Hi
I am a compulsive gambler, I have been in recovery since 1969 and I honesty thought that I would be the last person on this planet to abstain from the unhealthy habit of gambling.
I questioned what is recovery, in time the light bulb moment, recovery is a healing process, the pains of my childhood caused fears in me that I did not understand, my expectations of my childhood would cause me to feel frustrated an angry.
As fears grew in my life my trust faded away.
Long before my addictions came in to place I was escaping and hiding who I was and how vulnerable I se to be.
I would pretend I was some one or some thing I was not.
I tried to take my life when I was a teenager and blanked the event out.
The pains in my child hood started f rom a very early and in time I got in to the unhealthy habit of burying and suppressing my feelings.
I am now 75 years of age and understand more about myself than ever before in my life.
In my life I feared the opposite s*x, this was due to girls giggling at me because they were nervous.
My fears of being honest was due to people causing me more pains when I was honest.
The pains fears and trauma caused me to put up walls of fear around me to protect my hurt inner child.
It was pointed out to me that those walls of fear protected me, yet sadly stopped me from having any healthy intimacy with other people.
There was one traumatic event that was buried so deep that once it was exposed I was in a a cloud for about 11 days, yet once I was over that time I was more alert and I was more aware than any other time in my life.
I did karate for two years and after that time I did an in depth search of myself.
I found that by doing karate improved my response in physically difficult moments. yet I understood that my fear were apparent to aggressions and confrontations.
This was the consequences of people trying to bully and manipulate me in an emotional way.
I then started to understand that bullies were very inadequate inept insecure people who at one time been victims of aggressions and confrontations them self.
Then understanding victims of victims.
So once abstaining started I had stopped hurting myself and only then healing process could start.
I doubted myself, I lacked confidence in myself, I did not trust myself, I fear failing and ridicule I would get.
In time sponsoring became a way of life for me interacting with like mined people, giving in depth therapies, doing talks at a recovery center helped me connected with people want to be healthy.
I have forgotten how many times there were light bulb moment where I got to understand in depth what recovery and healing were about.
Often meetings would cause more questions than answers, and that time it was important to understand for my recovery.
I have often talked to another person for hours after a meeting, that was very powerful intimacy in our sharing.
A healthy sponsor should demonstrate healthy spiritual values, patience tolerance, nurturing and encouragement, should also talk about needs wants and goals.
Reading the text of recovery is to help people fully understand the deeper aspects of recovery text.
Some people might even get confused or lost about our belief system or values, can a person find a healthy recovery with or with out being religious.
The gambling establishments did not hurt me, I hurt myself.
The gambling establishments did not make me do things I did not want to do.
The gambling establishments never lied to me, I lied to myself.
Money was never going to heal my pains.
Money was never going to heal other people pains.
Money was just the fuel for my addiction.
For me to be free of my fears I needed to face each one at a time.
It was very important to take the biggest fear in my life and face it, am I willing to accept the very worst that can happen.
Once I did that to my biggest fear every other fear after that became simpler and simpler to reduce.
In time I would understand that with my unreasonable expectations no one was hurting me I was hurting myself.
By reducing every unhealthy habits I was becoming more focused exchanging my unhealthy habits in to healthy habits and I valued myself and my life more than ever before.
The recovery program helped me heal and become more self sufficient and productive with my time and my life.
In being able to love myself I was able to love other people more.
In being able to respect myself I was able to respect other people more.
Healthy intimacy became an every day value for me.
Finally I would also say that being in recovery with healthy intimacy, that healthy intimacy was also a big part of the healing process.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave L
AKA Dave Of Beckenham UK
Hi Dave. Thanks for sharing your story. It appears that you have been in recovery for quite some time, unyet the pain, frustration and hurt seems to be just below the surface, but surely distant in many ways. I hope that you have put your fears and anxiety in a place where you can't be seriously affected anymore.
I'd be interested to know how the group discussions helped you most and whether the process is finalised to the point where you no longer need to analyse. In other words, regardless of whether you have given up gambling do you still feel vulnerable or in need of support?
Hi
I have not completely healed all my pains.
There are memories missing earlier in my life.
I am vulnerable in the late night and up to 4am.
I am able to share my vulnerability with my wife.
I often suffer with nightmares.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave L
AKA Dave Of Beckenham UK
Hi
For me group discussions therapies helped expose my vulnerable past.
Opening up more and learning to put names to your emotional vulnerability and articulate helped me have a voice.
Good question need to analyse or just expose more of myself.
To remember not all things come out right away or at the same time.
I would say it is more of healing at different times and different levels.
Giving up gambling was to stop or reduce self inflicted pain on myself.
Do I still feel vulnerable more so at night time up to 4 or 5 am.
Yes I do need support for the final clean up.
Nearly all my fears have been reduced to single numbers.
Dave L
Hi
Over time I gave a number out of ten to each fear so that I could reduce those fears one by one.
Most of my fears were ten out of ten.
Here is my list of my fears which have been reduced and faced.
Fear of rejection and or abandonment, fear of telling the truth, fear of being accountable, fear of failure, fear of intimacy, fear of being let down, fear of fear of humiliation, fear of loneliness, fear of the dentist, fear of the doctors, fear of injections, fear of betrayal, fear of disappointing people, fear of what people thought of me, fear of speaking up for myself, fear of being the victim, fear of aggression and confrontation, fear of letting people down, fear of validating myself, fear of taking a compliment, fear of the doctors, fear of the opposite s*x, fear of being committed, fear of Christmas, fear of Tax time, fear of writing my needs my wants and my goals, fear of writing down the pain and abuse I experienced in my life, fear of writing down injuries to my body, fear of writing down the emotional abuse I experienced, fear of writing down the physical abuse I experienced, fear of writing down the sexual abuse I experienced, fear of being myself, fear of my failings, fear of guilt shame regret remorse, fear of therapies, fear of being a loner, fear of setting boundaries, fear of having a voice to stand up for myself, fear of strangers, fear of healing my pains, fear of being a victim, fear of not making it, fear of people faces when they got to know me.
This list seems impossible looking at them in one lump.
Fear restricted me; fear froze me in the traumas of my past.
I took my worst fear, the 10 out of 10 and I asked myself what is the very worst that can happen.
Only once I was willing to accept the very worst that could happen would the level of my fears reduce.
How many times, how many years have we feared the Tax man, or the tax period, it is the same fear year after year, then I decide to put money in each month to cover payment to the tax man, which reduces my fears.
Then the reaction to the paper work and being accountable, I store all the data I have in a safe place, then each year just enter new date on paper work and fill it in and save it, give it a new name and I am up to date, it is fear of getting some wrong, this changes with practice and if I get wrong number incorrect there is one going to beat me it just gets corrected.
The same with finances each item purchased I type into Excel sheets and each month there is a page, I type in all bills, and of course save them it gives me confidence and there are no longer the fears of looking at the bank account each time.
The sad fact that at one time I feared computers, I thought that I would break them, then what did I do I became a computer engineer. LOL.
Success is a reward from building our confidence and self-esteem and working on our needs each day, working on our wants each day, working on our goals each day, by being committed we lose our fears.
Why did I escape to Gambling, it was fear based, I could not cope emotionally with life people and situations?
Sadly, I would often take on other people’s emotional baggage.
So simply recovery is a healing process, non-religious for me.
If I am not willing to admit to myself, I am in pain today, nothing can be done about it, it must be my own choice.
The same with my fears I needed to face them head on, in reducing my fears I can live a healthy life today.
1
We admitted we were powerless over our unhealthy addictions and obsessions and our lives had become unmanageable.
2
Came to believe that with help and guidance we can heal from the past restore our self to healthy living and sound clarity.
3
Decided, that we need help and are willing to invest our lives to healthy living more caring and to respect ourselves.
4
To look at our lives making an honest searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves, understanding what was healthy and what was unhealthy.
5
Admitted to a healthy well trusted likeminded person, and to ourselves, the exact nature of our unhealthy actions, and our unhealthy words.
6
Were entirely ready exchange all unhealthy habits to healthy habits and become more dedicated to healthy living.
7
To be honest with myself and identify where I was failing and making mistakes in my life.
8
In being honest and accountable to myself, made a list of all persons I had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. An apology is not about right or wrong. An apology is about trying to repair damaged relationships
10
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were being unhealthy promptly admitted it.
11
I would ask for help guidance and meditate reducing my fears stress anxiety to improve our relationship with our self, when I am vulnerable asking for help and guidance to becoming the healthiest person, that we can be each day.
12
Having become aware of healthy spiritual values in my conscience and having an awakening as the result of practicing these steps, I tried to carry this spiritual message to other emotionally vulnerable people and to practice these nurturing principles in all our daily affairs.
Having more of an understanding of myself I would learn that my anger was due to the pains of my past not being healed or resolved.
I would learn also that my anger was also due to the fears of my past not being faced or reduced.
I would learn also that my anger was also due to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of people life and situations when things do not go my way.
Due to my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations, people were not hurting me I was hurting myself.
My emotional triggers were pains I could not heal, fears I could not face, my unreasonable expectations I could not reduce, loneliness due to my fears of intimacy, and feelings of boredom due the fact I felt I did not feel worthwhile or productive in my life.
Being aware of when I was emotional vulnerable and understood my emotional triggers, I would reduce my unhealthy reactions to people life and situations I had no control over.
The deeper I got in to and understood my unhealthy reactions I would understand how to change unhealthy reactions to healthy interactions.
So, understanding that my addictions and obsessions only indicated how emotionally vulnerable I was, also understanding that being emotionally vulnerable I was not a weak person, even though it felt that way.
The pains traumas abandonment neglects the physical abuse, the emotional abuse, the sexual abuse, the beating, the caning, being cut with a knife, cut with a bottle, kicked in by a gang of 5 youths all at one time, hit and run twice, broken nose so often you lose count, and many more.
The pains and traumas are so horrific you cannot cope emotionally so your blank things out, they did not happen, no recall whatsoever.
I was sked have you tried to take your own life.
My instant response was no, without any doubt.
Then the onion gets peeled back, pains get healed, fears get faced and suddenly your suppressed memories open u and not you not only recall the event there is the smells of the bedroom, the smells of nans Dettol, the position of the bed against the wall, the dim night light, it all comes out.
Then comes the awareness that your hurt inner child does not have a voice, the inner child is not able to articulate his feelings or emotions, he is unable to open up, he is lost in himself, no one to nurture or comfort him, the lonely lost filled soul.
So, the only choice left is to take tablets that you were told will end your life, it seemed to be the less painful path at that time of my life. It was not meant to be.
Shortly after this event I met with a healthy married couple who believed that they could not children, they lived a few houses away in a bungalow on Friary Island in England, we played cards, we went shopping, we went fishing, we did photography.
They were very loving sincere fearless people who knew how to share nurture and show affection and love.
That couple showed me more of a healthy life than I had ever had before, and it was all without fear in my life.
No matter how many times I told the lady how much they saved my life she could not understand r believe me.
There were some very healthy spiritual people in my life that helped me understand what healthy was. I did not understand completely I just knew that was healthy spiritual relationships were like.
In doing inventory of my life and my body I understood that every pain that could happen to me had already been done, no one could hurt more than that was already done to me.
Sadly, the side effects of all kinds of abuse are emotional trauma which adversely affects your memory retention and memory recall.
So, by the time I was at school there was no clue or understanding I could not retain education give to me or understand how things worked.
At fifteen years of age with no qualifications whatsoever, I get my first job working on a fair ground round about,
I had no clue where I was going or what I was going to do.
Love and peace to everyone.
Dave L
AKA Dave Of Beckenham UK
Hi
It is my pleasure sharing my story.
It was by talking about unhealthy times in my life could I see and feel the healing process come through.
I have been in recovery for about 52 years.
The healing of pains takes time,
My frustrations was due to unressonable expectations of life people and situtions.
My fears caused anxiety and panick in me.
In the group discussions you saw and felt your self in others, but more so you learn to face and heal the pains of our past.
The wording you use is to analyse, for me it was learnng how I was reacting in such unhealthy ways.
You think that I still feel vulnerable do you think I sound emotionally vulnerable at this time.
I would say that I need support to face the first 8 years of my life, that is my final goal?
Most sections f my life have been resolved in many ways.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave L
AKA Dave Of Beckenham UK
Hi
In the recovery program I got more honest with myself.
I stuck with the recovery program because I understood that the addiction and opbsessions were just the symptoms.
Only once I abstained could I start to heal the hurt inner child in me.
Pains caused fears in me that I did not understand.
By reducing the fears in me I could start to open up to emotional intimacy with in myself and with other people.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
Hi
The addictions and obsessions only indicated that I was emotionally vulnerable.
Recovery is a non-religious healing process for me.
No one could stop me gambling.
No one could stop me lying.
No one could stop me from being a very unhealthy person.
No one could make me if I did not want to.
By attending meetings I eventually got it, my addictions and obsessions were very unhealthy habits.
When I was in action I would work for my money and then gave it away.
I was in a way working hard for my money and giving it away like I did not care.
Anger is a very unhealthy reaction due to my pains which were not healed, due to my fears were not being faced, that my frustrations were due to my unreasonable expectations of people’s life and situations.
In time as we peel back the onion and expose more suppressed pains the inner child starts to heal.
This enables us to be healthier and allows intimacy into our life.
It is important to understand that intimacy in our life is a very important part of healing the hurt inner child.
By gambling I simply made things much worse in my life.
I am a non religious person and yet I thoroghly am committed towards embracing healthy spirtual values in my life today.
By putting great effort in to my healing and my recovery I am less afraid less anxious less impatient more tolerant and even kinder to myself.
How much do I value my healthy life today.
Love and peace to every one
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
Hi
I think that people demonstrated honesty by sharing their emotional vulnerability in every day issues.
Their honesty helped me understand and to articulate what my feelings and emotions were.
One time a person who I have not met before pointed out that my therapy had fear issues in it.
He explained that my hurt inner child was still trying to protect me by living in fear from being hurt again.
We will often read and hear certain pointers in our recovery and then one day the light bulb moment comes and we get it, we trully understand.
Often text would raise more questiosn than answers.
I have had 11 counsellors in my life and am going to have one more counsellor this week in Calgary.
I thank you for your comments.
And I thank you for your time.
Dave L
Thank you for your comments.
I have been in recovery since 1971
Once you peel back the onion the pain of the hurt inner child gets healed.
I think that our pains often make us stronger once they are healed.
My frustration was due to my unreasonable expectations of people life and situations.
The recovery program is all about healing hurt and pains.
Once we get much more healthier the below the surface comes to the conscious surface.
My fears and anxiety were due to the pains fo my past.
With each fear I gave it a number out of ten.
It was very important for me to face the biggest fears first of all.
If I am fully willing to accept the very worst that can happen instantly my fears reduce.
Can I be adversely affected by unhealthy people any more.
The recovery program helps us heals our pains when we are ready for it.
Only once our fears are reduced are we ready for counselling.
The honest therapies are the path to a healthy recovery.
I gave up talking about being in action or money lost there were no resolve or healing talking about them.
Talking about being in action or money lost was deviting from finding a healing process.
As we hear more honesty from others we see and feeel our self in oters.
Both the healthy and unhealthy.
If we are trully humbled to be equal to all people in and out of recovery if one person can achieve goals in our life we all can.
The group discussions helped because they were therapy based, as we expose more and more of our self we are able to articualte and understand our unhealthy reactions to people life and situations.
The wrod analyse is a very cold word, once we ae understand that we are emotionally vulnerable we find amuch healthier life interacting in much healthier ways.
A much healthier way is our own awareness and street widom from our expereinces.
The question each day is how healthy was I yeserday.
Were my interactions open and honest with out fears.
Did any one or any thing inhibit me from being healthy honest and open.
To analyse is to queswtion how much more ehalthier was I today.
Can I learn in any way how to be much more healthier.
Do I still feel vulnerable or in need of support.
I often ask for advice and people opinions.
The questions indicate how much more healthier I am today.
Thank you for your qquestions and being so open.
Dave L
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