Hi Go Blue
What comes through clearest in your posts is that your health is being affected by your mother’s behaviour and that is not acceptable.
It is very likely that your mother is unaware of the extent of the damage she is inflicting on you, even if you are pleading with her until you are blue in the face. The addiction to gamble fills the mind of a person who is addicted, it distorts reality and leaves no room for empathy for those around them. It is only with the right support and treatment that the addiction can be tipped out of the mind leaving space for honest, rational thinking.
I have no crystal ball, I cannot wave a magic wand and make your mother stop gambling and nor can you – but what I hope I can do is open your eyes to the importance of looking after you.
Your mother didn’t ask for or want her addiction any more than you did but the choice to seek help and refuse her addiction in her life lies with her. The choice for you to allow her addiction to affect you, or to refuse it, lies with ‘you’.
You are stronger than your mother’s addiction so don’t fear it. You have logic and rationality which she will lack, so don’t be scared.
Maybe you could tell her where help is to be found. Give her the address and meeting times for a local GA; tell her about a local dedicated gambling addiction counsellor; inform her about our Helpline which is here for her and for you and which is one-to-one and anonymous. We have a terrific forum for people who share your mother’s problem and we have private groups for her – maybe you could ask her what she has to lose by joining such support when she says she wants help. Unfortunately you can only direct your mother to help; you cannot make her take the support offered.
Having told her about the support that is available I suggest you inform her that your health is affected by her behaviour and you will not tolerate her addiction to affect your life anymore. I am not saying that you walk away from you mother but separate yourself from her addiction. If you can’t see how to achieve putting barriers between yourself and her gambling please keep posting here and hopefully join a group where we can communicate in real time.
I know your mother can control her gambling but I suspect she does not know where to begin. ‘You’, however, can begin to retake control of your life today by seeing friends and talking about anything but gambling, enjoy a hobby or interest that has suffered because your mind has been distracted; go for a walk and see nature unfurling with new hope; – in other words regain your health because if you do not your mother’s addiction will have unnecessarily ruined 2 lives. Her addiction is not yours – you do not have to allow it to destroy your life.
Speak soon
Velvet
