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Hi Shelly, I also wondered a lot what my hb could or should not do once he started his recovery. He told me that for example playing solitaire on the computer would be a huge trigger for him. The same goes with anything that has only the slightest indication of winning anything. Like a sweep stakes, or the many “review our services for a chance to win a shopping spree” offers. He will not even buy a raffle ticket for a good cause. No monopoly either. I like to compare it to the many challenges an alcoholic faces in recovery. Eating gravy containing sherry or wine can do the trick. Madge, you said that he tried to hide playing a game of hearts and seemed to feel guilty about it. Yes, that is addictive behavior.
I also agree with Velvet that it is a bad idea at this point in time to visit his mother who evidently avoids or minimizes his addiction. By going there he puts himself in danger and at the same time escapes the “pressure” he feels at home right now to address his gambling. The fact that his mom also has a gambling problem is a huge red flag in my opinion. That is almost like one alcoholic spending his vacation with another one while trying to quit drinking. Try to take care of yourself while he is gone because there is nothing you can do to prevent anything that goes on with him. That is his decision and his alone. Hang in there!I’m just testing what will happen when I try to post. I am never required anymore to sign in and can’t find the right icon on the site either when it first comes up. So I thought I just try this now.
Hi Tootall, you did just fine with the post. Computers are not my specialty either but they are helpful :). It must be hard to be alone in the house after 13 years for the first time especially since you are the one “left behind” in your familiar surroundings. Did he want to move out or was it your decision? Does your hb admit that he is a cg? While I think that it is a first step for him to see a counselor and that we do whatever it takes to get the recovery ball rolling, it is HIS responsibility to get the work done. It is tricky to find the right person when it comes to psychiatrists and counselors and very important that he/she is qualified to treat cgs. They are very good manipulators and pathological liars and can fool even a mental health professional very easily. If you happen to live in the US, every state has a council on problem gambling where cgs and F&Fs can find a lot of information and resources. The councils usually also have a list of trained counselors in your area. It is worth a try, at least it helped me a great deal because it is so overwhelming when you first start this painful journey and one has no idea where to start. Did you take steps to protect yourself financially? Even if you own your home, the bills need to be paid. Do you have any kind of support from family or friends? Maybe it would be a good idea to look for a GamAnon group for yourself. I can only imagine how difficult it is for you to adjust to all of this. Like standing on a beach and watching a huge wave rolling in that is about to swallow you completely. But it can and will get better. Personally I also found it helpful to collect as much information on cg and the impact on loved ones as I could to understand the dynamics of the addiction. One day at a time…
Hi Tootall, you will find a lot of support on this site and the most important thing to do right now is to take care of YOU. You can’t change your hb, you can’t make him stop gambling, the decision is his and his alone. In my personal opinion you already took a very important step by distancing yourself from the addiction physically. You moved out and hopefully this will give you some peace of mind even though it is all very fresh and hurtful right now. Please keep in mind that the addiction ***** to be confronted with consequences, meaning stick to your guns. Don’t give in. There might be promises that your hb will stop gambling, seek help and so on. Unless he does what he says he will do, it is all white noise. Over the 26 yrs I dealt with my cg’s addiction I have heard plenty of promises and good intentions. Believe it when you see it, that is my personal take on it. Seeking counseling for yourself is a great decision! The more support you get for yourself the better. Only you can decide if and when you meet with your hb and under what circumstances. If you feel like seeing him, it might help, if you don’t so be it. As far as the **** swings are concerned, they are very common for cgs. Imagine the emotional turmoil they go through each and every day. The addiction takes them on a roller coaster and rules their life. My hb was wrongly diagnosed as being bipolar and put on meds. The addiction ***** to be treated first and foremost because it can mimics **** disorders very nicely. If there is really a mental health issue, it will come out in treatment sooner or later. I wish you luck!
Hi there Sol, I’m not a cg, my hb is. What came to my mind when I read your latest post was “oh boy, he is rationalizing!” Not a good place to be. What would you tell a friend who argues that he is an ********* who wants to stop drinking vodka because he can’t function anymore but is convinced that if he just drinks beer from now on he will be alright? What would you tell a loved one who is addicted to heroin and thinks that switching to prescription opiates is the solution because they are legal and taking them is not a crime? Just wondering….Hang in there, there is life after gambling.
Hi Jen, you are right, sadly we are all familiar with the emotions you experience right now. It is pretty common for addicts to replace one substance/behavior with another because the gap ***** to be filled. Meaning the gap that lead to the addiction in the first place. A lot of substance abusers and addicts turn to gambling unfortunately. As to your legal situation, Michigan is not a community property state as far as I know. So if you get a legal separation, you are no longer responsible for his debts. But you need some kind of legal advice to sort out the details and to make sure you do everything the right way. Like Adele said, the first visit w an attorney is usually free so you can get the most important questions answered. It would be a good idea to get a hold of the documents you will need to fill out and file. Some are available online and sometimes you can find the whole package in a book store. That will give you an idea what you are dealing with before you talk to a lawyer. The health insurance is important and a tricky issue. I think that depends largely on the insurance your hb has, maybe just call them and ask if you can stay on his plan in case of a legal separation. Do you have any idea how your hb will react? Can you stay in the condo if push comes to shove? From my own experience I can tell you that I should have had all my ducks in a row but hindsight is always better, right? In the meantime, make sure that you protect yourself. Take his name off your account if you have one, same with credit cards. Change your pin number for the ATM, good idea to do this frequently. Sign up for credit score monitoring so you know what is going on, you can do this for both of you without him knowing. Who pays the bills? It should be you to make sure your essentials are covered. And again, this is just my own opinion: it is not good to make decisions when your emotions are running amok. First and foremost protect yourself financially because that takes a big chunk out of the daily stress. Think about what you want your future to look like and what you are willing to accept or not. F&Fs need to be strong to take on the addiction and knowledge is power. But you already know this from your hb’s prior struggle. You can do this, I’m sure. Call us legend for we are many. I wish you the best! 🙂
Hi BD, since I’m not a cg, I cannot feel what you feel of course. But I also want to encourage you to hang in there, to actually experience your feelings, even if they are really raw right now. My hb told me that he no longer feels guilt or shame but deep and heartfelt remorse for what he has done to the people he loves and cares for and also to himself. He still hurts to this day that he caused such deep and lasting despair for me (long story and caused by our circumstances). He tells me that this is part of recovery, to really feel, not only the good but also the bad. To work through it and to face his past head on instead of just sticking said head into the sand so to speak. Recovery is a work in progress and like Adele, I think it is incredibly sweet what you did for your wife. It takes time and everything is still very new and if you allow me to say so, the fact that my hb nowadays really understands what he put us through and hurts for me and everyone who was affected by his gambling shows me that his recovery is for real. He can finally emphasize with others, something he was never able to do since the cards were always much more important than we were. Don’t know if this all makes any sense to you but keep up the good work and be kind to yourself!!
Hi Buffdazza, Adele felt like coming home and I feel like I know you! LOL. My hb gambled for most of our married life, meaning he gambled when I first met him (I had no clue) and finally started on his journey of recovery 26 years later. He has been gamble free now for almost 4 years, you do the math. Our marriage did not survive the horrible path he traveled on for so long and dragged our daughter and me along for the ride. We are still legally married for financial reasons but were able to create a kind of friendship, out of necessity mostly but it is working. Reading your posts it feels pretty much like talking to him these days. The changes he made are remarkable and he has become a whole different person altogether. I like to think that he has finally grown up and is now the man he was meant to be. I just had to say this because I know that a lot of cgs just “arrest” their addiction but stay pretty much in relapse **** even if they never gamble again in their life. I had to read a book called “The relapse syndrom” for my college classes and it opened my eyes really wide! Anywho, i root for you and your family, keep up the good work! Here is another idea how to get format your posts. I am using some microsoft program for my iMac and found out that it works just fine when I don’t use google chrome as a browser but firefox or safari instead. Maybe it helps? 🙂
Hi Madge, I’m so sorry that Murphy’s Law has struck you. Your post reminded me of the days where it seemed when I was hit by one blow after the other. When I found out that my hb had not filed taxes for many yrs and that I was guilty by association so to speak, I panicked. Our case was not as severe as yours but here is what I found out when I was trying to sort out the mess: There is something called “innocent spouse” claim. My record with the IRS was wiped clean by me stating that I had no idea what my hb had done. I had never participated in filing our taxes other than signing the form. Since he prepared the return and mailed it off (or not), I had no clue really what was going on. I was advised by the IRS to file my taxes separately from my hb and have done so ever since. It does not matter, if you have an income or not. It will be difficult and he will not be able to claim you in the future but at this point in time it is irrelevant I should think. There are people who are able to help you with all the legal issues, a tax lawyer comes to mind. Maybe it is worth checking this out before the proverbial feces hit the fan? BTW, my hb was able to reduce his final tax debt by 2/3 when he finally came to his senses and went to the local IRS office to lay the truth out for them. And it might be helpful to have any kind of evaluation/assessment re his gambling addiction and mental health issues in writing to help you prove your case if push comes to shove. Hope it helps.
Hi Madge, I talked to my hb today and here is some info you might find useful. The treatment center where he finally started his recovery is called A Soberway Home. They are located in AZ. I cannot copy the url from my computer, for some reason it never works. Their phone # is 877-917-6237. What I find very encouraging is that they have a program for cgs, based on CBT, which according to my hb meant for him to gain a lot of insight re all the issues he never really connected to his addiction. They also address dual diagnosis, as in multiple addictions and have mental health professional staff as well. It is an inpatient treatment where the patients basically learn how to live without gambling. As in basic skills from shopping for food to cooking their own food and taking care of their apartments. Might sound childish but is also very important. The counselors always emphasize that the addiction ***** to be treated first before mental health issues are addressed. The patients are told that it takes a minimum of 70 days to really truly commit to recovery. Like I said, every person and situation is different. What worked so amazingly well for my hb after over 40 yrs of gambling might not work for others. You might also be interested in the fact that the counselors work with the family back home as well. There are phone sessions and three way calls and such. I can only tell you what my hb had to say about the program of course, so it is 3rd hand info of course. But maybe worth a try. It is very hard to find the right counselor and/or the right treatment approach and I hope for you that you are successful. I can relate to most of what you post and wish you all the luck in the world.
Hi Madge, I read your posts and can relate to a lot of what you said. Just want to respond re inpatient treatment. It is very common for cgs to manipulate and fool their therapists. My hb did just that for many years. Maybe sharing his treatment history will give you a tiny bit of insight. He completed two inpatient programs, both lasted 30 days and were based on the traditional approach for addiction treatment. He says today that he said all the right things and did what was expected cz he quickly figured out how to pretend and to please the counselors. Nothing really sank in though according to him. It did not help of course that he went to treatment both ***** because I had given him an ultimatum. Before he went the second time, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on meds. Nothing changed in re to his addiction though. After relapsing the last time I decided that I was done for good and this time the decision to go to inpatient treatment was his own, finally. He spend 120 days in a facility that was specialized in cg treatment and the program was based on CBT. For him, this was the turning point. It took him a while but he embraced the therapy full heartedly this time. I can only speak for him but CBT really did the trick for him and he swears by it because he says that it completely changed his thought process and he learned how to change his pattern. Actually he also says that being away from his environment helped him a great deal. The counselors dug deep into all the issues that led him to develop the addiction in the first place and that was a big part in the recovery process for him. He also has a very high IQ and understanding what was going on with him was important. Cgs are some***** diagnosed with bipolar disorder because the addiction presents itself with severe **** swings. Being bipolar in the first place does not help when it comes to gambling because of the brain chemistry that affects people in a similar way. As for my hb, he never took another medication ever since his treatment started and he is fine now. It is a hard road to travel for everyone and every person is different. You might want to check out a gambling counselor named Chris Anderson on the net. He lives in Chicago I believe and I had the chance to listen to one of his presentations at a work shop for gambling counselors here in WA. He is a recovering gambler himself and he had some very amazing things to say about cg and therapy. Another thing you can look into is your state’s Council on Problem Gambling. These councils are a great source for all kind of information and help available in your area. Take good care of yourself and your kids, you guys should come first 🙂
I can’t help it, I have to write something now. Cg is considered an “Impulse control personality disorder” here in the US. It is described in the DSM IV (Diagnostic Statistical Manual) with signs and symptoms. The new DSM V is coming out soon (or did it already, I’m not sure) and to my knowledge CG will be included now as an individual disorder/addiction and not under the Impulse control umbrella. Just FYI.
Wishing you guys the best always.Hi BB, I have struggled with the formatting forever. Do you happen to use a Mac? I do and so I told myself why don’t you try another browser instead of google chrome? Chose firefox and what do you know, it shows a little tool bar for bolding and such. Haven’t tried it yet myself but it might work for you? Hope it helps…:)
Hi MnM, you got some really good replies so far. I just want to put my 10 cents in regarding self protection measures for you and your wife. Addiction doesn’t know friends from enemies so there is a good chance that your brother will do whatever it takes to get money to gamble. You mentioned that you and your wife both work so your brother will spend quite a bit of time alone in your home. Here are some things you might want to consider to prevent you from being taken to the cleaners. Secure your valuables, things like jewelry and such. A safe deposit box might help. Don’t ever leave any debit or credit cards out in the open where your brother could find them. Same goes for mail that contains personal or financial information. Make sure he can’t get a hold of your daily mail. A post office box is the best way to do this. It requires some thinking on your part to figure out where you guys might be vulnerable as far as money goes. Adele is right, you might never see the rent you agreed on if you don’t have a system in place making sure you really receive it. The more you and your wife know about cg the better before you have a rude awakening. I wish you all the luck in the world. 🙂