I had a bittersweet taste of reality tonight at a GA meeting, I- did- it.
An older man sharing and a younger man listening intently…………
The reality for a CG is that we will always be tempted to gamble. Always! It is absurd to think the “condition” will go away. Addiction ebbs and flows depending on the CG’s response. There will be some times when we feel we want/need to gamble. And there will other times when we feel we never want to gamble again. That is as normal for a CG as it is for an alcoholic longing for whiskey and saying “never again” when his/her head aches.
The sight of money. A familiar “casino” /game tune. A certain exit on a certain motorway. The smell of some food that was served in the “den”. The combination of numbers on a car in front of us. A black cat crossing our path. A sudden flash back. A familiar laugh…….everything can remind us of the “fun” gambling brings but the reality is very different .
When you look into the tear filled eyes of a fellow CG who struggles to avoid the gaze of others and listen to him /her attempting to share and at the same time block out the memory because the spoken words bring back so much hurt and pain and when you hear fellow CGs shuffling in in their seats with eyes cast to the floor, knowing that the words also apply to him ,then you will know there is nowhere left to hide. Sitting, reading and writing behind a screen and keyboard can sometimes separate us from reality.
Nothing changes, if nothing changes.