Thank you for this article :)

here is another sweet article.

http://www.choosehelp.com/topics/addiction-treatment/a-four-step-program-to-beating-behavioral-addiction

Thanks Sabine these are awesome!

Thanks, Sabine!

I've bookmarked the second article to reread later. The second article is roughly the approach I've used to deal with the stress I've been experiencing. Cravings haven't been a problem for me - keeping my head level through the rebuilding process is my problem.

Thanks again for the share!

yup, that was me,
instant gratification
instead of learning from what life was throwing at me,
I avoided it at all costs, at ALL COSTS.

It cost me dearly but I put a stop to it and I am learning why.
Why I avoided instead of learning.
I was programmed from early childhood through neglect
and not learning how to handle emotional crisis.
I did not learn how to deal with my emotions and make
sound judgements where they were concerned.
So I avoided and looked for instant gratification to
release any pain I encountered along the way.
When life threw me a good one I really went hard
for the instant gratification and the avoidance.
Until I started to feel the pain of not being able to
gamble like I wanted to, ie.read money getting tight,
I didn't slow down enough to see what I was doing and
so I was forced FORCED to look at myself and how I'd
been living and how I'd been avoiding and what to do
with ME now.
I found this site,
and I found GA
and I found a path to healing instead of avoiding and instant gratification.
I learned to like me and make better choices.
I don't have to "do" for everyone anymore.
I can do what I can afford to do and not feel guilty.
I am still learning everyday but I have my hope of
a future back and my inner voice is not beating me up anymore.

Any addiction has got to be a bad choice,
but there is NO life with addiction, only suffering
and not living, it is like hell on earth.
It can be overcome and conquered, never ever cured,
but it can be put so far down on the priority list that it
never sees the light of day.

ps

thanks Sabine for the wonderful posts
you come up with that are so insightful and helpfull
in recovering from gambling.
keep up the wonderful work !!
we need it !!!

Thanks Sabine - I really liked the 4 - Steps and will be printing them off to remind myself of them. The first article - I will admit I had a short attention span when reading (too much going on in my mind) - but it really spoke to me how we have to confront our addiction. Just reinforced the 4 steps to me. I do feel that in order to do that, we need to obtain some kind of inner strength from our Higher Power, whomever that is, in order to diligently and honestly confront it.

For me, many times I have such a difficult time even pinpointing exactly what I am feeling, because I am so used to not confronting them!

Thanks again for posting these!

yes new55,
I was so used to avoiding the feelings
and going for the instant gratification and fun
that when I stopped gambling the "rush" of feelings
was overwhelming.
Now, I'm learning to accept them and work with them
and figure out how to make better choices instead
of just reacting with the old bad choices.
Feels more like controlling the path of your life
than just going with the flow and letting it all
EVENTUALLY fall apart at the seams.

psss
thank you Sabine,

I knew and have been posting about the conscious and the addicted brain and the need to retrain it from other sources.
But this is so cool,
the 4 steps to conciously retrain our addicted brain.
It puts it in precise and coherent context and gives me a short 4 "R"
plan to make it easy and memorable.

I do think that along with the GA and here
and putting the hinderances in place
adding this 4 step conciousness program

is a very good formulation for a recovery program along with a littel kicker of avoiding relapse. Relapse is a huge deterent and thief of recovery for many.
I think that this simple and straight forward guideline does a good job of how to focus on "destroying" urges and confronting relapse head on.

Thank you for taking the time to
enlighten us with this and keep up the good work,
it is so worth it.

Excellent- I need some time with the first link, but really very much like the 4 step process at choosehelp!
Thank you!

Sabine, Thank you for the most enlightening and informative articles. When I have more time, I will reread them.
I have been using the four steps without knowing it :-)