[kin]

Dear diary
There are days when I struggle to put thoughts and feelings into writing. Something was wrong, and I cannot write as usual for the past week, I know that I had to work harder to continue my recovery.
My recovery was ok but everything was not ok, everything seems to be falling apart but I was not taking alcohol or gambling.
It was not my fault. There were just sudden changes at work, I was no longer allowed to do the same work I was doing in the last 2 years. I cannot adapt to the new changes.
Suddenly they have decided to change my working hours, I cannot continue to work at night, instead I must work in the morning. I was also asked to do more and different new things at work.
The management direction have change, the staff have change, I am no longer having the same support I need now and it is robbing my peace and joy.
Experience have taught me to rest on the recovery program and God.
It means that either I change myself to adapt to the new changes or I leave this place and people I cannot change who are threatening my recovery.
I have done this many times before in the past and it has served me well in recovery. As a result, my faith and confident in the recovery program and God has grown, but every time I do it again, it never fail to make me feel very uneasy, fearful and insecure about the future.
I am resigning from this job immediately and continue my recovery in another job. Everything is going to change, job scope and salary. The only thing that remain unchanged was my recovery, it continues….
I have learnt to sacrifice what I love, inorder to protect my recovery and my love ones.
The peace and joy, safety and security at home is more important than my work and money.
I did not forget the days when I was like a runaway hurricane that destroy everything in my path and rob the happiness and peace in their lives.
Today I was singing in the church when the lyric of the song strike me and it brought tears to my eye… “Your grace is enough, I will believe”
Amen!

[kin]

Dear diary
Today was no different from any other days. I may not be drinking or gambling but that doesn’t change the truth.
I was defeated by alcohol and gambling. I was powerless when I take alcohol and gamble, alcohol and gambling has make my life unmanageable.
The day I accepted that I can no longer take alcohol or gamble like a normal person, I stop trying to prove to myself that I can take alcohol or gamble like a normal person and be able to stop at will.
Many times my day is not perfect, and I was not perfect. It is ok not to be ok because no one is perfect. This is the truth, I do not need to panic or try to change this.
I continue to be powerless over people, place and things. I cannot control or change them but I can change myself. I take shorter time to change myself now, there is progress not perfection. Everything is still not ok but I am ok!
I no longer take alcohol or gamble for relief or self-medication. It is very very…. important for me to rest on my Higher Power (God and the 12 steps recovery program) at all times. When I forget to do that and start to depend on myself, I will start to get into all sort of troubles.
When I feel that I have the power and is in control, I begin to lose control and become powerless and I struggle to surrender and give up my self will.
When I was following my will, I was still trying to be in control of everything, I am not ready and have not yet let go and follow the will of a Higher Power.
Life was only good for me after I became powerless and surrender to a Higher Power.
I am really grateful to realize and feel powerlessness now, otherwise I will not surrender and turn to a Higher Power, I will not change and my life will not be manageable and return to normal.
I have finally found my Higher Power and rediscover joy in living life, there is love, freedom, peace, calm and contentment.

[kin]

For your information only:

When you are sitting in front of that machine, you are intoxicated. You have not taken a pill , you have not taken a drink, you have not put something into your vein, but that doesn’t mean your brain chemistry haven’t change. ~ Dr Robert Breen, Director, Gambling Treatment Program, Rhode Island Hospital

In 2001, Doctor Hans Breiter and colleagues at Massachusetts General hospital conducted an experiment comparing the brain of a cocaine addict receiving a dose of cocaine and a healthy control subject playing the game of chance.

You look at the brain images of the activation of the primary reward system in the center of the human brain when they are a cocaine addict expecting a cocaine infusion vs a normal control subject expecting a monetary win, we saw the same thing, they are nearly identical, I could not distinguish who have receive cocaine and who have won a gambling task. ~ Doctor Hans Breiter, Director, Motivational and Emotional Neuroscience Center, Massachuset ts General hospital

The US national gambling impact study commission called these electronic gambling machines the crack cocaine of creating new addicted gamblers. ~ John Kindt , Professor, Business and Legal Policy, University of Illinios

The Gambling industry members talk about how to keep the people playing the machine longer, faster and more intensively and the way they speak about their aim is an aim of player extinction. Keeping the player there until their budget is thoroughly exhausted , until they have zero the player out.

[kin]

• To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most, but is one who needs the least.

• To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have in their lives, but who they have in their lives.

• To learn that money can buy everything but happiness.

• To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it totally differently.

• To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in persons we love, and that it takes many years to heal them.

• To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.

• To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others, but that they have to forgive themselves.”

• To learn that a true friend is someone who knows everything about them…and likes them anyway.

• To learn that they cannot make anyone love them. What they can do is to let themselves be loved.

Mankind

• “That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up, and then long to be children again.
• That they lose their health to make money and then lose their money to restore their health.
• That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live neither for the present nor the future.
• That they live as if they will never die, and they die as if they had never lived…”

[kin]

Hi Vera

Thank you for the constant reminder. I agree with you that I should treasure the opportunity and the remaining time I have.

Every gambling free day is very important , each day made a difference to my overall peace, freedom, happiness and joy because they all add up.

[kin]

Dear Maverick

Happy 40th Birthday Brother!

Like Vera, I envy you. I am 50 years old now. If I had started to do the right thing at age 40 yrs old, so much more can be achieve. I don’t have this chance now.
Brother Maverick, please treasure this chance you have that friends in GT who cares about you don’t have. Don’t waste this chance brother Maverick!
Do the next right thing, one baby step at a time, one day at a time add them all up in 10 years time, it will bring you far far far…..

[kin]

Dear diary
Can I trust the people in my new cell group with my life?
Gambler like myself have a big problem with trust, I still have this problem today. It was not easy for me to trust another person, I have been disappointed by many, I will never trust them with my life easily. I was not surprise when another recovering gambler I met don’ t believe me too.
When I shared with this person where he can seek help, he didn’t believe me and wanted to go to another place, I didn’t stop him. After a few weeks, he showed up in the place I recommended him. The Higher Power was telling me not to give up carrying the message to suffering people even when I was not appreciated. Seeing the results and the Higher Power at work give me much confident, satisfaction and joy. It was always never about me. It was all about God and others.
In the meanwhile, I am not allowing anyone, any place or anything to stop me from seeking God and my recovery, I was disappointed by two incidents in one cell group, I find that the people in the group cannot be trusted with my life and recovery. It was important my recovery was not affected.
I immediately make plan to replace it with another cell group the next day to keep my support network alive and strong.
At the same time, I have inform a lady that I am leaving this group so that she will not approach me anymore to tell me how badly she was treated by a person from this group. This man have borrow money from her. I was caught in between because I attended the 2 groups that these people attended separately. All I wish was just to focus on my recovery and I need to protect my recovery all the times.
There is light in my life and I am very grateful to God for the messengers He has send me.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for protecting and saving me , and thank you for sending my guardian angels to walk this journey with me. They have touch me and my life have really change. Please bless these angels with good health. In Jesus ‘s name I pray. Amen.

[kin]

Dear I did it

Instead of Isolating yourself, go watch a movie at the cinema

Fantastic Beasts is nice

[kin]

Dear dairy
I saw and heard the same thing in both places.
There are many ignorant ones who told me the same thing, asking me to stop taking inventory, that I was talking about the past, I should be talking about the future.
Who am I kidding? I know that after attending Sunday service, cell group meeting and GA meetings, if we do nothing, nothing change.

[kin]

” The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

~ Socrates~

[kin]

Dear diary
One can read and study the word and the program, but I realized that one will never know what it is like until they have tried and lived it.
Trust, faith and spirituality was something I cannot see.
How do you teach someone to trust and have faith in something they cannot see with the eye when all they see is fruitless attempts, no results, hardship and suffering in life. How do you convince me and others not to give up following God and the 12 steps recovery program when everything still look hopeless and dark.
It was not my timing, I only learn at close to aged 50, I should be ashamed but I was really very glad and grateful to be able to do it properly after so many years. It was the spirituality one receives following the program that kept me safe calm peaceful and joyful. Before we are half way thru the program, we can already see the benefits as mentioned in the promises. I soon found out for myself that the promises was the truth.
I saw my many hopeless and dark situations over the years turn to light, it has given me hope and confident. My trust, and faith in God and the 12 steps recovery program grow, it is no more blind faith that I am following. I have seen the truth.
Step 4 have help me and allow me to watch and know myself better. Attending many meetings also allow me to see how some people around me who practice the same program for many years but have not receive the wisdom and spirituality that so many have received. They become my mirror and teacher.
These people does not treat other people as equal, they do not know how to accept and respect the differences in other people, they try to change other people or situation to tailor fit them, they have to control those people around them to achieve it, when they fail, they will try to remove these people by doing character assassination. They are full of imperfection but expected other people to be perfect for them. There is no “live and let live”.
These people become my mirror, they help me to grow, I can only change myself, I can walk away from these people, places and things, I don’t have to say things or do things to tear them up or hurt them.
Guess the peace and joy I receive come from following the words of God and the 12 steps recovery program. I was never perfect in my life, in my recovery and learning but following and obeying God’s word and the 12 steps recovery program to the best of my ability have change the way I live my life and look at things.
My growth does not come from my wisdom, it was given to me by God and the 12 steps recovery program.
I am taking baby steps, and learning at my own pace and progressing by the grace of God.

[kin]

Dear diary

Today was no different from gamble free day number one in recovery. Every gamble free day is important to me but today was the most important. Today is all that matters.

I admitted I was defeated by gambling, I become powerless when I gamble. Gambling has make my life unmanageable.

In the tradition of GA, I was gamble free for 97 continuous days after 11 years in recovery. It was not perfect but I am ok. I am happy, grateful and contented.

I can never gamble or drink like a normal person.

Gambling and drinking is a choice. Condition outside and inside me can change but gambling and drinking is no more an option for me, I am walking down a different street now.

[kin]

Hi Maverick,

When there is acceptance that we can no longer gamble like a normal person, gambling is no more an option.

[kin]

In step 3
We made a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God.
In step 4
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves
We may still try to keep parts of our heart hidden from God, the support groups and the people. We have devoted these parts to gratifying our addiction, to doing things that are contrary to the will of God. This sets us up for living a double life. A double life which can fill us with guilt, shame and instability. If we choose to live a double life, we may begin to doubt whether God hears us at all.
When we surrender our self-will and follow God’s will, we have to handover the control to God, when we draw close to God, He will draw close to us. When we open up the hidden portions of our heart and trust God, we begin to made choices in favor of recovery, we will soon grow in confident that God desires to help us.
I did not forget the times in recovery not so long ago when I cried out to God but I could not hear or feel God at all, I can only hear my addiction talking. Those were the times when I wanted to “stay stop in gambling” and “gambling at will” all at the same time. I was living a double life.
No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the ONE and love the other, or he will be devoted to the ONE and despise the other. ~Luke 16:13
I cannot serve both God and money.
The stake is too high for me now, I did not want to lose the peace, calm, joy and freedom everyday that my family and me have now for any amount of money big or small.
They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of moral corruption and wickedness—for “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” ~ 2 Peter 2:19
The money and alcohol promise me freedom but I become a slave in the end.
I will not gamble and drink, I am walking down a different street.

[kin]

Dear diary
My priority in life has change.
The things I stand to lose in life has become the top priority.
The stake has become too high and too much for me to lose.
The sum of money big or small I win or lose is no longer the most important thing
I can no longer gamble or drink, I am walking down a different street.

[Author]

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