When I handed over all of our finances to my wife I felt like I was being punished as a child.
The money was only the fuel for my addiction and if you take away that fuel sadly I would try and escape in other ways to another addiction or obsessions at other things, like television games computer etc.
The gambling for me was a form of escape.
Because of the build up the anticipation and my fears grew it caused an adrenaline rush in me which people refer to as the buzz.
Because of the high of the buzz I got in mind that while I was in action gambling that I loved it and that every thing else was boring.
I even felt that gambling controlled my life, but for me the gambling was a form of escape from people life and situations I could not cope with emotionally.
The addiction was an indicator that I was emotionally vulnerable longer before my addictions and obsessions.
When I walked in to the recovery I did not feel responsible for my unhealthy actions and for my unhealthy words.
I am a non religious person and understand that if I can heal from my life time of pains any one can do so also.
The minute I use to say to myself oh who cares any way was the very instant I was giving up all value faith and hope in myself.
Even today when I justify my actions or words I know that I am going against my own conscience and spiritual values.
When I walked in to the recovery program I was in a very unhealthy self destructive way of living.
I lied to escape responsibility with each lie came more fears in me.
I feared the telephone ringing, I feared the postman, I feared strangers coming to our front door.
I wished my life away, I only wanted to avoid responsibility, I felt that I had no choices in my life.
The recovery program helped me understand my needs and write them down.
The recovery program helped me understand my wants and write them down.
The recovery program helped me understand that I needed to have goals in my life and to write them down.
When ever I was asked in to the office my instant reaction what have I done wrong.
That was a subconscious reaction that I had about myself was very unhealthy.
In time I would exchange an unhealthy habit in to a healthy habit.
My time and my effort in to the recovery program would become very self rewarding.
Guilt shame regret remorse shame would be replaced with healthy productive pride.
Things I use to think were impossible became achieveable.
If I truly see and feel myself as an equal to all in recovery if they are able to achieve so so can I.
Recovery helps heal that hurt inner child.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
Hi
Step one helped me understand that I was emotionally vulnerable long before my addictions and obsessions came in to my life.
Before I was seven years of age I had suffered emotional abuse, I had suffered physical abuse, I had suffered neglect and abondonment.
Due to both of parents were hurt angry and frustrated with drawing from emotional intimacy with them self and with other people.
As a child both wanted and needed emotional intimacy nurturing love care and protection.
Both of my parents were unable to love them self or each other, my parents inner children were hurt and traumatized long before they got married.
As a teenager I even tried to take my own life.
I was emotionally vulnerable as a child, because I could not cope with my emotional triggers I would escape from people life and situations I could not cope with.
I then understood that the addictions and obsessions were just symptoms that I was emotionally vulnerable yet I did not understand because of every painful event in my life I was a survivor, there was nothing that could be said or done that had not already been done to me.
My emotional triggers were not excuses but were a big indication that I lived my life in fear, fear of being hurt, fear of rejection, fear of abondonment, fear of failure, fear of being honest and fear of exposing my hurt inner child.
No matter when you last gambled it is important to go to meetings, no matter if you have no money go to meetings, no matter if you feel good go to meetings.
Recovery was about healing my hurt inner child, even today recovery is about becoming healthier in my words thinking and my actions.
My recovery was about acknowledging my hurt inner child, my recovery was about me being more honest with myself, my recovery was about me exchanging unhealthy habits in to healthy habits.
My daily lists of my needs wants and goals was about my commitment to myself, daily lists got me being motivated in healthy ways, to no longer do things resentfully or reluctantly, being motivated my time is filled with productive activities.
My unhealthy swearing was an indicator that I was unable to articulate and express myself in healthy ways.
Procrastination was due to lack of self worth due to lack of self confidence, when I walked in to the recovery program I was emotionally traumatized, I had got in to the unhealthy habit of allowing myself to feel my feelings and emotions.
My day is made up with 3 sections my need time, my want time and my rest relaxing time.
I gave up gambling and found that I wasted a lot of time on watching television, I wasted a lot of time on my computer, I wasted a lot of time on my games.
So for me to get productive I needed to focus on and understand what is a need, what is a want, what is a goal, over time things I thought I could not do became the possible things I could do.
The recovery program is about progress not perfection, by trying to be perfect we were causing our self to feel a failure, in recovery we learn from our mistakes and our failings.
By us being hard on other people indicates we are hard on our self.
Recovery is about being nurturing and encouraging to our self, even though in my child hood there was no nurturing and encouraging, it was a skill I needed to learn for myself.
Was I a victim, yes for sure, was I a perpetrator yes for sure, even knowing how it self being the victim I justified a perpetrator dumping my pains fears and frustrations on to other people.
I use to say to myself I wanted jsutice, that was not true, I wanted vengeance which is not the same thing.
How was I going to heal my hurt inner child, when would my physical age and emotional age be the same.
The hurt inner child was stunted from a very early age, the traumas of my child hood caused me to have fears of emotional intimacy, I use to fear trus ting people, over time as my fears were reduced my trusts would grow.
I am very fortunate to have given talks at recovery centers, the people after some time open up and involved with the talks, as you get in to the experiences of talks and sharing people come out of them self, that open debate helps people see them self in other people.
I had so many questions yet people just quoted out dated text to me, I wanted to understand my feelings and emotions, I wanted out of confusion and open up to clarity and focus in my life and with my relationships.
Communications was an important par of my recovery to come out of my self and expose that hurt inner child.
One time I did a few talks to counsellor training courses and found that some of the people were impacted by the pains of my past that they broke out in their tears.
The very first time I did a talk was a very fear filled experience, it was at a conference, and I was told that it was only a half our period, the just before the conference I was advised it was an hour and a half.
Well the fears well up in me and on the day I feared being asked a question I did not know the answer to.
To my surprise people opened up to the questions I asked, I felt they got involved, and at the end of it I did not think I had done it.
Recovery is a series of healing processes, people will find it difficult to admit the fears and a lack of trust, people will avoid facing responsibility for their unhealthy actions their unhealthy words.
People will often think that by paying back money owed or stolen will repair relations that is not so, repair happened once people no longer fear us and start to trust us once more.
It is by our healthy actions and our healthy words people will trust us once more.
Every action has consequences, every unhealthy action has unhealthy consequences, every healthy action has healthy consequences, that is how a healthy recovery works.
Just abstaining sitting on my hands doing nothing is white knuckling my recovery, and not doing the work was not going to heal my hurt inner child.
How much do I value myself today.
How much time and effort am I willing to put in to my recovery today.
A healthy recovery gives you pride in your self, my healthy actions and my healthy words empowers me.
So how much time and effort am I invested in today, how much more can I do.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave of Beckenham.
AKA Dave L
Hi
It took me some time to get in to the meetings of recovery.
My self confidence was at an all time low, I had in effect given up faith and hope in myself.
I use to question if I was stupid dumb bad evil or just no good.
In time I understood that I was emotionally vulnerable, and in time I would understand my emotional triggers.
My emotional triggers were my pains I was unable to heal, my emotional trigger were my fears I was not able to face, my emotional trigger were my frustrations due to my unreasonable expectations of people life and situations, with my unreasonable expectations I was truly hurting myself time and time again and not learning from them.
My emotional triggers were my feelings of loneliness and my feelings of boredom.
It is important to find a room you can trust and not live in fear, find the healthiest room you can find, in time you will be able to open up and talk in your time.
Recovery for me means healing, I did not understand that by walking in to recovery I had every chance of finding a healthy life with out gambling or any other kind of addiction or other kind of obsession.
No matter when you had your last bet go to the meetings.
No matter if you have no money go to the meetings.
I am often asked if I have abstained for so long and been in recovery for a life time why attend meetings now.
Sadly it is very rare for people to stop from gambling or abstain from gambling from day one.
Sadly it is very rare for people to be completely honest with them self from day one.
When my emotional triggers occurred I would escape in my fears, the consequences of living in my fears was an adrenaline rush, often I would think that rush or buzz was a love a passion, it was an adrenaline rush and it confused me and levels of fear were so high I use to go into panic mode when I could not think clearly or in a healthy way.
Money was never going to give me any emotional resolve of heal my pains.
Money was never going to make me happy, there was no doubt in my mind today that I was a very unhealthy self destructive person, I to even think that I hurt every one around me and that I did not hurt myself, that was not true.
The benefits of taking recovery seriously is that I live a much healthier productive life.
My unhealthy reactions to people life and situations indicated to me that my hurt inner child was not healed.
I use to get stressed our at Christmas, I use to get stressed our at tax time, I use to get stressed out at going to the dentist, I use to get stressed out trying to articulate my feelings and emotions.
I tried to impress people, I tried to person please, I tried to hide my hurt inner child.
I use to fear the opposite s*x, I use to fear being asked questions, I use to fear not having cash on me, I use to fear GA birthdays.
The rewards for a healthy recovery is pride in our self because of healthy actions and because of healthy words towards other people, no more hiding and living in fears today.
My daily lists consist or my needs my wants and my goals.
My daily lists are a commitment to myself, my daily lists are a accountability and an expression of value to myself.
For em the recovery program is non religious, the wording spiritual is about my healthy interactions with all people.
In time in my meetings my fears reduced and my trust grew, in my meetings I could learn to articulate myself to articulate my feelings and my emotions.
I was stunted from a healthy growth from a very early age, I suffered from emotional abuse, I suffered from physical abuse, I suffered from sexual abuse, I suffered from neglect and abandonment, I have in my life attended 11 counsellors, every thing that could have been done to me has been done and I know today I am a survivor, the day I took recovery seriously I am a healthy survivor.
As I got seriously in to a healthy recovery my steel was often tested to greater levels.
The recovery program is very simular to mountain climbers, by being tied together we learn by healthy examples set from people more in to recovery.
If we get to impatient in our recovery we will hurt our self once more.
I use to say I wanted to be normal, today I understand that supposedly normal are not very healthy, I see dysfunctional behaviors daily and in those people I see and feel myself as I use to be.
The recovery program is about healing the hurt inner child being healthy and no longer have a desire to escape people life and situations I feel vulnerable in.
Love and peace to every one
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham.
Thanks for sharing this. Very relatable and helpful. ?
perhaps i was one of the few gamblers that didn't get a buzz out of it.had been hurt and lost so many times i was emotionally dead. In a betting shop, for instance, other punters would not know if i was losing a small fortune or just won one.l
like you, i felt shame and anger after losing a wad of money, especially when back with my family ..thinking i could have spent that on these guys. guilt sets in. then the next day we go again. what a crazy life we all have lived. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinion. Stay strong.
Hi
I think that I was a rat in the wheel getting faster and faster yet not getting any where healthy.
For me the addiction was self destructive.
I was not hurting myself but also hurting the very people I was suppose to be loving towards and protecting them.
Sadly I had became my own worst enemy.
Regards Dave of Beckenham,
AKA Dave L
Thank you for your sharing.
The gambling for me was a way of escaping in my fears when I was emotionally vulnerable.
To protect my hurt inner child I use to put on a facade and use to bury my pains and not allow myself to heal.
The money was the fuel for my addiction.
Once I did abstain from Gambling I would find other ways of escaping, television computers games etc.
For me when I replaced an unhealthy habit with a healthy habit that is when that is when my recovery kicked in.
We started to go out as a family and do ten pin bowling, that was fun.
When I told Shirley my wife I felt emotionally vulnerable we would go out and do some thing.
It is funny most people think that the compulsive gambler is the only one with emotional baggage once I was in my recovery and my family no longer feared that people talked about painful experiences they had not dealt with or healed.
I am able to achieve so much with my life today.
At one time I wished my life away.
Now there is not enough hours in the day.
Sadly I could only get healthy once I admitted to myself that certain things were unhealthy.
My fear of emotional intimacy has been drastically reduced.
You would think that if I got married I did not fear emotional intimacy. LOL
Best wishes
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
It was my pleasure
Thank you
perhaps i was one of the few gamblers that didn't get a buzz out of it.had been hurt and lost so many times i was emotionally dead. In a betting shop, for instance, other punters would not know if i was losing a small fortune or just won one.l
like you, i felt shame and anger after losing a wad of money, especially when back with my family ..thinking i could have spent that on these guys. guilt sets in. then the next day we go again. what a crazy life we all have lived. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinion. Stay strong.
Hi
I think that being dead inside is a state of trauma after suffering pain, it is not a healthy way to be or to live in, that I felt like I was unable to heal my pains and could not cry for my hurt inner child.
Once I was able to abstain only then could the healing process happen.
At meetings both of my legs use to twitch and I could not help myself.
The trauma in my life was very painful yet if people asked me how I was feeling I would say not so bad or I am ok.
Living in the pains of my guilt was not healthy, and in time I would recognize that I was not a healthy person.
There were so many fears in me and now understand that most of my fears stemmed from child hood trauma.
Yet by attending meetings was very important yet I did not think so at the time.
No matte when your last bet go to a meeting.
No matter if you have no money go to a meeting.
I found that going to meetings I would internalize how other people were or not like what I heard but it is important go to a meeting.
People will some times change from one addiction to another or even take up obsessions just another way of escaping or deviating facing them self.
We do talks in recovery centers and is very rewarding to have an interaction with people who want to be healthy and have some control in their life.
The wording in the recovery program to be normal, I use to say that quite often.
Only once we are open to understanding people life and situations we recognize the reference normal is not very healthy.
Being in the recovery program we raise our bar to want to be healthier than normal.
I felt such a failure when I lost my money, once I had reached my bottom the only way was up for me.
Me being unhealthy was self destructive, I was not a dumb person, I was not stupid, recovery is not about good bad right or wrong, my recovery is about me not be a healthy person and a very emotionally vulnerable person.
Yet I could not get healthy until I was willing to admit to myself that I was being very unhealthy.
When I walked in to recovery the person I feared facing the most was myself.
When I was in two prisons I did not feel responsible for my actions even though I was very much guilty.
In prison I use to cry myself to sleep like a little hurt child.
When I walked in to the recovery program I did not feel responsible for my actions, I felt like the addiction controlled my life.
No the addiction did not control my life, it was fear that made me escape from people life and situations when I was emotionally vulnerable.
The lists of my fears were due to pains and trauma in life that were not healed or resolved.
I was very much a loner before my addictions and obsessions.
The wording I used was obsessive, I have to, I have to implies reluctance, it implies my motives were not healthy.
I learned in time that I have to was going to change to I want to or I need to, in writing them down was going to help me move towards a healthier way of thinking.
My daily lists were to help me stay focused on healthy actions and healthy words.
Before my recovery I always felt guilty or unworthy, I use to question spending money on myself like I was not worthy.
Beating our self up is not healthy.
There was one time that I was coming up to my very first one year GA birthday, I was very nervous and scared of attending my birthday so much and hearing people talk about me I found out that I went back to gambling because of my fears.
No matter how long you have been off gambling clean time can not be lost, often the fact the only time lost is the days we gambled, clean time can be lost.
It is a very unhealthy habit to beat our self up, causing our self more pain is very unhealthy.
My impatience and intolerance of others indicates we are hard on our self.
My impatience and intolerance causes frustrations and then anger in our self.
My impatience and intolerance is due to my unreasonable expectations of people life and situations, sadly I keep doing it time and time again not understanding it is not other people hurting me, it is me that is causing me pain.
Sorry for taking so long about my recovery, I do hope that you see your self in me as I use to be.
Love and peace to every one.
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham.
Thank you for sharing that Dave, heartfelt words.Hope this message finds you well and strong!
I sincerely believe I have beaten this horrible destructive disease, after saying that i also know i am one bet away from failure, so always on my guard.
what's so different this time you may say,I have Faith, Faith in myself Faith in God to help me, never had this feeling of strength before, always been a weak man.
I wish you well in your recovery, stay strong. Keep the Faith, and if you haven't got it, get it!
Kind Regards Tamber
Hi Tamber
Thank you for your comments.
Recovery and healing have given me a life never thought possible.
It makes every thing much easier dealing with one at a time one day at a time.
Since being in the recovery I am often tested at different times that is the way recovery works for me.
There was a time I lived on the edge of panic most of the time.
I wish you well
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
Hi Tamber
At one time I was so sure I understood every thing about my recovery and my emotional triggers.
That proved unhealthy for me because eventually I Gambled once more.
That last bet helped me become more dedicated to myself and my recovery.
I put far more effort and time in to my recovery.
Going back to Gambling was so painful that I felt I am worth more now today.
I do hope you place your complete trust in to the recovery program it helps us achieve goals we thought were impossible at one time.
My life is full of productivity and my relationships are very intimate today.
It is wonderful to no longer live in fear or self doubt any more.
Love and peace to every one
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
Good to hear you making sense, out of a previous chaotic life all we gamblers have led.
Myself, I am still feeling strong. pleased to hear you are still making progress,
when our minds are at peace, we stand a great chance of victory, onwards and upwards.
Kind regards
Hi Tamber
It is very pleasant for me to not react in such unhealthy ways to people life and situations.
I questioned what was happiness, and for me happiness is being content with who you are, who you are with, where you are, and what you have.
To think I would find happiness and contentment through money and material things was an indication of how messed up I was.
I like to think that I am emotionally detached from all feelings and emotions towards all forms of Gambling today.
I am emotionally detached all feelings and emotions towards all Gambling establishments, they never hurt me, I hurt myself.
Regards Dave
True happiness is being grateful for what we have, family friends. a roof over your head etc etc.not our desires for more. When i gambled a £1000 i wanted to double it triple it, i don't know why, conditioning of a lifetime of gambling. When i won i had no use for the money other than to gamble more, sheer greed.
Triggers for me, when upset or after a barney i would binge on gambling,and while in that frame of mind i would almost always lose. and even though i new this i would still punish myself and do it, utter madness.
Now for me, i am strong, although i take nothing for granted, one day's mistake could lose 1-2months wages.
i am now quietly confident i have the measure of this beast of addiction.and i wish you every success in your ongoing fight, Keep our guards up at all time.
Glad to hear you are enjoying your time in the relationships that matter most, and that includes yourself. let's face it we are with ourselves far more than interacting with others.once we can like our selves. maybe even love ourselves, we can then. succeed, and share the love.
best wishes on your journey. and may your life get better in every way. keep the good work up!
Kind regards Tamber
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