Hi Momchait
I am so pleased to read that not only will you not enable but that your son is aware of it too, even if subconsciously he thinks you will be there if there is a real crunch. There is little you can do to dispel this belief in a CG until the time comes.
You did nothing wrong – nothing you have done would have made any difference to your son owning this addiction. You cannot make him stop gambling, you cannot force him to seek help but by keeping closed a main avenue of enablement and by being the rock on which he can one day depend, you are doing the best thing for him.
I am sure you were there for him to turn to but he is an individual with his own choices and at some point he started making poor choices. He would not have wanted you to know what was happening to him or what he was doing because he could not understand it himself; shame and embarrassment play a large part in this addiction being kept secret which is truly sad because it is one of the last thing anyone would choose to own.
Your son will lack self-esteem and confidence because he is a CG – he can’t get his act together, he will always lose if he gambles and at the moment he doesn’t know why – why can’t ‘he’ gamble when others can? He is young and probably still full of the belief that he is different and that he will defeat his problem without help – with time, understanding, lack of enablement I believe he can be brought to the realisation that he cannot do this alone and that is when you are the signpost towards all the excellent support there is for him.
He is almost certainly depressed because of his addiction and not the other way around.
Intelligence and social background are not definitive factors with the addiction t gamble.
I fully appreciate you worry about him a lot – it is scary but you worrying has done nothing to change your son. At the moment his happiness and well-being are entirely in his hands until he accepts he has a problem and that he wants to seek help.
Even if you don’t feel it, you are doing well. Does your son know that you are seeking support?
I hope it will help you to know that it is my son who is a CG and that neither he, nor I, live n the shadow of his addiction. He will always be a CG, he will always face tough choices but he controls his addiction and is living a wonderful life. I do not do ‘what if’ or ‘if only’, nor do I dwell in the past, I use my experience for reference and I will answer any questions – some more openly within a group setting.
I really hope that we can ‘meet’ in the group tonight as ‘talking’ in real time in a group where nothing leaves the group can be very rewarding.
Velvet
