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...
I cannot stop playing even when I win thousands of dollars. I have been thinking about it and realize how slot machines do no more but manipulate my brain. When I play slots, especially when I win, I cannot think of doing anything else except continuing to play. I am distracted the whole day. I never win enough. I am never satisfied. I want to play more and more. Once in a while, I am able to not spend my winnings but in time, when I am looking for excitement or an excuse to play, it all goes back. I never won anything. I am only at this point wining back what I lost. The part of my brain that is pleasured by winning is really being lighted up. I truly believe that my brain changes when I play slots, for the worst. I derinitely get more impatient, moody, irritable, depressed with spurts of happiness when I am on a winning streak. It's so easy for me to access slots playing on my phone. I feel like I am hypnotized by the slots. I don't know where I am. When I win, I feel like I am in a dream and am trying deperately to wake up in order to stop playing. Some times I am able to stop playing and collect my winnings. More often than not, I cannot stop and keep playing all the way until I reach zero dollars. Hopefully, I am able to stay conscious of the reality of what's going on.
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What are your five favorite things* right now?*The more specific the better!
Get to a GA meeting. Keep going. Take it from someone who would leave meetings, go gamble, and then go back to the meeting. If i had money i was gambling. If i didnt have money i was working to get money so i could gamble or drug or whatever else i could do.
Gambling and many other addictions are actually a manipulation of our brain chemistry. Winning releases endorphins, and the risk when we cant afford to lose is an even bigger high, but nothing is better than the high we get when we are down 100k and win back our way to even so we dont go to jail.
Prison, insanity or death. That is where i will go if i keep gambling. But on the way there, I will cause horrifying destruction and pain to every single person in my life that cares about me.
I made my first meetings way back in 1983. My clean date is nov 25, 2003. The reason it took me 20 years to stop gambling, (oh i made years without it during those twenty years but, i kept going back out until i faced all my addictions because one would lead to another)
For me, i became an addict when i was abused at 4. My first addictions were to sex, suicidal fantasy and self injury. I started gambling in the military, (it was easy money playing pick up poker with young men who payed alcohol more attention than their cards)
Here is a few things we say in GA.
I gambled, We stay off the bet together.
We define recovery as a process of transformation from a life of self destruction to a life of self care.
Take it easy. Be gentle with yourself. Who is your sponsor, when is the last time you talked with them. Where is your phone list? What step are you working on?
You dont have a phone list, you arent working recovery, you do not have a sponsor. I have seen people like you, come to meetings, then stop coming, then ive seen them make the news. Its another thing we say in meetings. Stay out of the news. I have seen them make the news for, armed robbery, suicide, murder suicide, embezzlement and more. Prison, insanity or death.
I would work all week, gamble two or three k I made during the week on friday, somtimes it lasted saturday and sunday, by monday, i was broke, no money for bills, no money for food, no money for gas even to get to work. Wash, rinse repeat.
My first meeting? I didnt get it. I didnt get it my fith or twenty fith, I kept going. Once i made a meeting it was pouring down rain, only one other person showed up and the meeting hall didnt open. He and I had a meeting together in his truck. He was ten years clean. I remember, how i couldnt imagine going ten years. I was in awe, sort of thought he couldnt be like me and have so much time not gambling, but he was like me. We talked about the twenty questions, and he taught me some step work. That was when i finally started working the program. This is another saying we have, "work the program it works if you work it."
Step one: WE admitted we were powerless over gambling. That our lives had become unmanageable.
question one of the twenty questions,
Have you ever lost time from work or school due to your gambling?
First step work, as that gentleman taught me, was to answer the twenty questions yes or no. Then, to write down every time you can remember, a time or reason you did something that made you answer yes to that question.
I was in school. I missed so many classes they refused my degree even though I passed all my classes. I had to go two extra years, and even then (still gambling) i got grief all the time, and lied over and over, i was poor, no work on and on i lied as to why i was not making classes, mostly lack of gas money or no car insurance so i couldnt drive so, ya. I missed time from work and school, missed family functions.
I was an escape artist, running away from what i felt through any means possible. I ran away when i felt bad because i didnt like feeling bad, I ran away when i felt good because i didnt deserve to feel good. ran away when i was angry and when i was sad, when i was happy and when i was mad.
We define insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" I was by that definition quite literally insane. I was 36 last time I gambled. I am 59. but I dont think i have 23 years clean, i think i did not gamble today, and i have money. I could have gambled. I was stressed out of my mind, bad ptsd from storms, but, I did not drug, i did not gamble, i did not self injure. in fact, I did mundane things, like I saw my shrink and my psychologist. I renewed my registration on my vehicle. I stopped and bought some pepperjack boudin balls on my way home. Couldnt do any of those things when i was gambling, no money for gas to get there, no money to pay for treatments, no money to pay bills,
I am working step 12.and i continually work 10 and 12. If i am not working my recovery, i am one split second away from heading straight back into self destruction.
You can not stop. Your words. I could not stop either. I could not have survived without working the program, and all the thousands of people that have helped me in this long process of recovery that has been my path. Your path doesnt have to be as painful as I made mine. I was very good at practicing self deception. another thing we say is, "honesty open-mindedness and willingness. Thats H. O. W. it works."
I dont know how far you are gone. Personally, I lied, i cheated, I stole. I committed crimes. I spent a few weeks in jail. I gambled away my wife and children. I would have told you or anyone who would have listened, i would never do any of the things I did. but I did, i was completely out of control.
My life is messy, I am still pretty much a disaster area on wheels. Several mental disorders, bipolar, ptsd, adhd, dyslexic, ocd and I am here to say, "work the program, it works if you work it." If you put 1/4 the amount of energy into working recovery as you have to practicing gambling (self destruction) you will see progress quickly. But quick or slow. painful or easy, if you get into meetings and stay in them and work the steps, you will begin recovery, which is what i need, and what you seem to need/want also.