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...
After I made it past the one-year mark, I stopped taking my recovery quite as seriously. I started to consider going back. I haven't yet, but the urge is definitely there.
Has anyone here managed to stay away for years? If yes, how do you do it? How do you keep temptation from urging you back into the casino?
I have learned to be mindful of my own thoughts and nip them in the bud and redirect myself whenever I am criticizing myself or trying to feed myself a line of BS about returning to gambling or any other of my past addictions. I will not allow myself buy into the old false beliefs I had about gambling like: it is fun, I deserve it, it's harmless, I can get ahead by gambling. (None of those are true for me.) Monitoring my own thoughts is required for me. I gambled to escape, if I do not pay attention to my own thoughts my inner addict will take over and attempt to convince me to escape with one addiction or another.
Aside for monitoring my thoughts, I have written out a detailed 'Relapse Prevention Plan' this is a living document and can and should be updated. But I have written out each and every thing, person, place, and situation that acts as a trigger for me to gamble. Then I wrote out what will do the next time I am faced with that trigger instead of gamble. Examples: The next time I get frustrated on a long important phone call with the wait time and voice menus, (trigger) I will take a 20 minute walk around the neighborhood. Or The next time Aunt Sally is mean to me I am going to go home and write in my journal about how that makes me feel. In building a Relapse Prevention Plan, it helps to write out all the things that you are willing to do that are not gambling. I generated a list of about 25 things that take about 20 minutes, cost little or nothing and are not gambling. (Art work, walking, dancing, bubble bath, bike ride, make a card for some one, play a game of solitaire, photography, visit someone I love, call someone that uplifts me, take a bus ride, go to a park, have a cup of tea, etc)
I have written a formal 'Good-bye' to gambling - when I get a thought to gamble or a stronger urge to gamble I reread my goodbye.
Next, therapy dealing with childhood abuse, abusive exes and self abuse - Louis Hay has an online talk and book called 'How to Love Yourself'. I needed this - I listened to it multiple times, took notes and began practicing and implementing the changes. Her first two suggestions are: Stop all criticism. - Do not tolerate it from anyone else and do not tolerate it from yourself
and
Stop scaring yourself.- Do not feed yourself negative thoughts - don't jump to thinking it's cancer, or whatever won't work, or never happen - Time for positivity and positive thinking - If you are not doing positive affirmations you are doing negative ones. Again, this kind of work requires that we monitor our own inner thoughts.
Keeping a gratitude diary for me, goes a long ways toward helping realize how blessed I am, what I DO have, what I am thankful for and knowing that all of the things I am grateful for are what I risk if I gamble again. (I truly have too much at stake now that I want to keep.)
Artwork, meditation, exercise, mindfulness, gratitude diary, affirmations, friends, HALT (Checking for hunger, anger, loneliness, and tiredness), attending community events, meticulous self-care, volunteering, Daily Strength, face to face support group, prayer have been my main tools. One more I use, is when I do happen to see a poker machine I imagine my abuser's face on the screen. Truly the poker/slot machines were a method for me to perform self-abuse.
I had to first decide that I was worth the work and that I deserved better than being abused. I have created some peace in my life and in my own being, I have a sense of being loved by others and by myself for the first time in my life. I have turned off a critical voice within my own head that had been constantly harassing me for most of 60 years.
I never want to go back to the dark, lonely, isolated, suicidal, self-deprecating, bondage of gambling again.
I am free at last!
I was a sick puppy, it has not been easy but staying away from gambling gets easier with time. Life does not get easier - so the tools are important as are friends and loved ones.
Some people call what you are going through the trap of addiction. You start feeling better and your life gets better so you stop doing everything that helped you in the first place. According to the research, if you do go back to gambling, you will end up dead, in jail, or insane. Just food for thought. My prayers are with you as you deal with this insidious disease.
I am a gambler in recovery, the rest of my life...
One day at a time for love of myself.
Love
Victoria