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...
Don't want to overpost but I had something happen to me today...I have heard the term used here "trigger" didn't really know from personal experience what that was....Well today I experienced a TRIGGER....My wife and I went to breakfast with some good friends of our's....anyway they go to the casino once in a great while and are very diciplined about the money they choose to spend...Last night my friends wife won a very large jackpot...Man that went through me like you can't believe I so wanted to head for the casino because the wild bugeyed thought went through my mind...I can do that too......But then reason and logic took over and I realized in all the years I had gambled I had never won even a fifth of what she won...And in reality it just wasn't going to happen....About that time I realized I had been triggered and it would have been oh so easy to come out with guns blazing and gone and shot myself in the head again...Whoopy! I am so glad I didn't fall down that rat hole again....God is good all the time and................Ain't going to gamble today....and It is one day at a time
that would be a huge trigger. so good to post about it. and pray about it.
it does sound intriguing but in reality we always spun or played it all back sometimes slowly sometimes quickly, but all of it and more back.
and once you hit those big jackpot amounts there is something in the brain that makes it think it can surely happen again, or even bigger. and with all that fuel we'll play higher amts.
omg i really am feeling sorry for your friend who hit that!
the winning isn't really winning, as gambling addicts know.
Someone talking about their winnings is really hard for me, a major trigger, now I am able to stop them and say, "I am a compulsive gambler, and I don't want to hear gambling stories". (I feel it is sort of like gambling to tell/or listen to the stories of past wins/losses/wins.) They usually quit talking about it. (For those that continue, I have learned to walk away.) Triggers are what my counselor had me begin working on right away. Defined: anything that makes me feel like I want to gamble. It is personal to every individual but AA gave us HALT, most 12-step groups continue to use it. HALT is Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired. These are major triggers to most addictions, it is what we need to ask ourselves when we have a thought to engage in our addiction: Am I hungry, angry, lonely or tired? I can eat, pound nails in a board, seek out a friend or get some sleep instead of my addiction, if I take the time to think about it, I can stop myself. It is the beginning to learning how to live in recovery with our addictions and how to become cognizant of our feelings and thoughts. As I came to gambling addiction therapy the counselor wanted me to write out two things right away. 1) A Goodbye to gambling. and 2) A Relapse prevention plan, where I name every one of my triggers to gamble and make a plan as to what I will do differently the next time I have that trigger.
I had tried many times to quit on my own, or controlled gambling with not much success. These two exercises helped create tools that I still use today along with some others. In the beginning it seemed to be that EVERYTHING was a trigger- all roads led to gambling. Fight with anyone, someone says something unkind to me, anxiety of any kind, (anticipated good or bad things), significant other not being understanding, significant other wants to go to casino or does not want to go to a casino, raise at work, pay day, not pay day, stressful day, going to the grocery store or gas station became an excuse and then a trigger. People, places and things, $20 bills, etc,, etc you get the picture -
So my plan had a lot in it to begin with - It is a "living document", and changes as I change. If one has a relapse it is a sign you have a weakness in your plan/program, it helps me to actually have it on paper. Today is my recovery birthday, it is exactly 3yrs since my last bet. (1096 days at one day at a time)
Triggers, I think about mine often. What triggers an urge, I wonder, it’s a thought, for sure. So I have to learn new ways of dealing with my thoughts, they are only thoughts, after all. Do triggers always lead to an urge to gamble? Not always for me, some old triggers have become reminders of how it use to be for me, when I fed my addiction. I’m finally understanding I don’t have to act on every feeling, I’ve been practicing patience in this area of my life. Feelings are thoughts, right?
Oh man, I have so much to learn about myself, and I’m embracing that thought one day at a time.
Today I will not gamble
Counselor described the gambling addiction cycle to me like this: First a thought (for me it is something in the back of my mind that thinks it might be okay to go gamble), --->if unchecked this thought becomes an urge--->if left unchecked this urge leads to and becomes a PLAN to gamble--->if unchecked this leads to being in action. The best time to intervene is while it is still a thought before it becomes a full blown urge. The further along the cycle, the tougher it is to intervene. It takes being tuned in to what we are thinking at all times. (The exact opposite of what I was doing while gambling.)