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.
Absolute humility means freedom from myself, freedom from the demands that my character defects place so heavily upon me. Humility means the willingness to discover and carry out the will of God. Although I do not presume to attain such a vision, just keeping it in my heart helps me know where I stand on the road to humility. I recognize that my journey toward God has barely begun. As I shrink in self-importance I may even find the humor in my former pomp and ego-tripping.
Do I take myself too seriously?
Today I Pray
May the grandiosity that is a symptom of my addiction be brought back into proportion by the simple comparison of my powerlessness with the power of God. May I think of the meaning of Higher Power as it relates to my human frailty. May it bring my ego back down to scale and help me shed my defenses of pomp or bluster or secret ideas of self-importance.
Today I Will Remember
Humility is freedom.
My illness is unlike most other illnesses in that denial that I am sick is a primary symptom of my sickness. Like many other incurable illnesses, however, my illness is characterized by relapses. In the Gamblers Anonymous Program, we call such relapses slips. The one thing I know for certain is that I alone can cause myself to slip.
Will I remember at all times that the thought precedes the action? Will I try to avoid stinking thinking?
Today I Pray
May God give me the power to resist temptations. May the responsibility for giving in, for having a slip, be on my shoulders and mine only. May I see beforehand if I am setting myself up for a slip by blame-shifting, shirking my responsibility to myself, becoming the worlds poor puppet once again. My return to those old attitudes can be as much of a slip as the act of placing a bet.
Today I Will Remember
Nobodys slip-proof.
If we dont want to slip, well avoid slippery places. For the gambler, that means shunning poker parties and race tracks and anywhere that gambling is taking place. For me, certain emotional situations can also be slippery places; so can indulgence in old ideas, such as a well-nourished resentment that is allowed to build to explosive proportions.
Do I carry the principles of the Gamblers Anonymous Program with me wherever I go?
Today I Pray
May I learn not to test myself too harshly by asking for it, by stopping in at the casino, the Bingo hall, or the track. Such testing can be dangerous, especially if I am egged on, not only by a craving for the old object of my addictions, but by others still caught in addiction whose moral responsibility has been reduced to zero.
Today I Will Remember
Avoid slippery places.
What causes slips? What happens to a person who apparently seems to understand and live the Twelve Step way, yet decides to go out gambling again? What can I do to keep this from happening to me? Is there any consistency among those who slip, any common denominators that seem to apply? We can each draw our own conclusions, but we learn in the Gamblers Anonymous Program that certain in-actions will all but guarantee an eventual slip.
When a person who has slipped is fortunate enough to return to the Program, do I listen carefully to what he or she says about the slip?
Today I Pray
May my Higher Power show me if I am setting myself up to gamble again. May I glean from the experiences from others that the reasons for such a lapse of resolve or such an accident of will most often stem from what I have not done rather than from what I have done. May I "keep coming back to meetings.
Today I Will Remember
Keep coming back.
In almost every instance, the returned slipper says, I stopped going to meetings, or I got fed up with the same old stories and the same old faces, or My outside commitments were such that I had to cut down on meetings, or I felt Id received the optimum benefits from the meetings, so I sought further help from more meaningful activities. In short, they simply stopped going to meetings. A saying Ive heard at Gamblers Anonymous hits the nail on the head: Them that stop going to meetings are not present at meetings to hear about what happens to them that stops going to meetings.
Am I going to enough meetings for me?
Today I Pray
God keep me on the path of the GA Program. May I never be too tired, too busy, too complacent, too bored to go to meetings. Almost always those complaints are reversed at a meeting if I will just get myself there. My weariness dissipates in serenity. My busyness is reduced to it rightful proportion. My complacency gives way to vigilance again. And how can I be bored in a place where there is so much fellowship and joy?
Today I Will Remember
Attend the meetings.
Another common denominator among those who slip is failure to use the tools of the Gamblers Anonymous Program the Twelve Steps. The comments heard most often are, I never did work the steps, I never got past the First Step, I worked the steps too slow, or too fast or too soon.What it boils down to is that these people considered the Steps, but didnt conscientiously and sincerely apply the Steps to their lives.
Am I learning how to protect myself and help others?
Today I Pray
May I be a doer of the Steps and not a hearer only. May I see some of the common mis-Steps that lead to a fall: being too proud to admit Step One; being to tied to everyday earth to feel the presence of a Higher Power; being overwhelmed by the thought of preparing Step Four, a complete moral and financial inventory; being too reticent to share that inventory. Please God, guide me as I work the Twelve Steps.
Today I Will Remember
To watch my Steps.
Still another common thread we invariably see among slippers is that many of them felt dissatisfaction with today. I forgot we live one day at a time, or I began to anticipate the future, or "I began to plan results, not just plan. They seem to forget that all we have is NOW. Life continued to get better for them and, as many of us do, they forgot how bad it had been. They began to think, instead, of how dissatisfying it was compared to what it could be.
Do I compare today with yesterday, realizing, by that contrast, what great benefits and blessings I have today.
Today I Pray
If I am discouraged with today, may I remember the sorrows and hassles of yesterday. If I am impatient for the future, let me appreciate today and how much better it is than the life I left behind. May I never forget the principle of one day at a time.
Today I Will Remember
The craziness of yesterday.
What do we say to a person who has slipped, or one who calls for help? We can carry the message, if the person is willing to listen; we can share our experience, strength, and hope. Perhaps the most important thing we can do, however, is to tell the person that we love him or her, that were truly happy he or she is back, and that we want to help all we can. And we must mean it.
Can I still go to school and continue to learn from the mistakes and adversities of others?
Today I Pray
May I always have enough love to welcome back to the group someone who has slipped. May I listen to that persons story-of-woe, humbly. For there, but for my Higher Power, I go. May I learn from others mistakes and pray that I will not re-enact them.
Today I Will Remember
Abstinence is never fail-safe.