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...
Man oh Man how we have visions of "not going to do that today" (like I did last time) This time when I get up or at least even I am out of here...Ok I am going to play it down to just a hundred dollars...Oh crap need some more money from atm...Heck reached my atm limit, well I just accidently left that credit card in my wallet..How much should I get? Maybe a hundred nah I will get three hundred, just in case...Boy does it feel good to have some money to play with again well I won't loose all of this...What does the song from HeeHaw say Pain Despair and Misery on me, without bad luck I wouldn't have any luck at all..Think the lies we tell ourselves is just about an addictive as the slots are...I am betting that what I am telling myself will come true today....almost NEVER happens...Then we take a nose dive like a airplane with no wings and then we deal with the crash and burn...Just reshashing all the things I used to tell myself....I feels so much better to say TODAY is a New Day and I am going to live like it is the very first day of the rest of MY amazing Life.....Sucker you ain't getting me today....Just Makes me want to continue down the path of Loving myself....So that I can share what God has graciously given me today....Today I will Not Gamble
1)Begin to forgive myself for the mess I made
2) Begin to believe that I deserved a better life
Without making a start on these, everything I was doing was a way to punish myself. If I feel I deserve a crappy, stressful, chaotic, deprived life, gambling is a pretty quick route. And there is no way to be successful with that underlying attitude.
Three years later (It will be three years nov 8th since my last bet), life is not always wonderful but it is not chaotic, I can trust myself to take care of me, I see friends regularly, I learn something every day, I do something for someone else every day, I exercise, I mostly eat right and get good sleep most of the time. Life is pretty good. I would not trade my worst day now for my best day when I was gambling.
The random reinforcement in gambling gets us 100%. Going back to the cage for more fuel, because, eventually it WOULD hit. And it usually did, but my brain just couldn't register the cost. At that point I was chasing those illusive brain chemicals. I had lost all control.
My cheap / "smart money" brain would look at the $5.00 atm fee (same fee whether pulled $100 or max $1000 so for sure I'd pull the $1000 cause the cost of money was the same; what a stellar financial decision OMG sick) same w/ credit advances-- the chart encouraged HIGH level amounts of credit advances for nearly same amount as lower (I was SO smart ;)--- and a few of the casinos even offered free play to reimburse the advance. WHAT A DEAL!
Just an example of how warped my brain was as I robbed myself with this dismal addiction.
I needed to write this today-- I've been having urges. My life is screaming for me to pay attention to myself and take some action toward happiness. I want to remember. It helps me to play that tape ALL the way thru to the end. Not to romanticize the action. Nor minimize the real "cost".