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Hello Felina

Thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy friends and family forum. This forum will provide you with warmth and understanding from your peers.

Feel free to use the friends and family group, you’ll find the times for these if you click on the “Group times” box on our Home page. Now that you have introduced yourself you’ll find that many of the people you meet here have already read your initial introduction and they’ll welcome you in like an old friend 🙂

If you’re the friend or family member of someone who is either in, or has been through, the GMA residential programme please take extra care to make sure that nothing you say in groups, or on our forums, inadvertently identifies that person. Even if your loved one isn’t connected with GMA, please don’t identify them either directly or indirectly just in case they decide to use the site themselves.

You’ll find a lot of advice on this site, some of which you’ll follow, some you won’t…but that’s ok because only you fully understand your
situation and what’s best for you and the people you love. So, take the support you need and leave the advice you don’t because it all comes from a caring, nurturing place 🙂

We look forward to hearing all about you!

Take care

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our

privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

[velvet]

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Hello DB and thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy forums

Here at Gambling Therapy we pride ourselves on being a caring and diverse online community who can help and support you with the difficulties you’re currently facing. We understand that this might be a tough time for you, particularly if you’re new to recovery, so come here as often as you need to and participate in the forums, access online groups and connect to the live advice helpline if you need one to one support. We’re in this together!

Here on the forum you can share your experiences in a safe, supportive and accepting environment. The beauty of writing it all down is that you can take your time and you will be creating a record of your progress that you can look back on if it ever feels like you’re not moving forward. So, share as much or as little as you like but do try to stick to keeping just one thread in this forum so people know where to find you if they want to be updated on your progress or share something with you.

And on that note….

I’m going to hand you over to our community because I’m sure they will have some words of wisdom for you 🙂

Take care

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our
privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

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Hi Eji
Welcome from me to GT, I hope you will find the support and knowledge of your son’s addiction here that will give you power over it to help you cope.
Please scotch immediately any unnecessary feelings of guilt about unwittingly feeding your sons addiction. The addiction to gamble is cunning, it uses deceit and secrecy to gain enablement and it needed you kept in the dark because knowledge of it could cause enablement to cease and you could safeguard yourselves against it – which has happened now, thankfully.
All the things you listed are common to the gambling addiction including causing you to believe that you are to blame. You have acted as good parents but now it is time to strengthen the boundaries around you that keep you safe and ultimately help him.
If your son has expressed willingness for you to handle his finances then that is good – although I have to warn you that his ability to put pressure on you to release funds could be pretty exhausting especially if he is only paying lip service as a knee-jerk reaction to having his secret discovered. While he is willing maybe you could put this into action asap.
Is his partner willing to continue her relationship with your son? If the answer is yes then please pass on all that you hear because the addiction is divisive and support for your son it is better when there is a unity among those who love him.
Clearing your son’s gambling debts is enablement – I say this not to judge but to make clear the boundaries required to help your son. Cash to a CG (compulsive gambler) is the same as giving a drink to an alcoholic. Lying for him and covering up feed his voracious addiction and I hope his partner will be relieved of doing so, now that she can share with you.
Maybe you could download the 20 Questions from the Gamblers Anonymous web site. It might help your son to realise he has an addiction that is recognised but for which there is great support.
I am going to leave this first post here and wait to hear from you again. There is so much to say and I know from experience that the early days of ‘knowing’ are very hard. It takes time to establish new controls and to change the natural habits of loved ones to bail out someone in distress. It takes time, I think, to even believe and take in much of what this addiction is all about.
I wouldn’t be writing to you if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble can be controlled and fantastic lives lived as a result of facing this unasked for and unwanted thing in your lives.
Velvet

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Dear Jenny
I am compelled to respond quickly in case you are reading today and I want to tell you that everything you have written has been heard.
I am in no doubts that your ex-husband is suffering and desperate but I am also in no doubt why this is so. I won’t belittle his threat of suicide because I know how potent such a treat is and how distressing it is for you to hear – it is the ultimate threat and of course we have all heard about people who take their lives when they are alone and unhappy – but – however sad or desperate his situation is, only he can change it – nothing you could say or do would make any difference. If it was me I would not retaliate angrily over such a threat but say something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry you feel like this but the answer is in your hands and not with me’.
I think the most telling thing about your ex is when the police called and found him in high spirits – not even just muddling along – and then by his own admission he says he has used his suicidal threats to get his way with you – it is hardly surprising the police were not impressed. I hope if there is a next time (and I agree with you it doesn’t look as though he is ready to control his addiction yet) that you will remember what the police found when they went to see him.
Jenny there is no way of knowing how low your ex can/will get but your final paragraph convinces me that you will withstand his addiction. He is flinging everything, bar the kitchen sink, at you but you are seeing past his tirades, you are seeing his addiction dictating his life – he is sad, he is suffering and desperate but you cannot save him and you have three children to protect.
Just imagine a company that would (or even could) write off £8000 with the economy as it is these days – I would need a massive pinch of salt for that one!! Listening to him is ok, filtering out what could be true is and not believing the stuff he says about you because you know it isn’t true, is more important.
Keep posting – you are doing well – and however tough it gets, always keep uppermost in your mind – you are stronger than this addiction.
Hogmanay is the big one for me too and here we still are
Hope to ‘see’ you on Tuesday.
V

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Hello Libertas and thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy forums

Here at Gambling Therapy we pride ourselves on being a caring and diverse online community who can help and support you with the difficulties you’re currently facing. We understand that this might be a tough time for you, particularly if you’re new to recovery, so come here as often as you need to and participate in the forums, access online groups and connect to the live advice helpline if you need one to one support. We’re in this together!

Here on the forum you can share your experiences in a safe, supportive and accepting environment. The beauty of writing it all down is that you can take your time and you will be creating a record of your progress that you can look back on if it ever feels like you’re not moving forward. So, share as much or as little as you like but do try to stick to keeping just one thread in this forum so people know where to find you if they want to be updated on your progress or share something with you.

And on that note….

I’m going to hand you over to our community because I’m sure they will have some words of wisdom for you 🙂

Take care

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our
privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

[velvet]

Hi Heatherly
Just a quick follow up to our official welcome post – I wanted to tell you that I understood your post completely and I would never tell you to leave or to stay with your husband. Hopefully exchanging posts with you and maybe meeting you in our F&F group next Tuesday, between 8 and 9pm, where we can communicate in real time, you will find the answers that you need to help you cope.
Unfortunately it is late and I am just off to bed and possibly unable to write to you again tomorrow but I will write again soon.
In the meantime, although I cannot tell you what to do because all decisions must be yours, it would good if you could open an account, that your husband had no access to, (and hopefully no knowledge of) in which you could save monies to protect yourself. How did he get access to the home loan money that you had saved?
Perhaps you could look up Gamanon meetings – Gamanon is the sister group of GA and is for family and friends of CGs (compulsive gamblers). I feel this would be particularly useful for you as you are feeling so lonely. To sit in a room and have physical contact with those who understand you is very powerful. I found my salvation in Gamanon. Always remember that groups are made up of individuals and if the first group you try is not right, don’t give up – try another.
I will leave my first post to you there but please be assured you are being heard and understood – you are not alone. I am no longer in the same position as you but I had many years of living with the addiction to gamble and I will gladly use my experience and knowledge to support you.
Avoid arguments which get you nowhere and I will explain why and how you can cope in my next post.
I have brought up my thread entitled ‘The F&F Cycle’ for you – I hope it will help you know that you are understood
Well done writing what must have been a difficult post – the first one is the hardest.
Velvet

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H Heatherly Espero que esto ayude

[velvet]

H Heatherly Hoppas detta hjälper

[velvet]

H Heatherly Mam nadzieję, że to pomoże

[velvet]

H Heatherly Espero que isso ajude

[velvet]

H Heatherly Toivottavasti tämä auttaa

[velvet]

H Heatherly Espero que isso ajude

[velvet]

H Heatherly Ik hoop dat dit helpt

[velvet]

एच हीदरली आशा है कि यह मदद करता है

[velvet]

H Heatherly Håber dette hjælper

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