(((Laura))) I feel honoured that you would spend 2 1/2 hours of your life reading my thread. It makes me think that I should reread it myself to see what’s been going on in my life. LOL! When I think back to my whole thread since I’ve been on this site, I’ve dealt with a lot of things here. When I first came to recovery, I was full of fear, anxiety, depressed, and saw no way to stop gambling other than end my life. I tend to forget how emotionally ill I was pre-recovery. I didn’t think that recovery could work for me as I was so undisciplined and falsely self-entitled. Recovery has been a process of learning how to recover and understanding why I became a compulsive gambler, and developing new coping skills. It’s been about finding my voice which was not appreciated by some people, and learning not to be a people pleaser. In the course of all this, I left Danny and moved to the city. I was in that contemplation state for years, before I finally decided that enough was enough. We still spend time together but it is mostly on my terms. Change is scary but I did things slowly and had time to adjust before taking on the next task in my recovery. I’ve been blessed that when I had a slip, it didn’t turn into a full blown relapse, and that I was able to come back to support right away. I credit this site for a huge part of my recovery, even though I did the work. I felt like people understood me here, being cgs themselves, and I treasure everyone that has been part of my recovery journey. The friends I have made here such as you and others, all contributed to my recovery as well as the staff of course. I am feeling a tad better than I was yesterday. We leave in the morning for California with our grandkids, so I’m going to have to do the best that I can with where I am health-wise for the kids’ sake. I have laundry to do, dishes, clean my bathroom, and pack today. My granddaughter is coming to stay with my cats while I’m away. (((Laura))) I feel for you that you live in chronic pain. Carole
