I like that term 🙂
From my experience trying to extract myself from the gambling trap, (and this is from my first GA meeting on 1/11/11 up until now, 4+ years OMG!!!) I tried to justify things like lottery, fantasy football, pools, etc as not real gambling. At the point you are at, you may be feeling the same way. I can assure you that continuing those types of activities ARE gambling, and they do work to perpetuate our gambling itch.
That’s why at GA they discuss one of the steps being to make a fearless financial and moral inventory. You will need to come to the conclusion yourself of course, and I’m quite thick headed so it has taken me 4 years to root out every last avenue of gambling that was in my life. Now finally they are all out on the table in full view to me (mentally of course). I understand that if I buy stocks, my gambling brain will trigger, and I will start buying and selling to try and make a quick profit. That IS gambling, although it took 3 years to finally admit that to myself. Same goes for the sports pools etc. I justified it by saying it was only with friends, only for a small stake, just for fun, for socialization, etc….. but in the end I finally realized that with my history of gambling, those seemingly innocent activities were drawing me back in and setting the stage for devastating relapses when my defenses were down.
You may be done with gambling today (I hope!), or it may take you days, weeks, months, years to finally be rid completely of the insanity of gambling. Thinking about all of these things, weighing them, writing them down, talking with people are all tools for you to get it straight in your mind what will be needed for you to succeed.
If you couldn’t tell already, part of my therapy is to read others experiences and think about the times in my recovery that I ran across the same dilemmas and obstacles and how I handled them (or botched them). So I want to thank you for posting, it really helps me a lot!
All the best to you!