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...
Good Afternoon Folks
Took me awhile to figure out how to get back into the site.
I am not computer wise.But am back and I am going to start
posting the GA Reflection for the Day again and hope to catch
up with my old recovery friends and to meet some new people.
If you are interested I visit a new site called Gamtalk that is run
out of Montreal Canada and it has 24/7 chat room and on Friday
at 3pm est we have a group Topic Session.Today's topic is Step 9.
God Bless
Ken L GRCG
March 22 Reflection for the Day
Once in a great while, I find myself thinking perhaps things werent quite so bad as they seemed to be. At such moments, I force myself to realize that my illness is talking to me, trying to tempt me into denying that I am, in fact, afflicted with an illness. One of the key action steps of the Gamblers Anonymous Program is that we give our illness to God, as we understand Him, accepting our powerlessness in the face of His greater Power.
Do I believe that the grace of God can do for me what I could never do for myself?
Today I Pray
May I know that much of our lives depends on faith. For we cannot know the limits of space and time or explain the mysteries of life and death. But when we see God working through us and through others who have found new life in the GA Program it is all the evidence we need to know that God exists.
Today I will Remember
The Big Wheel runs by faith.
Took me awhile to figure out how to get back into the site.
I am not computer wise.But am back and I am going to start
posting the GA Reflection for the Day again and hope to catch
up with my old recovery friends and to meet some new people.
If you are interested I visit a new site called Gamtalk that is run
out of Montreal Canada and it has 24/7 chat room and on Friday
at 3pm est we have a group Topic Session.Today's topic is Step 9.
God Bless
Ken L GRCG
March 22 Reflection for the Day
Once in a great while, I find myself thinking perhaps things werent quite so bad as they seemed to be. At such moments, I force myself to realize that my illness is talking to me, trying to tempt me into denying that I am, in fact, afflicted with an illness. One of the key action steps of the Gamblers Anonymous Program is that we give our illness to God, as we understand Him, accepting our powerlessness in the face of His greater Power.
Do I believe that the grace of God can do for me what I could never do for myself?
Today I Pray
May I know that much of our lives depends on faith. For we cannot know the limits of space and time or explain the mysteries of life and death. But when we see God working through us and through others who have found new life in the GA Program it is all the evidence we need to know that God exists.
Today I will Remember
The Big Wheel runs by faith.
One day at a time, Good GA meeting today.
Ive begun to understand myself better since Ive come to Gamblers Anonymous. One of the most important things Ive learned is that opinions arent facts. Just because I feel that a thing is so doesnt necessarily make it so. Men are not worried by things, wrote the Greek philosopher Epictetus, but by their ideas about things. When we meet with difficulties, become anxious or troubled, let us not blame others, but rather ourselves. That is: our ideas about things.
Do I believe that I can never entirely lose what I have learned during my recovery?
Today I Pray
May I learn to sort out realities from my ideas about those realities. May I understand that situations, things even people take on the colors and dimensions of my attitudes about them.
Today I Will Remember
To sort the real from the unreal.
I was a chronic people pleaser and when I accepted that everyone is entitled to their opinion and it is none of my business what they think it was a huge relief for me.
My ideas about people especially were way off. Today I am moving in the right direction --far from perfect but heading towards a more positive outlook.
John
We may not know any specifics about the activities of today; we may not know whether well be alone or with others. We may feel the day contains too much time or not enough. We may be facing tasks were eager to complete, or tasks weve been resisting. Though the details of each persons day differ, each day holds one similarity for us all; each of us has the opportunity to choose to think positive thoughts. The choice depends less on our outside activities than on our inner commitment.
Can I accept that I alone have the power to control my attitude?
Today I Pray
May I keep the fire of inner commitment alive through this whole, glorious day, whether my activities are a succession of humdrum tasks or free-form and creative. May I choose to make this a good day for me, and for those around me.
Today I Will Remember
Keep the commitment.
Today I learned to: Stop, look, and listen. I'm gaining some new tools to help me handle this very stressful time in my life without escaping my feelings and numbing my emotions with gambling. I must remind myself that gambling only makes me feel worse.
Before I became clean in Gamblers Anonymous, I blamed all my problems on other people, or on places and things. Now Im learning to look squarely at each difficulty, not seeking whom to blame, but to discover how my attitude helped create my problem or aggravate it. I must also learn to face the consequences of my own actions and words, and to correct myself when Im wrong.
Do I practice the Tenth Step by continuing to take my personal inventory? When I am wrong, do I promptly admit it?
Today I Pray
May I know the blessed relief and unburdening that come when I admit I have done something wrong. May I learn perhaps for the first time in my entire life to take responsibility for my own actions and to face the consequences. May I learn again how to match actions with consequences.
Today I Will Remember
To take responsibility for my own actions.
Once again, thank you for posting Ken L.
I get it.
There is no advantage, no profit, and certainly no growth when I deceive myself merely to escape the consequences of my own mistakes. When I realize this, I know Ill be making progress. We must be true inside, true to ourselves, before we can know a truth that is outside us, wrote Thomas Merton in No Man Is an Island. But we make ourselves true inside by manifesting the truth as we see it.
Am I true to myself?
Today I Pray
May I count on my Higher Power to help me carry out the truth as I see it. May I never duck a consequence again. Consequence-ducking became a parlour game for addictive gamblers like me, until we lost all sense of relationship between action and outcome. Now that I am healing, please God, restore my balance.
Today I Will Remember
Match the act with the consequence.
Its time for me to realize that my attitude towards the life Im living and the people in it can have a tangible, measurable and profound effect on what happens to me day by day. If I expect good, then good will surely come to me.
And if I try each day to base my attitude and point of view on a sound spiritual foundation, I know it will change all the circumstances of my life for the better, too.
Do I accept the fact that I have been given only a daily reprieve that is contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition?
Today I Pray
Since my illness was spiritual as well as emotional may I mend spiritually through daily contact with God. May I find a corner of quiet within me where I can spend a few moments with God. May Gods will be known to me.
Today I will Remember
To spend a quiet moment with God.
Merely changing my behaviour, and what I say and do, doesnt prove theres been a change in my actual inner attitude. Im deceiving myself if I believe I can somehow completely disguise my true feelings. Theyll somehow come through, prolonging the difficulties in my relationships with others. I have to avoid half-measures in getting rid of the troublesome emotions Ive been trying to hide.
Have I taken an honest inventory of myself?
Today I Pray
May I know that feelings will come out somehow sometimes barely disguised as behaviour that I cannot always understand. But that perhaps is more acceptable to me than the root emotion that caused it. May I be completely and vigilantly honest with myself. May I be given the insight that comes through depending upon a Higher Power.
Today I Will Remember
Feelings can come out sideways.