my fears my frustrations my loneliness and my boredom.

After having my last bet I needed to understand which emotional trigger that caused me to go back to gamble once more. It could have been just one single emotional trigger or several emotional triggers.

The hardest emotional triggers to understand were my frustrations due to my expectations of other people and life.

Today I have no expectations of other people what so ever, today however I have high expectations of myself, courage to change the things I can. Wow that is me. How simpler can it get.

Am I productive today in my actions, do I fill my needs today, is cleaning the home about cleaning the home, no it is about me being proud about myself and caring about myself.

For me many kinds of pain causes many different kinds of fears in us, how important is it for us to face those fears, how important is it for us to heal and nurture our pains, surely recovery is about is all about healing.

Bullies are in fact very cowardly weak inadequate insecure unhealthy people who take advantage of vulnerable people or weak people.

Love and peace to everyone

Dave of Beckenham.

AKA Dave L

Life being unmanageable

Was all about my emotional triggers, my pains I could not or would not heal, I just got in the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my pains not healing them.

Fears I was not able to identify or willing to face and over come.

Frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people. My unreasonable expectations caused me a lot of pain from a very early age.

Loneliness due to two things abandonment issues from my child hood and fears that caused me to isolate myself and I was able to have emotional intimacy with other people.

Boredom due to the fact I was not able to put all my effort in to things outside of my work life, I had in fact become a stunted with regards not taking on new challenges in my life.

Today is very clear to me that worrying about things I could not change caused me far too much stress, worrying was about juggling to many balls in the air and it was inevitable I was going to crash one way or another.

Gambling was risk taking, gambling for me was very much an adrenaline rush for me, the bigger the risk the bigger the buzz, yet I was self destructing myself and my family.

Gambling for me was declining to respect myself was declining to care about myself or other people.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way was the moment I was willing to do unhealthy things with myself and my life.

The instant I said to myself oh who cares any way I was willing to give up all faith and hope in myself.

How does the spiritual recovery program work, for me it was a healing process, it helps us heal our self and become more spiritually aware of the fact I was the rat in the wheel going faster and faster and was getting nowhere healthy.

Being consumed by my addictions and obsessions my life was out of balance.

Every time I lied the fears grew within me each time, fear got so great that I reached appoint where I went in to panic mode and made some very unhealthy decisions.

I had to admit to myself I could not be trusted with money, that I did not value money I did not value myself or that I did not value other people.

The emotional scars that caused me to become weak and live in my fears were buried and suppressed over many decades of my life.

My emotional age and physical age did not match up.

The gambling establishments were not my problem I was the problem.

Today I do not want to gamble in any way, yes it would be nice to not have to worry about money, yet I needed to get honest with myself and admit that I worried about everything I had no control over what so ever.

Even though we live in fear to protect our self we need to stop living in fear so that we can get far more from our life today.

I use to blame the gambling establishments for how I use to feel, I use to blame everyone else for how I use to feel.

I now understand that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to pains I was not able to heal, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to fears I would not face, that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

Am I able to heal my pains today, am I able to identify each fear and face them today, am I able to reduce my unreasonable expectations of other people and life today.

Do I talk from the logical part of my brain today, or do I talk from the heart today.

Reading text on its own is not enough for me today.

The recovery program is only a manual to help me help myself today by my own actions.

How many people justify not getting a sponsor today, how many people are not willing to invest a lot of time and energy in to their recovery, how many people are reluctant and use every excuse to write things down to paper.

I am going to attend GA 50th birthday in the UK September 2014 I first walked in to GA recovery back in 1969 and I did not have a clue how unhealthy I was.

My thought that if I was able to abstain from gambling I would be happy once more, did not happen that way, I thought that if I was able pay back money I owed people I would be happy, did not happen that way.

Content being at peace with myself were just words to me, I could not relate to them, was I a victim in my life, yes for sure I suffered every form of abuse there was.

When I walked in to the recovery program i was for sure emotionally traumatized in so many ways.

You peel back that onion and the inner child starts to cry, you peel back that onion and expose that little child who was never able to grow up and mature, over time you no longer sulk, you become more and more honest.

The abandonment issues had devastating traumatic effects on me, in time I would cry for that inner child who so much that he wanted to be nurtured and mothered, that inner child would come out to play and to be himself today.

As my honesty grew people would feel threatened by my honesty, as I gave deeper therapies some will run and hide and some people would relate to my deepest feelings and feel connected with me.

Therapies would enable me to be an open book with living in fear of my past any more.

Did I know what true love was all about.

I think my actions were conditional in the old days. I owe you you owe me etc.

Now because my actions and words are unconditional I expect nothing in return. I am a very spiritual person at this time.

I have for certain changed as did my values, I use to justify my cruel words and actions.

Are my words and actions nurturing and encouraging today.

Am I fully accountable to myself today.

Do I feel threatened by another person insecurities, if questioned do I in any way feel threatened by questions today.

A childs innocence is very healthy. I was born free of all fears and over time because of unresolved and unhealed pains fears grew that inhibited me from being the person I knew I could be.

Do I fear any one or anything today.

Do I face my fears today.

Do I take inventory of myself each day, can I improve in myself.

How much more can I learn today.

I use to fear being honest before my recovery, now every day my honesty grows as I mature.

Just because you take away source of money from addict will not stop the addict from trying to escape in other ways.

The spiritual recovery program will work for those people are willing to put a great deal of time and effort in to working the recovery program.

There is no doubt in my mind that I was emotionally traumatized long before my addictions and obsessions, the addictions and obsessions were just the symptoms that I was not able to cope emotionally with life and people.

The recovery program starts off by us reading text, then after time rather than talk from our logic and from the brain we start to talk and be aware of our feelings, we get to talk from the heart, once we open up our hearts we begin our trip in to therapies.

My Name is Dave of Beckenham. I Am becoming healthier in a spiritual way. Yet I am not a religious person.

I am looking forward to the 50th Celebration of GA in the UK at Basildon Essex.

I did not have a clue how important the spiritual recovery program was going to have on me.

I walked in to the recovery program emotionally traumatized, not able to see any thing clearly.

My questions were due to my insecurity I had learned to live my life on the edge of my nerves.

With each lie came more fear, in time I was able to get honest with myself.

No matter when a person had their last bet, I am an equal to them.

I am able to be more accountable to myself today.

I understand most aspects of the recovery program.

My motives for doing things are not resentful, I do things willingly.

I am not torn a part with rage and anger, I am content with myself today.

I was not stupid bad or evil, I was just a very weak vulnerable unhealthy person.

I am doing well and trying to have full healthy productive days yet while respecting my physical limits.

I do not want or need to gamble today.

The obsessions and addictions were an indicator that I had poor resolve in how I felt with in myself.

Fear was a way of me protecting myself

I no longer want to live in fear any more.

I do not fear the gambling establishments today.

I use to say that I wanted to be normal.

Today I want to be healthier than normal.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave Of Beckenham

My Name is Dave of Beckenham. I am becoming healthier in a spiritual way. Yet I am not a religious person.

I did not have a choice before entering the spirtual recovery program.

I was unhealthy and did not know it.

Just for today I will not gamble is a boundary that says I value myself today.

Then just for today became I will now become more healthy and more productive in many healthy ways.

As I got more healthy my time is more productive.

My unhealthy reaction is anger was an indicator that I had not healed from the pains of my past, in time I would understand that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to my pains and an unhealthy reaction to my fears, and an unhealthy reaction to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

In time I was going to appreciate the serenity prayer even though I am not a religious person.

I am not able to change another person the only person I can change is myself.

People including myself use to blame other people for how they felt, today if people are angry do I automatically think their anger is my responsibility.

At what time in my life did I start to bury and suppress my pains, at what time in my life did I start to live in fear and not be able to speak out for myself.

Can I say in any way I am healthy today.

Do I try to justify my actions today.

Do I think it is important to prove I am right in any way.

Is being right more important than my relationships with other people.

Do I take it personally if other people beliefs do not agree with mine.

People pushing their beliefs on to other people is an indicator of how insecure they are with in them self.

Do I need to prove a point to any one today.

In understanding spiritual values do I practice those values in my life today.

I use to feel that my feelings were controlled by other peole and life.

Today I am not willing to let fear inhibit me from getting the very best from life.

My addictions a d obsessions were just a very celar indicator that I could not cope with life and people.

My purpose today is t be very selfish and for me to become the healthiest I can be.

There is nothing I can do or say to change my past.

Pain I did to myself and others is done now let me get on with my life.

I am very selfish in my recovery, my recovery is the most important thing in my life today.

Taking the easy escape option is not my way today.

I wished far to much of my time away before recovery.

I am able to listen and learn today, I am able to ask for help today, I am able to admit my ignorance today.

My resentments were an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My vengeful thoughts were an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My hatred was an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My feeling the victim was an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My not feeling loved was an indicator that I was filled with fears.

How much do I value myself today.

I am still eager to get things done yet the rain still delays me getting things done.

Accepting the serenity prayer helps me in so many ways.

In being in the spirtual recovery program I am able to understand other people being unhealthy because I see myself as I was in the past.

Before entering the spirtual recovery program I really did not have a choice but to trun unhealthy habits.

My unhealthy reaction to life an dpeople started from a very early aage.

I was for sure a victim from a very early age.

Yet over time I became teh perpetrator in so many ways.

Being a vcitim has nothing to do about physical size or s*x.

Being a vcitim was me not being able to speak up for myself.

I am able to be a healthier peerson today because of the things I have learned being in my recovery.

I do not and did have to take up reigion to become healthy.

Yet over time I would grow to learn spirtual values.

In the spirtual recovery program we are all equals.

It is a simple fact that I was very ignorant as to how the spirtual recovery would work for me.

I have invested a great deal of time and energy keeping at my revoverry and in the healing process.

I felt like a victim for so long in my life living in the pains of my past.

Reacting in such unhealty ways, now I am able to interact with people and life a healthy whole some life.

Being so over sensitive and getting angry was an indicator I was aunable to heal my pains.

Shirley & I have been so busy in getting things done in time allowed.

I do not hav a desire to gamble which is strange because I use to feel I had no choice but to gamble before recovery.

Step one for me was about understanding my emotional triggers.

My unhealed pains use to cause me to be angry.

My fears use to cause me to be angry.

My frustrations use to cause me to be angry.

My loneliness use to cause me to feel very vulnerable.

Me not having a healthy full life caused me to feel bored and unchanged.

Gratitude was some thing that was missing from my life at one time.

For me today as I became healthier my values changed.

All the time I was focused on status money and material items.

Today my relationships with people are what is important to me.

Over time I recognized that I felt isolated and lonely and then recognized my fears and also my fear of intimacy with people.

I certainly lived a large period of my life unable to heal and nurture my pains.

Every traumatic unresolved painful periods of my life left me with unrecognizable fears in my adult hood.

One of the most inhibiting fears was that of rejection and abandonment.

I am able to live a healthy life today and my values change as I mature.

Some people think that you have to be religious to be a spiritual person, That is not so.

Our conscience is very much spiritual based.

When we hurt other people in any way we hurt our self.

Yesterday we were very productive as a team. I am more useful these days.

There was a time when I wished my life away, I was afraid of living and afraid of dying.

I use to think and feel that I loved gambling, the llusion of love was because it gave me excitement and such an adreline rush.

Today I am stable and realxed and not living on the edge of my nerves.

Usually I caused myself a lot of pain due to my unreasonable expectations of life and of other people.

When people were angry or upset I took their issues on board.

My resentments and being over sensitive told me that I was not able to or not able to heal my pains.

Tomorrow we sign the final papers regards my mums passsing on.

It has been a year since her death and yet I now feel more at peace with her than ever before in my life.

There are three records of her father playing vaudeville I want to transfer.

I hope that I am able to do that soon.

What do we class as being successful, money material thing, or is it bout being more spirtaul and content with who we are where we are an knowing we do teh very best we can do in any thing we try our hand at.

Once in my journey of recovery there was more success and less failure.

In fact my theory is that every thing in ou rlife is a test of our steel.

How we deal with lifes tests is a meassure of our recovery.

Shirley & I ar eboth working hard to get things done in our time.

Rain stops play of course that is time to relax and enjoy what we have and who we are today.

I am looking forward to being at the 50th Celebration of GA in the UK at Basildon Essex.

I did not have a clue how important the spiritual recovery program was going to have on me.

I walked in to the recovery program emotionally traumatized, not able to see any thing clearly.

My questions were due to my insecurity I had learned to live my life on the edge of my nerves.

With each lie came more fear, in time I was able to get honest with myself.

No matter when a person had their last bet, I am an equal to them.

I am able to be more accountable to myself today.

I understand most aspects of the recovery program.

My motives for doing things are not resentful, I do things willingly.

I am not torn a part with rage and anger, I am content with myself today.

I was not stupid bad or evil, I was just a very weak vulnerable unhealthy person.

I am doing well and trying to have full healthy productive days yet while respecting my physical limits.

I do not want or need to gamble today.

The obsessions and addictions were an indicator that I had poor resolve in how I felt with in myself.

Fear was a way of me protecting myself

I no longer want to live in fear any more.

I do not fear the gambling establishments today.

I use to say that I wanted to be normal.

Today I want to be healthier than normal.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave Of Beckenham

My Name is Dave of Beckenham. I am becoming healthier in a spiritual way. Yet I am not a religious person.

In recent days we have that is Shirley and myself have organized and dispensed with most of my families antiques.

There were things that were well over 60 years of age taken from my mothers home.

Some of the items were over 100 years old and the thing that made it easier was the fact I understand that I can be a hoarder.

By letting tham leaving my home was also a rust issue that no matter ho wmuch money they fetch I trust the comaony to be fair and honest with us.

Letting go of the past was a slow learning curve.

Last year before my mother died I asked myself, have I said every thing I need to say to have closure with my mother.

What is important to my life today, the most important thing is having healthy realtionships with peiple that love me.

Secondly I will not allow money issues to adversely affect my healthy realtions.

I use to be a jackal and hyde personailtiy, hot and cold laugh one minute anger the next.

The rage and anger that use to rush out at times was that immature angry hurt child that never healed from his past.

I have time scales and spread sheets that clearly lay out my needs my wants and my goals.

Do I do the very best I can do each day, is my time full ad productive.

My sleep is very unsettled at this time, lots on my mind and no enough time to get every thing done.

I will be attending Exter GA meetings for just two more weeks.

Then I move on to London and surrey and then attend 50th Birthday of GA in the UK from 5th to 7th September 2014.

It took me along time to identify that I was a very unhealthy person.

I use to be so over sentive getting angry and upset at every one and every thing.

Sadly I had got in to teh unhealthy habits of burying and suporessing pains of my life.

The recovery program is a low healing process.

You are not able to heal your pains if you are not willing to admit to your self you are in pain.

Every fear I had as an adult as due to unresolved pains of my past.

During my gambling days the only time I felt sucessful was when I got easy money.

Every time I take the easy option of avoiding doing things or facing people I am cheating myself.

There are just not enough hours in the day for me.

My emotional triggers were my pains I could not heal, my fear I was no willing or able to face, my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of other people and life, my loneliness due to my fear of emotional intimacy with other people, and my feelings of boredom.

I am stimulated by doing new things today, that hurt inner child wants to do and touch every thing.

Am I a talker or a walker today.

Do I give myself appproval for doing a good job today, recovery is about progress not perfection.

In all seriousness would I be attending meetings after over 44 years if recovery program did not work for me.

I use to spend so much time worrying about things that I stunted from growth and getting things done.

Am I ignorant about certain things today, yes for sure yet that does not make me stupid.

Is there much more I can do with my life today, yes for sure yet I am still learning by slo steady baby steps.

On arriving in the spirtual recovery program money and gambling were my main focus.

If you asked me what was it that important that I lost on my last bet I would have told you a certain amount of money lost.

Today I understand that each time I gambled I put the love of my family at rsik.

The most costly bet would have been losing the love of my family.

Did I think that the spirtual recovery program was all about religion, yes for sure, did I think that the spirtual recovery program was going to control me, yes for sure

Today for me I understand that the spirtual recovery program was going to help me take control of my life, the spirtual recovery program was going to help me help myself become a healthier person.

The spirtual recovery program was going to help me understand that being honest is not painful, that becoming mature benefits every one including myself.

I will be attending the UK 50th GA birthday on 5th Sept 2014 in Basildon Essex.

I am looking forward to it and understanding that very few people I knew back in 1969 will be as dediciated to the sirtual recovery program as I have hav been over 44 years.

Sadly because I have been going so long does not make me an expert in any sense of the word.

I want to see more people in the spirtual recovery program, if they have no maney that is not important, them being there is far more importnt thhan their money.

People do to have to give therapy unless they want to.

The spirtual recovery program should change with its peoole, the wording should be updated, pride never hindered my recovery, fear did inhibted me.

I am able to travel now and do not take my worst enemy with me, myself.

I was often given good advice yet did not understand it, engage brain opening my mouth, the consequences of things I use to say.

Every action has consequences, healthy actions and healthy words have healthy consequences, unhealthy actions and unhealthy words have unhealthy consequences.

One thing I know for sure living in the pains of my past is not healthy, living in the pains of my past is detrimental to my spirtual growth.

I am in no way special or unique on my own, my healthy spirtual interaction and spirtual growth has enabled me to live a life I only dreamed of.

The dream world being consumed by my addictions and obsessions was a very self destruction path.

As each person in a recovery room gets healthier the room itself gets much healthier.

The spirtual recovery program has enabled me to embrace it as my second family, the spirtual recovery program has empowered me in so many ways.

People will give therapy when they are ready for it.

The last few days have been very productive.

My body is certainly complaining about me doing so much garden wrk.

It took me over 23 years to learn an understand step one.

Step one is simple broken in to 3 parts, Surrender acceptance and understanding my emotional triggers.

I was like a rat in the wheel going faster and faster getting no where fast.

I coulld not or would not acknowledge that each time I gambled I was in self destruction mode.

No matter when my last bet was all the time I am in my recovery I was an equal to all people.

In the rooms of recovery I would understand and start to heal my pains and heal from my past.

Recovery is all about healing maturing in an emotional way.

In my life time I have suffered physical abuse, I have suffered emotonal abuse, and I have suffered sexual abuse.

I have felt for some considerable time a victim, in being in my recovery I have been the perpetrator, and at one time I thought I could rescue people.

I learned that no matter when my last bet being in my recovery was my only hope of becoming healthy once more.

I learned to listen and also learned to understand that every one has their own beleifs and that while in recovery we learn to get along with all people.

Being in the sirtual recovery program unselttles peoples that knew me.

Life being unmanagable was about my emotional triggers, my pains, my fears, my frustrations, my loneliness and my boredom.

Christmas use to be a big emotional trigger, peoples agression towards me, a big emotional trigger, Saturday mornings were once big emotional triggers.

Do I fear emotional intimacy today, do I fear exposing my feelings towards other people today.

It is strange that more ladies seem to be able to relate to me than most men, it is strange that ladies seem to want me to sponsor tham, yet most do not understand that asking for sponsor is very important to them.

Ladies often find it difficult to ask for help, sponsorship is a two way street.

I did not have a choice before entering the spirtual recovery program.

I was unhealthy and did not know it.

Just for today I will not gamble is a boundary that says I value myself today.

Then just for today became I will now become more healthy and more productive in many healthy ways.

As I got more healthy my time is more productive.

My unhealthy reaction is anger was an indicator that I had not healed from the pains of my past, in time I would understand that my anger was an unhealthy reaction to my pains and an unhealthy reaction to my fears, and an unhealthy reaction to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of life and people.

In time I was going to appreciate the serenity prayer even though I am not a religious person.

I am not able to change another person the only person I can change is myself.

People including myself use to blame other people for how they felt, today if people are angry do I automatically think their anger is my responsibility.

At what time in my life did I start to bury and suppress my pains, at what time in my life did I start to live in fear and not be able to speak out for myself.

Can I say in any way I am healthy today.

Do I try to justify my actions today.

Do I think it is important to prove I am right in any way.

Is being right more important than my relationships with other people.

Do I take it personally if other people beliefs do not agree with mine.

People pushing their beliefs on to other people is an indicator of how insecure they are with in them self.

Do I need to prove a point to any one today.

In understanding spiritual values do I practice those values in my life today.

I use to feel that my feelings were controlled by other peole and life.

Today I am not willing to let fear inhibit me from getting the very best from life.

My addictions a d obsessions were just a very celar indicator that I could not cope with life and people.

My purpose today is t be very selfish and for me to become the healthiest I can be.

There is nothing I can do or say to change my past.

Pain I did to myself and others is done now let me get on with my life.

I am very selfish in my recovery, my recovery is the most important thing in my life today.

Taking the easy escape option is not my way today.

I wished far to much of my time away before recovery.

I am able to listen and learn today, I am able to ask for help today, I am able to admit my ignorance today.

My resentments were an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My vengeful thoughts were an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My hatred was an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My feeling the victim was an indicator that I was unable to heal my pains.

My not feeling loved was an indicator that I was filled with fears.

How much do I value myself today.

I am still eager to get things done yet the rain still delays me getting things done.

Accepting the serenity prayer helps me in so many ways.

In being in the spirtual recovery program I am able to understand other people being unhealthy because I see myself as I was in the past.

Before entering the spirtual recovery program I really did not have a choice but to trun unhealthy habits.

My unhealthy reaction to life an dpeople started from a very early aage.

I was for sure a victim from a very early age.

Yet over time I became teh perpetrator in so many ways.

Being a vcitim has nothing to do about physical size or s*x.

Being a vcitim was me not being able to speak up for myself.

I am able to be a healthier peerson today because of the things I have learned being in my recovery.

I do not and did have to take up reigion to become healthy.

Yet over time I would grow to learn spirtual values.

In the spirtual recovery program we are all equals.

It is a simple fact that I was very ignorant as to how the spirtual recovery would work for me.

I have invested a great deal of time and energy keeping at my revoverry and in the healing process.

I felt like a victim for so long in my life living in the pains of my past.

Reacting in such unhealty ways, now I am able to interact with people and life a healthy whole some life.

Being so over sensitive and getting angry was an indicator I was aunable to heal my pains.

Shirley & I have been so busy in getting things done in time allowed.

I do not hav a desire to gamble which is strange because I use to feel I had no choice but to gamble before recovery.

Step one for me was about understanding my emotional triggers.

My unhealed pains use to cause me to be angry.

My fears use to cause me to be angry.

My frustrations use to cause me to be angry.

My loneliness use to cause me to feel very vulnerable.

Me not having a healthy full life caused me to feel bored and unchanged.

Gratitude was some thing that was missing from my life at one time.

For me today as I became healthier my values changed.

All the time I was focused on status money and material items.

Today my relationships with people are what is important to me.

Over time I recognized that I felt isolated and lonely and then recognized my fears and also my fear of intimacy with people.

I certainly lived a large period of my life unable to heal and nurture my pains.

Every traumatic unresolved painful periods of my life left me with unrecognizable fears in my adult hood.

One of the most inhibiting fears was that of rejection and abandonment.

I am able to live a healthy life today and my values change as I mature.

Some people think that you have to be religious to be a spiritual person, That is not so.

Our conscience is very much spiritual based.

When we hurt other people in any way we hurt our self.

Yesterday we were very productive as a team. I am more useful these days.

There was a time when I wished my life away, I was afraid of living and afraid of dying.

I use to think and feel that I loved gambling, the llusion of love was because it gave me excitement and such an adreline rush.

Today I am stable and realxed and not living on the edge of my nerves.

Usually I caused myself a lot of pain due to my unreasonable expectations of life and of other people.

When people were angry or upset I took their issues on board.

My resentments and being over sensitive told me that I was not able to or not able to heal my pains.

Tomorrow we sign the final papers regards my mums passsing on.

It has been a year since her death and yet I now feel more at peace with her than ever before in my life.

There are three records of her father playing vaudeville I want to transfer.

I hope that I am able to do that soon.

What do we class as being successful, money material thing, or is it bout being more spirtaul and content with who we are where we are an knowing we do teh very best we can do in any thing we try our hand at.

Once in my journey of recovery there was more success and less failure.

In fact my theory is that every thing in ou rlife is a test of our steel.

How we deal with lifes tests is a meassure of our recovery.

Shirley & I are both working hard to get things done in our time.

Rain stops play of course that is time to relax and enjoy what we have and who we are today.

I am looking forward to being at the 50th Celebration of GA in the UK at Basildon Essex.

I did not have a clue how important the spiritual recovery program was going to have on me.

I walked in to the recovery program emotionally traumatized, not able to see any thing clearly.

My questions were due to my insecurity I had learned to live my life on the edge of my nerves.

With each lie came more fear, in time I was able to get honest with myself.

No matter when a person had their last bet, I am an equal to them.

I am able to be more accountable to myself today.

I understand most aspects of the recovery program.

My motives for doing things are not resentful, I do things willingly.

I am not torn a part with rage and anger, I am content with myself today.

I was not stupid bad or evil, I was just a very weak vulnerable unhealthy person.

I am doing well and trying to have full healthy productive days yet while respecting my physical limits.

I do not want or need to gamble today.

The obsessions and addictions were an indicator that I had poor resolve in how I felt with in myself.

Fear was a way of me protecting myself

I no longer want to live in fear any more.

I do not fear the gambling establishments today.

I use to say that I wanted to be normal.

Today I want to be healthier than normal.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave Of Beckenham