Hi Gigi
Like G Rec I recommend Charles and the New members group and I also commend you on writing this post.
I’m not going to pretend that it is going to be easy for you but you have had a taste of feeling free which hopefully will stick in your mind.
I cannot tell you that if you do (a) (b) or (c) that your urges to gamble will disappear but I can and will support you by following your progress.
I am the parent of a child who is a compulsive gambler. He took control of his life 15 years ago and now lives a happy, healthy, gamble-free life. As a parent, all I wanted was his happiness but I was totally unaware of the problem that prevented him from being so. I cannot claim perfection as a parent but I know, now, that I did do all the wrong things for all the right reasons. I unwittingly enabled just as your parents are doing – they don’t ‘know’ so they smile and give you money – anything to support you and make you happy because they love you. With knowledge, however painful, it would hopefully help them to do the right things for you for all the right reasons.
I would be surprised if they didn’t already know that something is wrong, they just don’t know what.
I know all about the ‘difficult’ conversation – I didn’t have it for 23 years but when it eventually came, I was able to seek support for myself, learn to understand and thus stop enabling. It was tough, it was the most painful thing I have ever dealt with but at last I ‘knew’ and could make good and informed decisions for myself and also for him. He has since told me, that as long as I enabled, he had no desire/need/reason to stop gambling.
I hope you will keep posting and not just when you are feeling bad about yourself.
Velvet