Hope

[samseb5351]

Several things had happened to me, a year into my recovery. The idea that the further away from my last bet the better things would be, was loosing its shine and although many of the problems in my external world seemed to be getting better a new restlessness was rising in me, something that was coming from deep within, and weirdly familiar. My truth was emerging and I didn’t like it one bit. After being absolutely convinced my compulsive gambling was an emotional illness, where placing a bet was like a form of medication to deal with emotional turmoil, suddenly I began to see holes in this experiential story. (I should point out that many of these holes were easily patched up by the suggestions of well meaning but misguided therapists/and members of GA. And thus the illusion was reinforced).

Firstly it looked like (when I was selective in my thinking) that when things in my world – including my thoughts and feelings were unsettled I had a tendency to gamble more as a form of escape from the shameful impact I was having on mine and others lives. That gambling was triggered by not taking care of my emotional and physical needs and slogans like H.A.L.T. (hungry, angry, lonely, tired) became my mantras. That abstinence was the key to a better life and as long as I remained diligent, cautious and connected to people whom I believed understood me, I would be OK. PLEASE don’t misunderstand me here I am not saying that abstinence isn’t essential or that some people can’t have a recovery based on meetings make it, One Day at a Time, staying way from slippery places and other management tools all I know is that using those things alone doesn’t work for me.

It almost feels like I was born with an attraction to gambling. With a curious mind and a tendency to daydream, I was fascinated by poker machines (slots), pinball machines, fairground games of chance etc: One of my earliest memories (at about 5 years) was watching a women playing a slot machine at the annual Rotary Club Gambling Charity night, I was mesmerised watching her put 5cent coins in this machine watching the wheels, hearing the bells and seeing the lights. The idea that putting a coin in a machine and receiving more back had a truly magical allure to me. It was these memories that had me questioning the idea that my gambling was a causal illness, that there was a possibility that I gambled for reasons other than escape or emotional relief.

The truth is I gambled regardless of my emotional state- happy, sad, angry, rainy day, sunny day it didn’t matter, I gambled and I liked it all. The truth is prior to gambling I had a subtle but profound sense of not belonging to this world. My childhood from the age 7 to 16 was a period of disconnection, I could never fit in, I felt awkward with my peers and I had depression even way back then. (I will call this a spiritual malady). I call it that because the AA Big book introduced that term to me and I have no better words to describe it. So here I was a boy with 2 things –firstly a spiritual malady and secondly a pre-disposition to gamble almost as if I was programmed that way. Then the day came where the malady met the gambler and like a profound spiritual awakening I felt whole again, I was lit up, I felt alive, comfortable in my skin and ready to take on the world. (Certainly not using gambling as an escape). This is hard for many people to get their head around especially the problem gambler who can stop on human power, GAMBLING ACTUALLY TREATED MY SPIRITUAL MALADY, and Although I cant be certain of this, without gambling way back then suicide was a strong possibility.



So there I was, I felt I had found a solution and all I needed was that “lit up” feeling I had on that first big day (even though I only won a few dollars) and I would be ok. And so the insanity began, the same insanity any true addict has whether it be alcohol, drugs, sex, love or gambling and that is the idea that we will consistently be able to ignite that feeling of ‘wholeness’ we felt on that day when our pre-disposed addictive behavior first “lit us up” in my case that first magical winning bet. The chase now begins and I tried to get that connection back and even though my memories of excitement and winning would be imprinted in my brain (Ill call those memories the fuel of insanity) I always fell short of reaching that Serene place of belonging

Not only did these memories of winning sit in my brain, the memories of losing (which outweighed the winning ones by about 10 to 1) seemed to go missing after a couple of days, a bit like that sock we always seem to lose in the drier.



I spent the next 20 years slowly stuffing up mine and others lives chasing this illusion and at some point I am not sure when, I hated the process of gambling, stealing and lying, but of course still held onto the delusion that someday I will be taken back to that place when gambling was fun, exciting and something I could do with impunity (as with most of us this idea usually was based on the possibility that we will have a big win, pay all our debts, make amends with money and gifts and get an opportunity to start at square one).



And so I came to the end of the road I couldn’t stop and I couldn’t keep going, this is probably the most hopeless place for any addict. This was my rock bottom, which for me had little to do with debt or outside stuff but more to do with a very dark black feeling at my innermost self. I am not the guy that can get up in a meeting and ramble on about 1000’s of dollars of debt, stints in jail for theft or conning seniors out of their savings, because I didn’t do that but I lied and cheated to my wife and five children, I stole time from them not only when I gambled but many other days when I was either scheming, planning or obsessing about my next bet. It’s a horrible place to be when you can’t connect to the people you love the most because of a deep blackness with you. (I don’t want to paint a picture here that my behavior was always wildly dysfunctional, I still through gods grace was able to enjoy my children and had glimpses in my life of how in many ways I was very lucky to still have my family around me and a wife who supported me, I think its damaging to our recovery when we detail our stories to others as if we lived the most blackest life imaginable while in action [if its not true], embellishing our stories to create a memory that we think can keep us and others away from that next bet will fail. My experience is, recovery in the long run {for the gambler of my type} won’t work based on dishonesty and fear.) The best word I can find to describe who I was at this point in my life is “pathetic” lost and broken on the insides.



The time had come out of desperation to either leave my family and give in to my addiction and go off and become a “compulsive gambling hermit” and die that way or make a real unconditional effort to get help.



I had come to the conclusion (I am not sure why) to hand my life over to something way outside my comfort zone, and I booked into Rehab. I also knew myself enough to realize if I didn’t go into this with a ‘boots n all’ approach I would consciously manipulate the whole process just to please my family, and eventually get back into action. So my recovery journey began.



I loved Rehab, I found myself, I uncovered my gifts, I connected to my creativity, I saw miracles, I felt some great cathartic relief, I was lifted from that pathetic broken man into a space of real self esteem. MY EGO LOVED IT. Similar to that first day of gambling “ I had arrived”. And so started a journey of various attempts for me to find an answer and at each turning point I would be all excited about some new type of therapy, uncovering certain parts of myself, feeling a peace and love based on external things. THIS WAS ALL GREAT STUFF until I was alone lying awake at night, and the Spiritual Malady was still there, that deep sense that I didn’t belong. As I got further away from my last bet I had this underlying pain that in many ways was worse than when I was gambling. All my attempts to re-connect using fellowships, online support groups and swapping therapists started to fail, resentments grew and that horrible cloud of depression had once again descended on me.



I was pushed to the point of complete hopelessness based upon a sense of failure, I had buckets loads of desire, spent countless dollars and hours on filling the spiritual malady and myself up with therapy was still there. I was “irritable, restless and discontent”. My behaviors were similar to my days in action, I would post what I thought were profound pieces of wisdom on my favorite web sites, log in the next day and let the accolade wash over me and for a while it worked, then it stopped, so I tried even harder writing and re-writing posts adding elements of ‘false humility’ and again the accolade stopped. I would go into certain chat rooms trying desperately to connect with people, trying to get love through pretending to be humble, giving people what I thought they wanted and once I log off (feeling like a huge fraud). I am not sure if I am the only one who can see this, but many of these behaviors were just like having a bet.



{I WANT TO ADD SOMETHING HERE THAT’S VERY VERY IMPORTANT, IN THE PAST PEOPLE HAVE BEEN PUT OFF BY MY SELF DISCLOSURE. WHEN MY BEHAVIOURS (as described in the previous paragraph) OCCURRED IT WAS SUBTLE AND MOSTLY “UNDER THE RADAR” IN THIS WAY I TRULY THOUGHT I WAS DOING THE RIGHT THING, AND MANY TIMES THE POWER OF GODS GRACE PROVIDED ME WITH OPPORTUNITIES TO CONNECT WITH OTHERS AND IT WAS GENIUNE. I HAD FORMED MANY RELATIONSHIPS WITH PEOPLE OVER THE NET DURING THAT TIME AND TO THIS DAY I LOVE AND CARE FOR THEM, HOWEVER I KEPT HANDING OVER THESE MOMMENTS OF CONNECTION TO MY EGO AND THAT’S WHERE THE PROBLEM STARTED}



Then came a series of synchronistic events that saved my life. One day I downloaded an mp3 (speaker file) from a recovery web site. Even though I had been introduced to 12 steps way back in rehab I never really accepted them or understood what a “spiritual experience” was and like 1000’s of other “middle of the road” people in recovery I believed that we can work these steps in our own way, and at the time my “own way” was not to work them at all. So I listened to this speaker and at first I was put off through my own prejudice” by what I thought was fakeness, and of course that cynical heckler in my head was having a great time. At this point like a hundred times before I could of just added that experience to all the others I had had with the steps and reinforced my idea that 12 step work based on a “true surrender” was for Christians and crusty old men in AA not for a free thinking person like myself (talk about my “contempt prior to investigation”).
For some obscure reason (again gods grace at work) I decided to listen to the tape a second time and something stuck. “ IF YOU DO WHAT YOU HAVE ALWAYS DONE, YOU WILL ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU ALWAYS GOT”.
A penny dropped, I was doing in recovery what I had always done in my life as a gambler. I was trying to fill up under my own steam from the outside in. I was of the belief that if I managed well I would be ok, that keeping away from the first bet was all I needed and recovery as in my addiction was all about ME. The idea that I needed to do things in recovery in spite of how I felt or thought and which was once a bitter pill I just couldn’t swallow now was going to save my life and from my innermost self a great hope emerged, this is the day Step one had pushed me to a place where my self will had failed and in that moment with no understanding of what lie ahead of me I had finally conceded to my innermost self that I was POWERLESS. And so from that moment my life took on new meaning.

In the next couple of weeks I want to describe how I have become a Recovered Compulsive Gambler, how the 12 steps and the Big Book of AA has changed my life. Please remember this is my story and my experience, it may not be yours, if you don’t identify with what I have said in this post and have found other ways towards not gambling and happiness, God Bless You.

Love Murray

[best]

I like how you list out the reasons why counselors state that people gamble. I see that happen as a surface reason for many. In my short time of gambling (back when I was drinking) my surface reason (or maybe it was a root reason at the time) was male ego and a competative nature.
In my later years and now a Christian, I am seeing things from a different perspective for those few times I did return to the lottery. For me in those times I see it as a lack of trust that God would provide...I will help him?
I would say that where we are in life sure does give us a new look at things.
Tomorrow will be a fresh look and more growth I hope.

[samseb5351]

Hope cont: -

Ok I had seen a new way to look at things, I could see that my way wasn’t working and if that’s the case what was going to work for me?
During most of my recovery starting back in rehab I had attended GA meetings and in the early days with a head full therapy and an EGO the size of Texas it was a great place to strut my stuff. I honestly believed that GA Recovery was about group therapy, that fellowship and a bucket load of “recovery tools” was all I needed.
Now I was introduced to the idea (after listening to that mp3) that in order to get that “spark” I so desperately craved that I needed to actually do those 12 steps I saw on a tattered old sign at the back of the meeting. OK I am going to give this a go, and with childlike enthusiasm I went my next GA meeting ready to get a sponsor, buy some literature and follow who ever was willing to take me under their wing.

I approached my meetings “old timer” (17 years without a bet). I told him how I really wanted to do these steps and have a spiritual experience. I asked him what he did, and he said something like this “well Murray it is the general consensus that in GA you shouldn’t start the steps until 2 years into you recovery, you have to be patient, just come to meetings,” Well I was a little disappointed but not detered I got hold of a copy of the GA literature ‘the blue book’ and took it home to use as a instruction manual,

Prior to opening my book and given how inspirational that first speaker tape was for me I also decided to go on the net and download speakers from GA (just to get some encouragement). So I logged on to the recovery site with these tapes (mp3’s) and low and behold no GA speakers, nearly all other 12-step fellowships had tapes on this site but no GA. (hmm “that’s weird” I thought). And so a long exhausting search started, I went from one site to the next I found 1000’s of Mp3’s to download AA, CA, OA, NA… but not a single GA.

Ok I thought, no sponsor, no tapes, Ill listen to AA tapes instead. I downloaded a tape that had speakers describing the 3-fold illness of alcoholism. Slowly I started to become interested in what these guys were saying, they spoke of a illness of the body (where when a Alcoholic has a drink they have a reaction that makes them crave more and more) they spoke of an obsession of the mind (the obsession a alcoholic has to have the first drink regardless of whether they have detoxed or not, and the complete inability to see that drinking for them {based on the wreckage of the past} is a bad bad idea) and finally they spoke of a spiritual malady (which is that underlying feeling of not belonging, not fitting in which a drink seemed to treat).

Now there are certain affects that alcohol has that gambling doesn’t
One is a drug the other a behavior
Drinking has a strong toxic ‘drug affect’ based on a substance entering the body [getting pissed] gambling doesn’t involve a substance entering the body
...And so on
However
From what I could see from my own experience the 3 fold illness as described by AA was very similar for me with gambling

I had a reaction to the first bet that made me crave more

I certainly had a obsession of the mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about getting back in action, I had spent all my money, stole, lied and had that deep despair and loneliness of coming home after a binge (like a walking dead person)(when we promise ourselves, god and others we will never gamble again) and with a kind of emotional amnesia I would be planning my next bet usually within days.

And I had a deep sense of disconnection, which gambling had once treated (the spiritual malady)

Now I was starting to sit up and take notice, I learnt that once the spiritual malady is dealt with the mind and body will follow, and I learnt that for people with this 3 fold illness only a spiritual experience will work. Slowly all the things I had once believed about addictions started to get smashed and this was all coming straight from these speakers who only used the AA big book.

This information was very very interesting and I was a little skeptical and I felt tension (after all I had been spoon feed all sorts of things that were not congruent with this info).
Ahh but I have my GA ‘blue book’ which, at this point I hadn’t read and I was sure it was going to make everything come together.
I was going to be very disappointed and I will explain what happened in my next post.

I am tired and I have a sense this info maybe hard to absorb all at once. Stay tuned
Love Murray