I have many healthy choices today I do not want or need to gamble today

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

I do get much pleasure from being productive by my actions and words, fulfilling my wants and needs and understanding the difference.

I do understand that talk is cheap, if my words do not match my actions I am most certainly cheating myself.

Before spiritual recovery I did not have a clue how unhealthy I was, by the way spiritual values and actions has nothing to do about religion, every religion known is suppose to be spiritual guidance towards people having healthy relationships with them self and each other.

I am safely back in Calgary and am a little disorientated due to flights and getting up at 4.30 yesterday, I am so glad to have a home and to be in a city which is healthy and safe.

My steel is being tested more and more as I get healthier, things that use to cause me to go in to panic mode I am able to cope with in a healthier way.

When I walked in to recovery I could not admit to myself that I was unhealthy, I could not admit to myself that my rage and anger was unhealthy, I could not admit to myself that living in resentments was unhealthy, that even being angry was unhealthy.

My anger and resentments started from a very early age that I am very sure of today.

In this last week I have seen and heard some very powerful things from my wife Shirley, her speaking her mind openly and completely honestly helps me understand she no longer fears me.

I would like to think that in time my wife Shirley will be fearless in every way.

Shirley my wife is far stronger that I am, she is far more willing to learn than I am.

I am a survivor today, no matter what happens in my life I am not willing to give up faith or hope in myself.

Life being unmanageable had nothing to do about the gambling establishments or money, life being unmanageable was due to the fact I could not cope with my feelings of pain fear frustrations loneliness or boredom.

Today I do not want or need to gamble I know that today for sure.

Who did I fear most of all walking in to the spiritual recovery program, I feared facing myself.

So a decade of being the victim and feeling vulnerable emotionally, then by 2 to 3 decades of in and out of recovery not taking recovery seriously I eventually learned what step one was all about.

From victim to perpetrator how do you find out what healthy is all about, surely I wanted to become a rescuer once in the rooms of recovery, to help other people before I helped myself.

Control and order where is the line, highly productive and obsessive where is the line, controlling other people and nurturing people where is the line.

Some people become obsessed with the recovery program, if people react in an unhealthy way people questioning the recovery program that indicates how insecure I am within myself.

I am for sure more secure in myself today, if people question me I do not feel threatened or vulnerable, after all the recovery program is only a manual to healthy living, it is not a religious belief to me.

Recovery is about healing, and if you are not willing to admit to yourself you are sick, how can you get better. It is as simple as that.

I use to think that the recovery program was going to control me, sadly the recovery program was going to help me help myself on a slow change to a healthier way of life.

How can you justify walking in to a gambling establishment and freely giving away your house your car cloths holidays and think you are having fun.

That conscious decision that I wanted to change and improve how I felt about myself, to not do it for my wife mother son and or anyone else but to do it for myself.

By writing things down I was learning to be accountable to myself, that was one of the mature things I did, yet there was a fear I could not express or articulate without feeling silly or stupid.

Today writing down my wants needs and goals is important to me, as I fulfill each one cross them out, that crossing things out is confidence building.

My goals are long term, my life story has taken a long time to put to paper and need a lot of work doing on it.

How many times I write indicates how much I value myself, there is nothing I say or do that will change another person, that is their choice, may be a person can relate to me as I was or as I could be yet that again is their conscious decision for change for the healthier.

Just for Today I will be motivated in a healthy way.

Just for Today I will be selfish about my recovery and becoming the healthiest person I can be proud of.

I am glad that I am a compulsive gambler because without the spiritual recovery program I would never have leaned how unhealthy I was and how much I was missing from my life.

I use to blame other people and the world for how I use to feel.

I use to feel responsible for how other people felt.

I use to stress myself out and worry so much I could not stay focused on things today.

What is spiritual recovery, well healthy spiritual interactions is what spiritual recovery is all about.

If you are being resentful you are not healing your pains in a healthy way, if you are being vengeful you are trying to transfer your pains fears and frustrations on to other people.

I was so torn apart because I was not focused on just for today only.

The getting money was a deviation, the gambling was a deviation, the obsessions and hoarding was a deviation, of me not facing my true feelings.

What part did I play victim perpetrator or rescuer.

How could I respect other people if I was not able to respect myself.

My life was unhealthy and unmanageable long before I was seven years of age.

My life was unhealthy and unmanageable when I was attemping suicide as a teenager.

Am I burying or healing my pains today.

How do we heal and nurture our pains today.

I so much wanted to be normal now normal is not healthy enough for me.

Before I found the spiritual recovery program I was ignorant as to how unhealthy I was and what I was missing from my life.

I use to question if I was stupid dumb evil wrong yet at that time I did not understand in those days I did not have a choice, like the beaten dog had no choice but to shake in fear, I did not have a choice but to escape some where I did not have to face how I felt or deal with my feelings.

I would have liked to have thought that gambling made me sick, yet now understand that the gambling and obsessive escaping were just symptoms that I was not able to cope well with pain fear frustrations loneliness or boredom.

I was advised that the gambling establishments were not the problem that I was the problem, that seemed very cruel when a person does not understand addictions.

The emotional confusion I wondered as I got in to my recovery when did it all start, as I viewed and opened up my life I was amazed for how long I had buried and suppressed my pains and hid my fears from other people.

I would find that my unhealthy behavior of resentments started from a very early age.

Feeling responsible for how other people felt also started from a very early age in my life, in time I would understand that my emotional wants and my needs were not fulfilled as a young child.

As a young child I needed to feel cared for loved nurtured and protected and that was not going to happen for sure, my parents were unable to fulfill their own emotional wants and my needs.

No one forced me in to unhealthy living it happened gradually over many decades, it started by risk taking and being resentful yet not being able to speak up for myself directly or indirectly.

In those days people justified causing other people pain and humiliation, I did so myself, it was in the rooms of spiritual recovery I would become accountable to myself.

Understanding that every fear I had as an adult was due to unresolved painful traumatic experiences which were not healed and nurtured and put to rest.

I was born spiritually free of all fears, I was born unconditionally honest, I was able to give of myself unconditionally, I was able to trust unconditionally and grew up unable to heal and nurture my own pains.

So I got in to the habit of burying and suppressing painful events in my life and eventually would learn to blank painful periods out of my mind where they would hide in the subconscious area of my mind.

In time as I healed the past would come back to surface once more when I was ready to heal and deal with my past traumas.

So by living in guilt shame and embarrassment indicated I was not able to heal pains of my past, living in guilt was also an indicator that I had gone against my own conscience and gone against spiritual values.

Shame and embarrassment was one emotion that took me time to understand that it could be a consequence of my unhealthy actions and words or it could have been something that an unhealthy person did to me.

I felt that guilt was often due to my unhealthy actions and words I used towards another person that adversely affected that person.

I felt guilt for my unhealthy actions and words towards other people but in time I felt guilt for my unhealthy actions and words towards myself.

The word failure was a very unhealthy word to use about myself, in time I would learn that every experience we have can be an asset over time.

That by doing the actions in recovery is the opposite of failure.

When parents were full of aggression and confrontation I felt it was all about me, that I was responsible for their pains fears and frustrations, how could I take so much on board.

That even when parents were suppressive aggressive that would also make me feel like I was abandoned emotionally, I did not understand that they could not heal their own pains, that they could not face their own fears, that I was not responsible for their frustrations due to their high expectations of each other and their high expectations of life and other people.

So recovery comes in to my life, what are my wants and needs, and what am I going to do about those wants and needs, it was obvious to everyone around me knew that I needed the spiritual recovery program, yet it was not obvious to me at all.

All I wanted to do was abstain from the gambling addiction, I thought I would be happy once I did that, I am sure even Shirley thought that if I stopped gambling I would be fine, not so.

I understand that healthy spiritual people do not adversely affect other people in way or form, that healthy spiritual people would help and nurture other people in to doing healthy things with their life.

I use to think that spiritual people were weak people, I use to think also that humble people were weak people, how could I have got it all so wrong in my thinking and my way of living.

How could people care and respect me if they did not care and respect them self, it was very simple to me once I understood some simple facts about people.

There was one statement about dysfunctional people that I questioned that dysfunctional people were not able to be accountable and mature people, now it makes sense because dysfunctional people are too scared to be honest and accountable to them self.

The more I learn the more aware I am of how ignorant I was in early years.

The big question is have I learned to heal and nurture my emotional pains in a quick and healthy manner.

Am I able to laugh at things that at one time I use to make me react in an angry way at situations people and life.

Today I am able to say to people how much they mean to me, I am able to say to people how much I respect them and value them, I am able to say to people how much I love them.

One thing was important to learn in my spiritual recovery respect, and to understand that fear and respect are not the same thing, this confusion of not understanding the difference between fear and respect came from my child hood days

In my gambling days I would earn good money and give it away to complete strangers, yet it was not money I was giving away it was my holidays it was the quality of life I felt I did not deserve.

Speeding and tail gating were indicators I did not care about myself or respect myself.

Speeding and tail gating were indicators that I was intolerant of other people and more so I was intolerant and impatient with myself.

Unconditional giving of myself was an important thing to learn for me, by giving of myself unconditionally I have no expectations of other people what so ever.

By giving of myself unconditionally is very healthy and very spiritually, and one thing I learned is that healthy spiritual people do not adversely affect other people no matter what reason they have in their life.

My frustrations were often due to my unreasonable expectations of other people, having such expectations nearly always finished up with me feelings disappointed and resentful.

In the old days there was an expression that resentments are like taking poison and expecting the other person to die, my resentments indicated that I was not able to or not willing to forgive and heal my pains and get on with my life.

It took me time to understand what emotions and feeling I had before I escaped gambling, and the feeling I had during my escaping methods, and feeling after being unhealthy in my addictions and obsessions.

I understand today more about what is healthy or unhealthy, yet sometimes it can be difficult to do the healthy things.

Before recovery I did not have a choice, I feared being honest because I associated honesty as being painful, today I understand that healthy relationships are based up on honesty, that healthy moments have been due to me exposing myself and being the healthiest person I could be at that moment in time.

How difficult is step one, what part did I not understand, surrender acceptance or fully understand every aspect of how much of my life was being unmanageable emotionally.

I accept the fact that every time I gambled I never resolved any emotional issues, every time I gambled I tried to escape living life, in living in fear, that my fear drove me to gamble and my fears kept me gambling.

I now understand when I walked in to the spiritual recovery program I was completely beaten down and was so low emotionally I did not know which way to turn to get back to being spiritually healthy once more.

I understand today that I could not find spiritual recovery on my own.

I understand today that I could not find spiritual healing by remaining on my own and being isolated, I would not be the person I am today if it were not for being married to Shirley my wife, I would not be the person I am today if it were not for the spiritual recovery program and people demonstrating healthy to me that spiritual recovery truly works if you do the work.

Step one was about three things surrender acceptance and understanding why life was unmanageable for me emotionally.

Just because I was abstaining from my addictions did not mean those emotional rollercoaster rides were over.

Yet in recovery I would question everything about myself and everything about recovery.

I wanted to understand myself and understand how I use to tick and react in unhealthy ways towards the world.

I have given up person pleasing and telling people what they want to hear, for me that is not healthy, doing those kind of things is not healthy for me today.

Are my healthy actions and healthy words unconditional today, do I have any expectations of other people and life today,

I did not understand that by living in resentments I was living in the pains of my past, that by doing things out of reluctance resentfully and out of duty and out of penance I was cheating myself.

In time I would apologize for my unhealthy actions because I wanted to repair relationships with other people and with myself.

In recovery I would exchange unhealthy habits for a healthy habit, and over time changing habits became so much easier.

Our spiritual actions and our spiritual values and our unconditional actions are spiritually character building such as 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 awareness content stable open minded and calm and at peace with oneself.

Step one the most important step of them all.

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave of Beckenham