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...
This is an excerpt from a wonderful book on addictions I am reading. This really speaks to me because I am a super sensitive and feel/love deeply. I recently lost a friend and my son broke up with his girlfriend who was a part of our family for three years, both those losses have hurt deeply. I think of developing a thick skin or not feeling so much and then this beautiful passage pops out for me in the book I am reading. I know there are lots of sensitive, big hearted and very loving, wounded people here and I thought you would all appreciate this....
Intuitively, we all know that its better to feel than not to feel. Beyond their energizing subjective charge, emotions have crucial survival value. They orient us, interpret the world for us and offer us vital information. They tell us what is dangerous and what is benign, what threatens our existence and what will nurture our growth. Imagine how disabled we would be if we could not see or hear or taste or sense heat or cold or physical pain. Emotional shutdown is similar. Our emotions are an indispensable part of our sensory apparatus and an essential part of who we are. They make life worthwhile, exciting, challenging, beautiful and meaningful.
When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion. We may even become emotional amnesiacs, not remembering ever having felt truly elated or truly sad. A nagging void opens, and we experience it as alienation, as profound ennui, as the sense of deficient emptiness described above.
Excerpt From: Gabor Mat, M.D. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=58C4DB0BD3BE74EC6D675D948DE12256
Intuitively, we all know that its better to feel than not to feel. Beyond their energizing subjective charge, emotions have crucial survival value. They orient us, interpret the world for us and offer us vital information. They tell us what is dangerous and what is benign, what threatens our existence and what will nurture our growth. Imagine how disabled we would be if we could not see or hear or taste or sense heat or cold or physical pain. Emotional shutdown is similar. Our emotions are an indispensable part of our sensory apparatus and an essential part of who we are. They make life worthwhile, exciting, challenging, beautiful and meaningful.
When we flee our vulnerability, we lose our full capacity for feeling emotion. We may even become emotional amnesiacs, not remembering ever having felt truly elated or truly sad. A nagging void opens, and we experience it as alienation, as profound ennui, as the sense of deficient emptiness described above.
Excerpt From: Gabor Mat, M.D. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=58C4DB0BD3BE74EC6D675D948DE12256
I have not read this but heard it was very good.
I am so glad you are finding joy in it.
I "fled my vulnerability" to the point of ALMOST extinction as I gambled
my life and health away.
It is strange now how after being gone from it for a while I feel joy etc and it is like a stranger yet there is an underlying current of recognition.
When I was gambling too, I noticed that I was becoming more comfortable with pain and suffering and just plain feeling bad.
When I would have somethiing good happen it was almost as if
I felt uncomfortable with joy.
Addiction really makes some huge changes in us emotionally and pshychologically not to mention the biological aspects.
thank you for the beautiful quote.
as always,
the very very best to you.
whatever the situation, it's good to feel again. from joy, to sadness, to joy, just feeling is good!
Thanks for sharing.