Monica for years and years, nothing seemed to give me hope. I was quite literally hope-less.
I’d be pleased if my story does give you and others some hope, and then my whole journey will have been worthwhile. I cant make amends for everything I’ve done directly, but what I can do is try and show others that there is a light at the end of a long and very dark tunnel.
I’ve spent a good couple of hours reading your thread from start to finish today. I’m so pleased for you that you’ve stumbled across this site and are using it as you do.
I went to step change before it changed its name, I cant remember what is was called but I entered into a DMP with them. I was paying £380 a month. I kept up with it for 3 months I think, then I went back to gambling.
In the middle of that gambling spree I got made redundant. I went back to step change and they said they could not help me anymore! I was quite shocked about this, but I do know there is an alternative to a DMP and bankruptcy. An IVA apparently they no longer make it common knowledge that this is available but it is very similar to bankruptcy and costs a fraction of what a full bankruptcy does, it may be worth your while checking this out. It is aimed directly at those in receipt of benefits as their only income, especially if its contribution based benefits. (you score more points on the screening process)
I lived in sarf London from when I left GMA rehab in 2010 (that was in Beckenham), until earlier this year. I found the GA at New Cross was warm and friendly. They didn’t do step meetings though, but even those who were many years clean had good listening ears and were very supportive.
I found the meeting in Croydon to be quite the opposite, it was too busy for me, and two of the attendees were going to the races (Epsom Derby) together!!? Because they “always had”
GA varies from room to room I think, if you find your current group isn’t benefiting you please try another.
During my second spell in prison I asked the chaplain if he could exorcise me, as I was convinced that I was possessed. I went through with it but it didn’t make any difference and I went onto much darker places.
Maybe it didn’t work because my faith wasn’t strong enough, I don’t know. But I’ve always struggled to accept some aspects of Christian faith. One thing that I’ve only really understood since my coma is that Jesus died for our sins, so we don’t have to. I’d heard it often enough but just could not comprehend it. Why did this man 2000 years ago die for our sins, it really baffled me.
Of course now I do understand it.
The penny dropped for me by using this site.
People seldom learn from the mistakes of others, I didn’t. When I was going to GA at 17 years old I wasn’t listening to the bus driver that pocketed all the bus fares so as he could bet, or the postman that stole peoples letters and birthday cards. I wasn’t going to be as bad as the pit-man who had just come out of jail…what was wrong with those people. I wouldn’t make them mistakes, they’re all idiots. Not like me at all. Or so I thought back in the day. I was only going to GA to please my mam. It was 1982 or 83 there was no internet then, GA wasn’t in the phone book it was hard to find out if such a place did exist, once my mam found it I think she thought she had found the cure. Anyway, I digress….
My point is I did not learn from their mistakes.
I don’t suppose anybody on here has learnt from mine, (except me, well I’m beginning to).
I’ve made all the mistakes the bus-driver, postman and pit-man made. Then I moved on and made even bigger and idiotic mistakes, I didn’t learn from the CG’s I’ve met in prison or the ones I’ve met when I’ve been sleeping rough. But I should’ve done. I was too full of me and too full of addiction, this addiction oozed out of every pore in my body Monica.
But we can all learn from each other, we really can. The young addicts will go on and make the mistakes I’ve made, or that you’ve made, they won’t take heed of how or why it has ruined our lives, and that is a shame.
I said to a young CG on here just a couple of months ago, “You don’t need to make that mistake, I’ve already done it look what happened to me”
That is when the penny dropped about Jesus dying for our sins. It helps me forgive my sins to myself.
Monica I was going to be posting about my experience in the coma, but as usual got side-tracked.
However shite it gets there is always hope.
To quote Alexander Pope,
“Hope Springs eternal in the human breast
Man never is, but always to be blessed”.
I must try and get to sleep again now, this reads back to me like a great load of gobbledegook.
I hope you’ve managed to achieve something, anything just one thing today.