Hey vera,
I completely agree with you there. Definitely the aim is to never touch gambling EVER again. I definitely think that relapses are almost impossible to avoid along the journey to recovery (and I will never use this as an excuse for gambling) and I think there is definitely an “improvement” in these relapses or “slips” as we progress through them. The mitigation of the damage done each time, the extent (money/time) of each relapse and the lessons we learn from each one. I think these go a long way towards our overall recovery.
But yes, the ultimate goal is to NEVER touch gambling ever and as I have advised many others on here, we should never play the victim card and use “relapses” as an EXCUSE to play. Don’t be disheartened by them but it is important we seem them as very dangerous (and potentially can spread into a wildfire very quickly) and thus must learn as much as we can from them and do whatever it takes to prevent those triggers/situations arising again in the future.