Gambling Addiction & Recovery Support Group
Compulsive gambling is an urge or addiction to gamble despite harmful negative consequences or a desire to stop. A preferred term among many professionals is problem gambling, as few people described by the term experience true compulsions in the clinical sense of the word. Problem gambling often is defined by whether harm is experienced by the gambler or others rather...
Ok I have a gambling problem I am a gambling addict...Does that make me a bad person, nope the act of gambling is what is bad for me. I have a disease that was self generated by no one but myself. No one made me go to the casino, I chose to do it and I did it until it was controlling my life, was literally destroying my life. Fortunately I believe that with the help of God and now with a clear mind I can keep this destroyer at bay, one day at a time...still an addict but I am nailing that coffin of gambling closed one nail at a time. I hope to one day bury it with all the destruction, pain and suffering that it caused me....but I know that I will always be an addict and that all it would take is a little forgetting and that beast would be resurrected to reign over me again...I am writting this to remind myself of how tough it is to start over and maybe to help someone else who is struggling with this insideous addiction to get your hammer out and start driving some nails...not in yourself because if you are like I was you have enough pain already but into your gambling coffin...
im very free of this disease currently and will fight to the death to stay this way
definition:
Addiction is a brain disorder characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.
Bingo for me. (sorry for poor choice of pun in this case)
I appreciate you used the word addict and based on your words, consider it a true addiction as I do.
It has all the elements of addiction for me -- physiological change (look at brain on MRI during gambling), tolerance (had to keep increasing my bets), withdrawal (complete and utter obsession w/ how to get back to gamble) and I forget the other hallmarks for "addiction" but this gambling is now part of DSM5 so professionals also view as true addiction.
Congratulations to us.
We stepped over that line, maybe recently, maybe years ago -- and there is no going back.
You also speak of nails into the coffin. So grateful that you and I, for today, are putting those nails into the empty coffin -- not the literal coffin that we might have found ourselves in. If not a coffin the bindings of this cruel addiction.
The nails for me mostly were gifts from GA program. It was a format for me to catch my breath and get a break. It enabled me some clean time to clear the fog. I truly do not believe I had any control over myself the first 60-90 days. Then my brain began to come back, form new pathways.
My nails have been friends in program, excluding at the casino, writing about my recovery, addiction etc., life issues, discussing what is really going on, participating in meetings, doing service as literature person, getting back to life. Not easy, but it GIVES me a chance at a better life.
I'm a work in progress and appreciate your post. For me, going out is not an option. Or I should say -- that option is DIRE and is to really give up on myself 100%. I have no illusions about the TOTAL consumption of this affliction to my brain and life. For today, I will be clean and open my eyes to see all the things I would NEVER see in the disease.
Best to you today