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.
Our spiritual and emotional growth in the Gamblers Anonymous Program doesnt depend so deeply upon success as it does upon our failures and setbacks. If we bear this in mind, a relapse can have the effect of kicking us upstairs, instead of down. We in the Program have had no better teacher than Old Man Adversity, except in those cases where we refuse to let him teach us.
Do I try to remain always teachable?
Today I Pray
May I respect the total Program, with its unending possibilities for spiritual and emotional growth, so that I can view a relapse as a learning experience, not the end of the world. May
relapse for any one of our Fellowship serve to teach not only the person who has slipped, but all of us. May it strengthen our shared resolve.
Today I Will Remember
If you slip, get up.
Time after time, we learn in Gamblers Anonymous, newcomers try to keep to themselves shoddy factsabout their lives. Trying to avoid the humbling experience of the Fifth Step, they turn to a seemingly easier and softer way. Almost invariably, they slip. Having persevered with the rest of the Program, they then wonder why they fell. The probable reason is that they never completed their housecleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock.
Have I admitted to myself and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs?
Today I Pray
That I may include all the sleaziness of my past, my cruelties and my dishonesties, in a complete moral and financial inventory of myself. May I hold back nothing out of shame or pride, for the exact nature of my wrongs means just that a thorough and exact recounting of past mistakes and character flaws. We have been provided with an appropriate dumping ground. May I use it as it was intended. May all my throw-aways, the trash and outgrown costumes of the past, be foundation fill on which to build a new life.
Today I Will Remember
Trash can be a foundation for treasures.
Faith is more than our greatest gift; sharing it with others is our greatest responsibility. May we in the Gamblers Anonymous Program continually seek the wisdom and the willingness by which we may well fulfill the immense trust which the Giver of all perfect gifts has placed in our hands.
If you pray, why worry? If you worry, why pray?
Today I Pray
Our God is a mighty fortress, a bulwark who never fails us. May we give praise for our deliverance and for our protection. God gives us the gift of faith to share. May we pass it along to others as best we know how and in the loving spirit in which it was given to us.
Today I Will Remember
God will not fail us.
Change is the characteristic of all growth, from reckless action to thoughtfulness, from dishonesty to honesty, from conflict to serenity, from childish dependence to adult responsibility all this and infinitely more represent change for the better. Only God is unchanging; only God has all the truth there is.
Do I accept the belief that lack of power was my dilemma? Have I found a power by which I can live a Power greater than myself?
Today I Pray
I pray that the Gamblers Anonymous Program will be, for me, an outline for change for changing me. These days of transition from compulsive gambling to abstinence, from powerlessness to power through God, may be rocky, as change can be. May my restlessness be stilled by the unchanging nature of God, in whom I place my trust. Only God is whole and perfect and predictable.
Today I Will Remember
I can count on my Higher Power.
I came; I came to; I came to believe. Gamblers Anonymous has enabled me to learn that deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of a God. It may be obscured by pomp, by calamity, by worship of other things, but in some form or another it is there. For faith in a Power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that Power in human lives are facts as old as man himself.
How well do I share my free gifts?
Today I Pray
I pray that I may continue to look for and find the Godliness that is in me and in every other person, no matter how it is obscured. May I be aware that the consciousness of a Higher Power has been present in man since he was first given the power to reason, no matter what name he gave to it or how he sought to reach it. May my own faith in a Higher Power be reinforced by the experience of all mankind and by the working of Gods gracious miracles in my own life.
Today I Will Remember
God is in us all.
If we attempt to understand rather than to be understood, we can more quickly assure a newcomer that we have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired. All of us, whatever our race, gender, creed, color, or ethnic heritage, are the children of a living Creator, with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms as soon as we are willing and honest enough to try.
Do I know the difference between sympathy and empathy? Can I put myself in the newcomers shoes?
Today I Pray
May I try to love all humanity as children of a living God. May I respect the different ways through which they find and worship God. May I never be so rigid as to discount anothers path to God or so insensitive that I use the fellowship of the group as a preaching ground to extol my religious beliefs as the only way. I can only know what works for me.
Today I Will Remember
We are all children of God.
I ready like what you said "The reason you're in pain is because you have your fingers in a door God is trying to close." When I crashed in 2002 felt like every bone in my body was broken. Take Care.
God Bless
Ken L YBIR
Any number of compulsive gamblers are bedeviled by the conviction that if they ever go near the Gamblers Anonymous Program whether by attending meetings or talking one-to-one with a member theyll be pressured to conform to some particular brand of faith or religion. They dont realize that faith is never an imperative for membership in the Program; that freedom from gambling can be achieved with an easily acceptable minimum of it; and that our concepts of a Higher Power and God as we understand him afford everyone a nearly unlimited choice of spiritual belief and action.
Am I receiving strength by sharing with newcomers?
Today I Pray
May I never frighten newcomers or keep away those who we are considering coming to GA by imposing on them my particular, personal ideas about a Higher Power. May each discover his or her own spiritual identity. May all find within themselves a link with some great universal Being or Spirit whose power is greater than theirs individually. May I grow, both in tolerance and in spirituality, every day.
Today I Will Remember
I will reach, not preach.
Every man and woman who has joined Gamblers Anonymous and intends to stick around has, without realizing it, made a beginning on Step Three. Isnt it true that, in all matters related to their gambling, each of them has decided to turn his or her life over to the care, protection, and guidance of the Program? So already a willingness has been achieved to cast out ones own will and ones own ideas about the addiction in favor of those suggested by the Program. If this isnt turning ones will and life over to a new-found Providence, then what is it?
Have I had a spiritual awakening as the result of the Steps?
Today I Pray
For myself, I pray for a God-centered life. I thank God often for the spiritual awakening I have felt since I turned my life over to Him. May the words spiritual awakening be a clue to others that there is a free fund of spiritual power within each person. It must only be discovered.
Today I Will Remember
I will try to be God-centered.
Rare are the practicing compulsive gamblers who have any idea how irrational they are, or, seeing their irrationality, can bear to face it. One dictionary defines sanity as soundness of mind. Yet no compulsive gambler, rationally analyzing his or her destructive behavior, can truly claim soundness of mind.
Have I come to believe, as the Second Step suggests, that a Power greater than myself can restore me to a normal way of thinking and living?
Today I Pray
May I see that my own behavior as a compulsive gambler could be described as abnormal or insane. For those still actively addicted, admitting to insane behavior is well-nigh impossible. I pray that I may continue to abhor the insanities and inanities of my addictive days. May others like me recognize their problems of addiction, find help in Gamblers Anonymous, and come to believe that a Higher Power can restore them to a normal way of thinking and living.
Today I Will Remember
He restoreth my soul.