[kin]

I can understand why so much hard work is necessary for some people to achieve sobriety; for some people it was much simple because…

-they are not suffering from a problem in the brain that is not working normally
-they are not battling a mental illness
-they are not recovering from multiple addictions

I have become lazy many times after my life has improve and I have stop doing what has been helping me to stay clean and sober. My most recent one just happened to me less than 10 days ago.

My problem will come back, it is like an illness always wanting to return if I did not do my prevention and precaution work to stop them.

I like to complain about the inconvenient and pain of doing my recovery but the reality and truth of losing heavy sum of money and getting into heavy debt is more painful than the recovery work to stop gambling.

My enemy do not stop, it is always attacking
They have not been successful because I stop them
Once I stop protecting myself against the damage and harm, they will enter my life.

[kin]

Hi jvr3419,

Thank you for replying. I knew you were sharing with me a very real problem.

I used to warn very new inexperience therapists many years ago, if they want to bring me back to my past trauma and unhealed emotions
I need them to be skilled enough to bring me back into the present when they are finish otherwise I will be in deep troubles
when you bring them back, I do not know how to make them go away and I could not handle those emotions.
I do not know any other ways to manage those pain except acting out in substance and behavior to escape.

I am no longer the young man 26 years old, I am 57 now.
I am ok and ready to face my past trauma and unhealed emotions.

After reading your post 2 weeks ago
I did revisit some of my past and felt those same emotions
I was able to process them.

I thought about the time when I was young, I grew up in a poor family; I am really very afraid to be poor later.
I cannot go out to play with my friends because I need to stay home;
I cannot join my schoolmates for outing because I do not have money;
One day I sneak out to play games at the arcade, I came home and get a very hard beating.

I also thought about the time 30 years ago, when I was hurt very badly after a break up with someone,
I was heart broken and depress for many years.

I was able to accept them and I have learn to let go.
I was fine to talk about them; I can smile about them now.

I am sure there are many other painful emotions in my lifetime that I need to work on in recovery due to my many years of dark past and experience. I am a work in progress and under construction.

[kin]

Hi asd,

I am so sorry to hear about your unfortunate incident.
We need help from the professionals to deal with problem in the brain.

You are still so young and you have a bright future ahead of you
but you are at risk of losing all your future earning whenever you lose your self-control.

Please seek help.

[kin]

Emotional dysregulation

Emotional dysregulation is a mental health symptom that involves trouble controlling your emotions and how you act on those feelings.

It is also referred to as a clearly noticeable fluctuation of mood; mood swings, or labile mood – rapid, often exaggerated changes in mood, where strong emotions or feelings occur (heightened irritability or temper) and cause you to overreact to people or things happening around you.

Emotional dysregulation is a brain-related symptom that means you have trouble managing your feelings and emotions.

With emotional dysregulation, your brain can’t regulate emotion signals.

Your control doesn’t work like it should, making your emotions difficult and harder to manage.

When someone is experiencing emotional dysregulation, they may have difficulty regulating their emotions;

They may have difficulty calming down when they are happy or sad even if the person knows the situation is not important or worthy of attention;

They may have low tolerance for frustration and have angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and other self-damaging behaviors.

They may not have an appropriate emotive response to the situation they are in.

Over time, this condition will interfere with our quality of life.

Can you fix emotional dysregulation?

Treatment for emotional dysregulation may include one or more of the following:

-Counselling, this will include cognitive-behavioral therapy that combines strategies like mindfulness, acceptance, and emotional regulation.

-Antidepressant medications.

[kin]

Hi jvr3419,

Thank you for your post. I really appreciate them.

This advice can only come from someone with abundant experience.

1. “The only thing you have ever seen, that actually keep people from switching between the demon and the good side of themselves is doing extremely thorough emotional work on themselves.”And the most dominant and widespread issues were some emotional dysregulations.

2. Most people you have met in recovery have extreme trust issues.

They have been severely hurt by other people so they have learned to be on their own as a survival mechanism. These people pull away from recovery and try to do recovery without any form of help.

3. They can be gamble free but they are not really recovering.

-we need to achieve emotional sobriety;

-we need to heal our past emotional traumas;

-we need to learn to cope with difficult emotions;

-we need to learn to connect with people.

This recovery will take a lifetime.
We are all works in progress and under construction.

[kin]

Many of us did not think we had a gambling problem until the money ran out.

Even when others told us we had a gambling problem, we were convinced that we were right and the world was wrong. We used this belief to justify our self-destructive or gambling behavior.

We developed a point of view that enabled us to pursue our gambling without concern for our own well-being or that of others.

But we began to feel that gambling was killing us long before we could ever admit it to anyone else.
We noticed that if we tried to stop gambling, we couldn’t.
We suspected we had lost control over gambling and had no power to stop.

Certain things followed as we continued to gamble.
We became accustomed to a state of mind common to addicts.
We forgot what it was like before we started gambling;
We acquired strange habits and mannerisms;
we forgot how to work; we forgot how to play;
we forgot how to express ourselves and show concern for others;
we forgot how to feel; we forgot how to live life.

[kin]

Hi jvr3419,

Thank you for checking on me recently.

Receiving support, strength and hope from others in the same village are very helpful in giving me the courage I need to pick myself up quickly and carry on with life.

The real serious and important stuff you mentioned in recovery was on emotional dysregulation.
I will be posting on them next.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by kin.

[kin]

The author Robert Louis Stevenson
The book – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Summary of the story

Dr Jekyll is a kind, well-respected and intelligent scientist who meddles with the darker side of science.
He does this through transforming himself into Mr Hyde – his evil alter ego who doesn’t repent or accept responsibility for his evil crimes and ways.

The author writes about the human nature and idea that every single human being has good and evil within them.

The author describes how there is a good and an evil side to everyone’s personality, but what is important is how you behave and the decisions you make.

Jekyll and Hyde was used in reference to a person or thing that alternately displays two different sides to their character or nature.

Jekyll and Hyde behavior describes intense and dramatic mood swings.
In some cases, these mood swings may be a symptom of narcissistic personality disorder.
They could also be related to borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, or other mental health issues.

This author once said,
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”

[kin]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

With reference to the AA big book

Here is the fellow who puzzle you. He is a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

He is often perfectly sensible concerning everything except gambling.

He may be one of the finest fellows in the world.
Yet let him gamble and he becomes incredibly dishonest and selfish.

He often possesses special abilities, skills, and aptitudes, and has a promising career ahead of him. He uses his gifts to build up a bright future for his family and himself, and then pulls everything down himself.

With ref to NA basic text

While gambling, we lived in another world.
It seems like we were two people instead of one, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

We tried very hard to fix our lives together;
we tried very hard to stay gamble free before our next gamble.
Sometimes we could stay gamble free very well,
but later, it was less important and more impossible.
In the end, Dr. Jekyll died and Mr. Hyde took over.

[kin]

We have an incurable disease called addiction which is chronic, progressive and fatal.

However, it is a treatable disease but many times, we had to reach our bottom before we became willing to stop.

We were much more motivated to seek help in the latter stage of our addiction when it was easier for us to see the destruction, disaster and delusion of our addiction. It was harder to deny our addiction when problems were staring us in the face.

How we got the disease is of no immediate importance to us.
We are concerned with recovery.
We begin to treat our addiction by not gambling.

[kin]

I have regained good physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial health many times after good period of gamble free days, only to lose them by gambling again.

My own track record has shown me that it was impossible for me to gamble successfully. No matter how well I may appear to be in control, gambling always brings me down to my knee.

Due to the lack of physical symptoms, gambling is known as a ‘hidden’ addiction.

Unlike the physical ache of a substance dependence, gamblers find themselves pining for the nervous anticipation and thrill of placing one more bet. Gambling targets the mind and brain; the best way to influence our behaviours is to influence our thinking.

Problem gamblers believe that they have a fair chance of winning; it was all a deceiving lie and a false hope.

The lines are often very blurred when it comes to identifying a gambling problem. Many of us did not think we had a gambling problem until the money ran out.

The truth was the occasional wins, but the problem gambler always loses in the end. Many problem gamblers only seek help after they have hit the rock bottom or facing a crisis.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by kin.

[kin]

I felt so much better and happier after reading this list today.

I am very grateful and thankful that I am not getting stressed, frustrated, disappointed and broken by not gambling.
They are the reasons that has cause me to gamble previously.

Count my blessing
1. I am very grateful that I do not have stress from the daily gamble. I do not have to worry about missing a gamble.
2. I am very grateful that I do not have stress from finding more money to gamble. I do not have to borrow to gamble.
3. I am very grateful that I am not stress from disappointment, frustration, anger and fear after losing a bet.
4. I am very grateful that I do not have stress, worry and fear from more gambling debts.
5. I am very grateful that I did not lose my self-control today. I suffer from poor impulse and emotion control.
6. I am very grateful that I do not get stress from chasing gambling loss.
7. I am very grateful that I was not stress by inability to sleep due to restlessness and hyperactive gambling mind.
8. I am very grateful that gambling is not controlling my life today.
9. The money, and time that was not rob, stolen and taken away by gambling can now be wisely spend in areas loving others and myself.
10. I am very grateful that life was restored back to normal, and I start to have savings.
11. I am grateful to have normal sleeping patterns.

To stop and stay stop;
I need to stay focus on today; not on the future or the past.

1. I need to be honest with myself; I must not leave any loopholes for me to gamble today.
2. I must remove any risk and stay away from danger today.
3. I only need to stop gambling today.
4. I must stick to the plan all the way to the end today.
5. Tomorrow, I do the same.
6. One day at a time.

[kin]

I saw something very disgusting last time
it has help me stop gambling and I do not want to have anything to do with gambling.
I was a victim.

I saw something else that makes me feel very disgusting this time,
it has reminded me why I do not want to have anything to do with gambling
I was not a victim and I do not want to become a victim.
I get out immediately.

The results are rigged.
They are manipulated and controlled by deceptive and dishonest means.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by kin.

[kin]

Hi jvr3419,

Many thanks for this post.
I really appreciate your support and help.

I was in the middle of working on the subject mentioned in your post.
I need more time to organize everything before I can post them here.
It would be nice to get your feedback after I post them.

I wish I did not place the first bet.
If I continue to stop gambling, my baby steps forward in recovery continues.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by kin.

[kin]

I hate borrowing to gamble.
It is the fastest and quickest way to get into unmanageable and uncontrolled debt.

When I lose control of my emotions,
I did not care about gambling with money that I do not have and cannot afford,
I just want to be able to gamble.

This is scary.

[Author]

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