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Recovery Diaries
Last Post by gadaveuk 4 hours ago
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 gadaveuk
(@q86r2ugj5p)
Posts: 1940
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I am a compulsive Gambler who has a hurt inner child who is still healing even today. I am very much a non-religious person. Yet I am a much healthier spiritual person. I walked into the recovery program over 50 years ago and thought that by stopping my unhealthy addictions and my unhealthy obsessions I would be a happy healthy person. 
 
I have been clean now 32 years and still attend meetings. Like minded people in the recovery program would help me understand that I use to be a very emotionally vulnerable person. I was not a weak person just a emotionally vulnerable who was a survivor of so much abuse earlier in my life.
 
On walking into the recovery program I would not understand that the addictions and my obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable did not mean I was a weak person, the emotional triggers indicated that I was emotionally vulnerable and reacted in some very unhealthy ways.
 
Today can I say and understand more about what is healthy interactions or what is unhealthy reactions to people’s life or situations. Today can I say I have mostly exchanged my unhealthy habits into healthy habits.Today can I say that the unhealed pains of my past caused fears in me that I did not understand. Today can I say that the fears in me have been faced or reduced working my healthy recovery. 
 
Some of my fears were huge ten out of ten fears. By taking my biggest fear and facing the very worst that could happen my fears reduced over time. My fears use to show up at different levels nervousness anxiety and huge panicking, at that level of fear I could not work out things in a healthy way. The addictions and obsessions were a form of escape from my feelings and emotions. The deeper I got in to my healing and my recovery and understood my unhealthy reactions, I would understand how to change unhealthy reactions to healthy interactions. 
 
As my fears reduce my trust grows and I am able to have a healthier level of intimacy with healthy like minded spiritual people, religious or not like-minded people. Being emotionally traumatized disabled me from living a full healthy productive life, living in so many fears was disabling myself and my relationships with others and with myself.
I do understand that that I am a survivor of all kinds of abuse. I do understand that emotional intimacy is important to my healing and to having healthy relationships. That emotional intimacy is important to having a healthy interactive life with myself and with other people.
 
For sure it was not healthy for me being alone isolated life living in all my fears. Due to pains in my life the levels of fears grew in me, for me anxiety stress and panic were all fear-based issues. Panicking indicated fears so great that I could not think things out clearly. My lies were often due to my levels of pains and my levels of fears I could not deal with in a healthy way. Only by writing down my fears and facing each fear would they reduce. On paper writing down the highest fear within me would be 10 out of 10. Then over time it was very important to face my biggest fears first of all the work down my lists.
 
I also got to understand my anger was an unhealthy reaction to pains I could not heal, fears I could not face, frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of people, life and situations. When I was being angry and aggressive, I was often hurting myself as well as others. In the past when I was being asked how am I, when I say I am fine I was lying, when I say I am not so bad I was lying to myself.
 
In me were deep seated buried and suppressed memories and pains I had no recall of the memories of my childhood. I blanked those memories out because I could not deal with or heal them. One thing I understand is that in my childhood when parents were not with me physically that was physical abandonment and emotional abandonment. When a parent was with me yet could not have any emotional or intimate connection that was emotional abandonment, feeling like I was not wanted or loved, that somehow, I was unlovable.
 
I used to take emotional rejection internally, like there was something wrong with me. There were a lot of people who put up walls of fears to protect their hurt inner child, I thought that living in fear and mistrusting people was quite normal. In healing my hurt inner child helps me open up to very healthy emotional intimacy. Also, in the healing process comes the ability to understand and to articulate my feelings and my emotions. For me being able to communicate in healthy ways without fears restricting me from living a healthy life. Whenever I was asked to go into the office my instant reaction to what have I done wrong was to assume me being guilty even when I was not.
 
Asking for help is a sign of strength. Not a sign of weakness. Setting boundaries is saying that I value myself today. Setting boundaries from a place of peace stops me being the victim. Today I understand that a victim is a person who is unable to speak up for them self from a place of peace. Today I both need and want peace in my life. Today I both need and want to be fearless. Today I both need and want healthy people and healthy intimacy in my life.
 
Also having healthy intimacy in my life is part of the healing process. I am a nonreligious healthy person today. I am focused on exchanging unhealthy habits into healthy habits today. The recovery program is about healing our pains, facing our fears and reducing our expectations of people’s life and situations. There is physical pain and emotional pains. I have suffered so much from both types of pains.
 
I at one time was so badly hurt physically that I could not feel any physical pain whatsoever. The doctor warned me that having so much physical pain at one time was very dangerous. The emotional pains which were a form of emotional trauma affected me in so many ways, it adversely affected my response times, it adversely affected my ability to listen and learn and to understand, it caused me to withdraw from any kind of intimacy, it also affected my ability to learn and absorb information and education. How many people question what love is, one day I asked my wife what love is, she told me it is giving of our self unconditionally without any expectations.
 
For me I now understand that a person can only love someone else if they are able to love them self. For me I now understand that a person can only respect someone else if they respect them self. Love is about emotional intimacy at a very healthy level. If people have a hurt inner child in them then they are often living in fear of emotional intimacy. Only when we heal our pains can we be able to reduce our fears.
 
Ladies often have unreasonable expectations of their male partners. They want more emotional intimacy than a man can give. Because they have unreasonable expectation of everyone in their life and everything in their life, they are in fact causing them self-pains. The only person I can change is myself, once I accepted that fact I stopped being frustrated.
 
Often people with unreasonable expectation hurt them self-time and time again. I am not a religious person, yet I am learning to be a more spiritual person. My conscience is very much based on spiritual based values.  When I try to justify going against my own conscience, I am often hurt myself and other people. My patience and tolerance indicates how healthy I am. If I am not being patient and tolerant indicates that I am also very hard on myself.
 
Love and intimacy only happens when our hurt inner child is starting to be healed. Love and intimacy only happens when we are more loving and respectful towards our self. If we are procrastinating, are we avoiding fulfilling our needs  justify wants and justify our goals. If we are procrastinating, are we avoiding fulfilling our goals? Am I allowing procrastination to limit me from living my life to the fullest each day?
 
Boredom was one of my emotional triggers, it was due to my procrastination and having lack of faith and confidence in myself. Sticking with healing, recovering and overcoming procrastination really accelerated my recovery. How committed am I in writing down my needs, my wants and my goals today? 
 
Another thing was not able to ask for help. I now know that asking for guidance and to get people to show me how to do things was very helpful. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness.
 
Asking for help is a sign of strength and how much we value our self. The simple fact is someone shows me how to do it and I do it myself. That is part of my learning curve. By doing things no matter how imperfect they are, each time I learn something new is healthy for me and for next time.
 
At one time I tried doing dry wall with my wife, we did the garage and then after that we did about 70% of our basement, it was very rewarding and helped raise our confidence. Then we paid some people to complete the work.
 
Each day we make a list of things, our needs, our wants and our goals for the next day. Writing down our needs, our wants and our goals is very focused and very self rewarding.
 
Procrastination is not very healthy, procrastination is a complete waste of time and energy, procrastination is white knuckling my recovery. Living in guilt, shame, regret remorse is living from the pains of our past. I understand that our conscience is spiritual based and when I do or say unhealthy things, I hurt myself and other people.
 
Is it healthy to live in the feelings of guilt shame regret remorse, for me it was unhealthy to continuously live in the pains of my past. I can heal my pains yet sadly I am unable to heal people I have hurt, by me being unhealthy I adversely affect the relationship I have with myself and with other people. Continuing living in guilt shame regret remorse adversely affects healthy intimate relationship with myself and between the people I have hurt. An apology is not about who is right or wrong, an apology is about repairing relationships with myself and with the people I have hurt. Guilt tripping is very unhealthy, it indicates that people continue to live in the pains of their past, that they are unable to heal their pains and unable to move on in their life.
 
Guilt tripping can also indicate that people have expectations and when their expectations are not met, they continue to bring up their pains and try to have their expectations met by people who do things resentfully and reluctantly. Guilt tripping is very unhealthy and causes unhealthy reactions and people feel they cannot move on with their future having been continued caused emotional due to very unhealthy guilt tripping. Guilt tripping is very unhealthy and hurts relationships and people are not able to move on to healthier relationships. People will often avoid intimacy guilt tripping people because they find them too unhealthy to live with. Guilt tripping people will find people try to avoid them and they live a lonely life living in the pains of their past.
 
Never being able to be content with them self or their life. In recovery I got to understand that the gambling addiction and other addictions and my obsessions were just the symptoms that I was emotionally vulnerable, the emotional triggers indicated that I was vulnerable and reacted in some very unhealthy ways. I got to understand in my recovery that was about healing my pains, the recovery would help me be able to articulate what my feelings and emotions were. One of my biggest fears was being honest because I felt that I would be rejected if I was open and honest with people. Also being honest would be painful.
 
Yet in my recovery being honest was very helpful in my recovery my trust growing and my healing by having healthy emotional intimacy. Being in a healthy recovery meeting where there were healthy therapies, I would open up more emotionally and with that honest and exposing how vulnerable I was my fears would reduce, my trust would grow, and I would get to understand more about myself and my vulnerability.
 
Just because I went to meetings did not mean I would stop gambling right away; it took me many years to get wise as to what my emotional triggers were. In all the meetings I went to different meetings and found that therapy-based meetings were the most beneficial to my healing and a much healthier recovery.
 
Often there would be times where a person would exchange one addiction or obsession to another. This was just another way of escaping. I am a non-religious person yet being in a recovery program dedicated to religions I found my unhealthy reaction to the mention of God or religion slowed me in my recovery.
 
The simple fact is if a person can understand that the recovery program works if you work it. One thing is very important to find a very healthy person sponsor with healthy nurturing encouraging spiritual interactions religious or not. A healthy sponsor will help you feel more comfortable, less afraid, less fearful and help you get focus in your needs, your wants and in time your goals.
 
Each time I went back to my addiction I would understand that I did not love my addictions and that often going back to my addictions was very much an adrenaline rush and fear based. In truth I would escape from people’s reality and life when I could not cope emotionally.
 
No matter when my last bet was it was very important to go to meetings or more meetings when I was vulnerable. One can gain some clean time in a healthy recovery program, and if ever we go back to addictions or obsessions learn and understand what our last emotional trigger was. People will often put on a façade built on their fears and try to hide how vulnerable they are.
 
Often people will think that getting large sums of money will somehow help them get healthy overnight, that was and is not true for me. The simple fact money would never heal my pains, in fact I found that I could not be trusted with money, handing over all finances helped me in my recovery. In time I would learn to not only value money but would also become more relaxed with money; money for me was never an attraction or an emotional trigger.
 
Simply money was the fuel for my addictions and unhealthy living. It is often said that people have lost clean time going back to their addiction or obsessions, not so clean time cannot be lost, no clean time cannot be lost. Why do people not take advantage of a meeting telephone list when they feel vulnerable? Is it that difficult to talk to a likeminded person and say I am vulnerable I need to talk things out? Being emotionally vulnerable does not mean you are weak, not at all and making a call indicates how much you value yourself.
 
Emotional triggers for me my were pains I could not heal, an emotional trigger were my were fears I could not face and reduce, an emotional trigger were my unreasonable expectations of people life and situations I could reduce, an emotional trigger were my fears of emotional intimacy and feeling a loner and disconnected, an emotional trigger for me was boredom because I could feel productive and I was not able to commit to my needs my wants and in time set goals for me to achieve.
 
So, before my recovery I was not a bad person, I was not an evil person, I was not a stupid person. However, I was very limited in learning and absorbing skills, getting an understanding, and retaining education. These limitation on me were due to emotional scars from my childhood. After one session of counselling in dealing with abandonment issues after the counselling session my self-awareness my attention span time were adversely reduced for 11 days.
 
After those 11 days of emotional healing my self-awareness drastically improved, my retention improved and much clearer thinking and a faster response time. When asked how I was I use to say I was fine or not so bad, I could not be honest as to how emotionally vulnerable I was. Being in recovery I would get to understand each one of my traumatic emotional pains caused by fears in me that I did not understand. With honest open therapies the fears are reduced, and my trust improves.
 
In time I was able to open up to very healthy emotional intimacy with likeminded people who wanted to heal and find a much healthier life with healthier relationships. The simple truth was that I could not heal my pains if I was not willing to be honest and admit to myself, that I was in emotional pains. Inner peace comes from healing our hurt inner child and becoming spiritually healthy.
 
My anger and rage were an unhealthy reactions to the unhealthy pains, unhealthy fears and unhealthy frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of people’s life and situations. Due to not being able in healing my emotionally hurt inner child the pains caused fears in me that I did not understand.
 
A recovery program will help people be aware that they are emotionally vulnerable people not being able to heal their pains. A recovery program means to me healing our emotional pains.
 
Our guilt, shame, regret helps us understand that we have a healthy conscience based on spiritual values, when we adversely affect other people, we hurt our self. I am a non-religious person, yet today I have a very healthy conscience. When people justify saying they want justice the truth is they are not healing pains they are transferring their pains fears and frustrations on to other people. In my non-religious recovery program, I would open up to healthy therapies which would help me articulate and heal and resolve my confusion, my emotional traumas.
 
If we are healthy people and heal our pains, we do not react in such anger rage or venomous ways. The addictions and obsessions only indicate that we are vulnerable people.
 
The addictions and obsessions indicate that we react in unhealthy ways to those things we cannot resolve. Inner peace comes after our healing process. If all we do to the world is say I am fine or not so bad, we are lying to our self and we are denying our self a healing process. Me having a healing process enables me to have more intimacy with myself and with all people.
 
My rage, anger, resentments, vengeance and insecurity only indicate how emotionally vulnerable I am. At first in the recovery program, they often seems to be more questions than answers. It is very important in a recovery program to find a very healthy spiritual person who will demonstrate nurturing and encouragement towards exchanging unhealthy habits into unhealthy habits.
 
Once we change from unhealthy reactions to having healthy interactions we are on the road to safe healthy healing and recovery. In saying I am fine or not so bad I am denying myself a healthy life. There is no doubt in my mind that the unhealed pains of my past made me a very victim.
 
Some people might think that being a victim is a physical thing, or a s*x thing, or due to our limitations. For me being the victim was very simple I was not able to speak up for myself from a place of peace.
 
I did a lot karate for over two years and find that I still lived in my fears, I questioned myself and then found out my fears were of aggression. This fear of aggression was due to unhealthy people being transferring their pains fears and frustrations on to me showing aggressive towards me from a very young age. I simply could not stand up for myself.
 
Aggressive people do not like it when people have a voice and stand up for them self, one way or another. Sometimes we just have to walk away from some very unhealthy people. 
 
Healing love and peace to everyone. 
 
Dave L
 
AKA Dave of Beckenham
 
Posted : 2nd November 2024 2:54 am
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