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...
Prevention. Only based on experience as I have relapsed a few times:
1. Never feel too confident about gambling. Be wary of it. Once you get debts close to being paid off, you might get the feeling that everything is ok. That's dangerous. Always keep the hell you went through in your mind to access.
2. You can't go into a gambling establishment. It's too dangerous for you. Nothing good can happen.
3.come up with short list of things you can do as soon as an urge or thoughts pop in your head. (call someone, go run a mile, play a video game, etc)
just a few barriers you can put in place.
Fight on, have a great day
1. Never feel too confident about gambling. Be wary of it. Once you get debts close to being paid off, you might get the feeling that everything is ok. That's dangerous. Always keep the hell you went through in your mind to access.
2. You can't go into a gambling establishment. It's too dangerous for you. Nothing good can happen.
3.come up with short list of things you can do as soon as an urge or thoughts pop in your head. (call someone, go run a mile, play a video game, etc)
just a few barriers you can put in place.
Fight on, have a great day
Nancy, those all sound great! Just trust me, eventually....maybe a year from now or maybe 2 you will feel more and more comfortable and the thought, "i can gamble again normally..." will pop into your head, that's why while it's important to do things to take your mind off the desire to gamble, never forget the damage and the heartache it caused. It will save you from relapsing. Wish it had saved me a few times.
the other comments were more for the people who actually went to a casino while in recovery. That is just nuts....maybe some people could handle that, but I wouldn't be able to suppress the craving
good luck
Yeah, I agree. Like Mark Twain said, "Quitting gambling is easy. I've quit over 200 times." We can't ever let ourselves go back. Like you said, there's no reason and no need. It needs out of our lives.