My life with addiction

Hi Dan
Just read your reply, lol my geography is awful too.
Thanks for thoughts
Cheryl x

Monday night & another GA meeting. Our monday group is mostly comprised of newer members many in their first few weeks or months. The transformation in people in just a short space of time is amazing to witness. I spoke a few weeks ago of a women attending her 1st GA meeting, how her head was bowed, her shoulders slumped unable to make eye contact. Just a few short weeks later she is now striding into meetings looking as though she has walked out of the pages of a magazine. Her thoughts are those of a determination to stop addiction & not wallow in her self pity. Eye contact is returned, friendships are being formed. A truely outstanding turnaround.

I see this regularly, its what happens when people commit 100% to creating new lives. Throwing out their old solutions. Surrendering & accepting that trying to deal with addiction on their terms cannot & will not work for them. That maybe just maybe there may be answers to their fears & frustrations in a place they havnt looked in before.

Im not talking about in God(although im sure many have found peace there) but in a fellowship of people who have walked in your shoes. Who view the world & their place in it with the same trepidation you do. That have experienced the emotions, angers, resentments & frustrations that you do in your fight with addiction.

Why not give it 90 days of your full commitment. What do you have to lose?

Anyway hard sell over!
A subject came up last night that has always greatly concerned me. I try not to get involved in the blaming game when it comes to my addiction, because i & i alone must take responsibility for my actions but ARCADES IN HOLIDAY CAMPS w*f is that about!! It really is an incredabley poisonous thing to subject our children to. At the age of 4 up kids are forming their emotional responses to situations, making associations with behaviours & their feelings. I hear so often i started gambling in the arcade on holiday with mum & dad or at the seaside on holiday. What do we remember about our childhoods if not the happy family time we all spent together, the family unit spending quality time together. There lies for many that initial association with gambling & happiness. We link it to a time when we felt content that we were important that we felt cherished & nurtured. That everything was good in the world. I dont know the answer to this but do other countries actively encourage their children to gamble in this manner? Why is it ok & deemed safe for little jonny & joanna to take the 1st step into what may be a lifetime of misery @ such a young age. Sure when they are 18 they can make their own decisions but @ 4,5,6,7,8 do we know for sure this is not planting the seed for destruction. No one would advocate setting up a Crack den or mini bar for them to get a little taster of what you can use to regulate your feelings with but gambling!! Go ahead kids its fun, whats the harm!

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your reply the other day.

I'll do some research in to those therapies. The more knowledge the better....

Thanks again.

Ade

A busy last 6 or 7 days so not much time to get involved here. I have been organizing our quarterly night out for my GA group, we meet up for a few beers & laughs away from the GA room. It improves our ability to bond with each other to have the strength to reach for the phone when we are struggling in life, to call someone we trust & who understands us. It is always a bit of a nightmare getting addicts organized & getting a straight answer out of them all as to whether they are coming or not! But eventually sorted & 14 confirmed yeses. So if you see 14 guys with their backs & eyes firmly diverted away from the fruities in your town this saturday night that will be us!

The friends i have made through GA has been probably one of the best things i have gained there. I have meet people i would have never come across normally, people from all walks of life, people who outwardly i would not pick as a friend. But what i have learnt in the room is that people are people, we all share the same anxieties, fears & frustrations. We all have the same need to feel we belong, that we are heard, that we are valued that we matter that we make a difference, my best friend is now a professional dancer, i am in the building trade, under what other circumstances would we have met! GA has allowed me to see things more clearly. To not presume, to not judge, to understand that just because someone doesnt agree with my point of view doesnt mean they dont like me. It has taught me to listen, it has taught me to communicate honestly & it has definateley taught me im not right about everything & that its ok to be wrong sometimes. Do i succeed in carrying out these lessons all the time.... no but thats ok to, im certainly better @ doing so than i was previously & i suppose that is all recovery is about. Improving day by day, learning from mistakes made, striving to improve as human beings, to learn to face our reality with honesty & humility. To see the bigger picture.
Our lives are as happy or as miserable as we choose to make them. Addiction tries to convince us we dont have a choice, it tells us we dont deserve happiness, that only addiction has the ability to soothe your pain. Well addiction is a f****n liar he is a delusionist & a denialist. He may offer you a temporary solution to your long term problem. But he is the pay day loan of lenders, he will want back that feeling of temporary calm he gave you back with huge interest.

We are not stupid, we are not weak, we do not lack morals,,so why do we persist in our addictive behaviour?
It surely must remain for a purpose. It is something we have learned to use to protect us in some way.

Why would we risk losing marriages, families, friends, careers, our homes & in many cases our lives.
It must be something pretty important to risk all that for, but many do, why?

Addiction is a coping mechanism designed by our minds to give us temporary peace, to soothe our emotions, to make us calm, to give us a solution to problems in our lives we feel unable to fix or to deal with @ that time.

Does a h er ion addict shoot up because he believes it will make his life better tomorrow?
No. But he believes it will get him through today without feeling hopeless, dissatisfied with his life, bored, lonely & angry.

Does someone who opens the 1st bottle @ the sound of the alarm clock believe it will improve their future happyness.
No. But it will stop them having to deal with their problems today. It will stop them having to face the pain & helplessness they feel in their day to day life.

Does the s*x addict believe that chasing the high of orgasm believe tomorrow will be tolerable.
No. But today they can take comfort in the fact that someone likes them even if they dont think they are worthy of it.

Does someone sitting on their sofa eating themselves to death believe that this is the way to lead a full & purposeful life.
No. But while they do so. Indulging that behaviour allows them not to have to deal with their sorrow & pain just for a short while.

My rather laboured point is that addiction is a tool designed to keep us in denial, it allows us to avoid the things we dont like about ourselves & the life situation we find ourselves in. It allows us to fail or not even try to fix those things which we find uncomfortable to deal with.

Your question should not be why am i addicted but what am i scared of, what am i avoiding? What is it about my life that im not satisfied with. Why am i bored, angry, lonely, feeling helpless, unable to feel satisfaction with what i have.

It is very difficult to escape the lure of addiction without finding a self awareness of yourself.
Without finding new ways to tackle your stress & anxiety & depressions, addiction can seem like the only option open to you.

Hi day@atime.

Your post rings very true with me but sometimes you can know what the real underlying problem is but be powerless to change what is wrong.

I don't mean to sound negative, your post did make me stop and think.

Thank you.

Thanks Sally

Knowing our underlying issue i agree does not guarantee freedom from our trauma. But it does place us in a position of choice. I can continue to use addiction to run from my past or present because to face it is more traumatic than dealing with the fallout from my addiction or i can work on a more direct & less destructive solution to what leads me to hide from it.

Gambling addiction was not my problem, life was. Gambling was my solution.

Day@atime

Fella two excellent posts today, I simply would like to thank you for sharing them.

Never more truer words have I read.

Abstain and maintain

Duncs stepping forward never back.

Was ahead of the game for once but thanks for dropping by 🙂 I'm not gonna lie & say I'm completely fine with it but I have accepted that I need to respect people's privacy & I'm in a much better place now!

Keep winning ODAAT - Juuuuuune

So many threads on here about what people arent prepared to do about their addiction. Not so many telling us what they will do or even try.

I cant tell my partner/family
I cant give up my access to cash or cards
I cant go to GA
I cant not go with friends for a jolly to a casino or bookies or racecourse
I cant stop watching sport even though it creates an urge within me
I cant seek professional help
I cant install blocking software
I cant self exclude

For all the above read i WONT.

I will do it my way
I will rely on methods to stop my gambling that have never worked for me before
I will continue to wish my problems away
I will not change anything but hope for things to be different
I will continue to lie to those around me under the pretence that im protecting them
I will tell myself that if i am free for a few weeks im back in control & a small bet wont hurt
i will tell myself my willpower will beat this
I will tell myself i am different to all those others who have tried to beat this & that i know best

All addict b###sh#t i told myself for so many wasteful years .

Freedom from our trauma will not be gained easily. Without 100% commitment to change without the willingness to accept our way doesnt work & without the humility to implement a few simple barriers our outlook for recovery is bleak surely

But how??

Dan.

Thanks for being here and sharing.

I know I'm ' a won't ' person you relate too. Yet I'm reaching out in trying to understand how? Truthfully I don't comprehend advice, I come from the ancient ' snap out of it ' hence that's my facade.

Some one said to me as I was on my honeymoon of abstinence of gambling, that I wasn't in enough pain yet to embrace recovery! I understand that now, but then I come to How again?

dearest day@atime

Because I have the skin of a Rhino I shall treat your comment with the contempt it deserves.

recovery is bespoke isn't it?..you can be as honest as the day is long but it only means something if the person you're trying to be honest to accepts what you're trying to achieve.

I made point of the fact that to my family membership of GamCare was never a secret...that said would you day@atime read a diary of a member at a GA meeting if they left it laying on a table.

if not having the privacy for freedom of expression on a forum which is designed for you to talk with other gamblers NOT PARTNERS is childish...then pass me the Gripe Water.

that said keep traveling..onwards and upwards...Ginger.

Hi Dan,

Thanks for your support and advice was very much appreciated and helped.

You are right I can't change what is not mine to change and I must carry concentrating on what I can change in my life for me.

Thanks again for your continuing support and looking out for me.

Suzanne xxx

RECOVERY IS BESPOKE

This line is generally trotted out by all those still in denial. It is a very convenient truth to allow oneself to do nothing about your gambling addiction. Bespoke does not mean doing it all your own way it means that some of the finer details of your life in recovery will be slightly different to the next persons.

All successful recovery modules to arrest compulsive gambling have the same core elements.

Ongoing long term recovery & remember there is only a 3-5% of people who achieve 1 year gamble free, is very rarely achieved by those who insist on ignoring all the basic principles of recovery.

Honesty. A difficult concept for addicts, because as a compulsive gambler you are also a compulsive liar. Do not continue to hide your addiction from those around you under the pretence you are protecting them, you are not you are protecting yourself. Without complete honesty with both yourself & those affected by your actions you are highly likely to relapse be that 3 days, weeks or months.

Handing over financial control completely. Would anyone think it a good idea for a recovering alcoholic to be put in charge of the bar or to carry around a bottle of the very thing that fuels there addiction. Yet most CGs trying to stop think its ok to carry their own bottle of scotch with them & expect themselves to handle it responsibly.

Attending Gamblers Anonymous, Counselling, Smart Recovery.
Why when we have proved time & time again we cant do this alone do we insist on trying the same thing to stop & expect a different end result.

Self Exclusion & Blocking Software.
If you are serious about this there can be no objection to completing these two very simple tasks. The only reason you are not prepared to do both is because you dont want to takeaway your option to gamble.

This is not rocket science. Abstinence is pretty simple. You take away access to money you cant bet! You take away a place to carry out your gambling you cant bet! You fill your life with things that are preferable to gambling you wont want to bet!

The first two of those when applied with complete honesty are simple to carry out. The third is very very difficult. It is emotionally hard work. You will cry, get angry tell yourself the fallout from gambling was easier to deal with than creating a new life where i wont want to gamble was & this is the time when the barriers you have put in correctly will be your friend, they will give you the opportunity to gain abstinence. Abstinence from gambling will leave you with time on your hands. Maybe this time could be spent working recovery. How to find a life where you are happy & content with what you have

I attended a GA group yesterday that i heard was struggling with attendance. One 40 miles away that i had occasionally frequented in my early days of recovery as sometimes i needed more than the 1 meeting a week that was on offer to me locally.

I went there expecting a poor experience not filled with much hope as to what i would find.

I found 1 man sat on his own not expecting any company but prepared to give his precious time just in case someone needed him.

We made coffee & sat & chatted for 2 hours no one else came. He told me of his life with & without gambling & i told him mine. He told me it was 17 years since his last bet, he gave me much more than he can imagine.

I am lucky my regular meetings are a vibrant exciting challenging place to attend. This was not but it still gave me something new. It showed me a selfless person willing to be there for others. A man continuing to gift himself recovery by giving it away to someone else.
I walked in depressed by what i saw, i left with renewed hope that while people like that exist the world & the people in it have a chance.
The simple reason the meeting was empty. They have too many meetings for the area, 4 in total when they only need 2. They are trying to be there as often as possible for people. That if anybody needs help there is somewhere to go & for that i can only applaud them