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...
Today is day two. I feel like it is only day 2 but I am going to congratulate myself anyway. I don't need to gamble. Gambling is not the answer. Gambling was NEVER the answer. I am better than that. As so many of you wonderful people have said, I am going to fight to not gamble as my life does depend on it. At the end of my life, I don't want to be remembered as a "gambler." I want to be remembered as a fighter, a person who accomplished a lot and was a great mother and daughter. During my recovery, I will fpcus on these life time goals which is really what is meaningful at the end...
I once did an exercise with my face to face support group, where everyone wrote out five things they felt were most important in their life, Picking just your top five is hard sometimes, recovery, family & friends, freedom, higher power, love, I think were mine. (Others had things like, children, spouse, sanity, security, self esteem, house, life itself, etc. As the counselor led us through a gambling scenario, in each round we had to choose which value to give up, the process helped us to realize that everything we hold dear and truly care about at our core is what we risk when we gamble. And if we are compulsive gamblers and continue to gamble, it is guaranteed that we will eventually start losing everything we care about.
Congratulating yourself is a wonderful way to reward yourself, even on day two, day two is big, I had a lot more day ones than day twos.
I agree with you, the important stuff in the end, is in relationships, friends, family, how we treat them, ourselves and those that we incidentally come across, like the 7-11 clerk, postman/woman, garbage person. Impossible to do well when we are in such an addiction fog as compulsive gambling that we cannot see nor be aware of others. (Because all we can see a path to gamble as that is our prime directive while gambling.)
Have another gamble free day, hugs and prayers.