Rediscovering True Voice

Hi all, I have recently started my recovery journey and have started to write again. I am interested in hearing other people's stories and particularly in seeing the creative writing of compulsive gamblers in recovery.

This is my first blog post: Rediscovering True Voice. 

A gambler may adequately function in their job, social life and relationship without showing any signs of teetering on the edge, and yet at what cost? Anyone who is familiar with this addiction will understand that compulsive gamblers become adept in the craft of deception. The lies chip away at our own understanding of self; whether it is an excuse to explain absence from a family event, or a reason why you haven't transferred the money you owe to a friend, the real voice hides away and lets the gambler sort it out.

The more the gambler deceives those closest to them, the more they preempt the questions, fixating on their own lies as if they did indeed happen. The result of such dedicated, creative falsities is that of a warped understanding of reality in which the subject lives to justify the image they have created of themselves rather than their true identity. In my experiences, I sought only to protect a notion of stability and happiness, if I achieved this no one would suspect a thing.

I envisaged how my friends thought of me as the best version of myself, then marketed myself as such. The happy-go-lucky guy who was good fun on a night out, always up for a laugh, and generally just a chill dude. So I pushed forward a voice of which would accommodate this image, meanwhile hiding away the voice that cried out for help in understanding my emotions, actions and sense of place in the world. For me, honesty and integrity were always traits I admired most in people, it shamed me to have to lie in these moments. Yet, when I were to win big I wouldn't have to worry about being dishonest again, I'd pack it all in and live a truthful life with my riches.

This was an attainable dream, I would think about it everyday. It saved me from the anxiety of my finances and thereafter the dread of having to let people down by not turning up to events because I had no money. After a while I considered my lack of true voice as a by-product of pursuing wealth through secret gambling. One day it would come back. Of course, eventually, I stopped believing the dream.

My world came crashing down in an incredibly undramatic way when I accepted that enough was enough. I contacted GamCare and spoke on their live-chat facility, admitting I had a problem with gambling, this was the first time I considered myself being truly honest in around 10 years. My perspective is that I was living a lie in all my time as an addict. I had pandered to a version of myself which existed only to help hide my emotional trauma in this world, now I was setting myself free. I sobbed quietly as I answered questions honestly to give the live-chat agent more information about my situation. This was the beginning.

I now sit here 4 months sober, it feels like a lifetime. Fighting the addiction is one thing, rediscovering my true voice is another. In a sense, until I come out to my family and friends with my struggles I can never truly claim my voice back, yet this is a complicated course of action. There are circumstances where honesty causes increased pain, stress and anxiety, this may well be the cost in reclaiming my true self. Yet, in acceptance alone there is peace. I have stopped gambling, now I seek to fully find my voice. The gambler was right, it would come back, just not in the way that he envisioned.