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Hi Hopeful
How much I appreciated your post.
You do deserve to be loved and treated as an equal – hopefully soon you can turn the miserable experience you have had into something good for yourself and your children. You are strong even if you don’t feel it yet. In my opinion, if being a little less tolerant means learning to say ‘no’ then it is a good thing to learn – something that many of us have had to discover the hard way.
Please don’t waste energy thinking that if you had done things differently the results for the CG, who has turned your life upside down, might have been better – you surrounded yourself with knowledge and you made an informed decision – you could not have been fairer, especially with two young children to protect. I am glad that Twilight has written to you, she offers a unique insight into what it is like to be the child of a CG.
Of course no one could, or should, judge you and if there are those that try then take comfort from knowing that unasked for criticism says more about them than about you. Give yourself time to rebuild your self-esteem and regain your confidence. Don’t waste your time trying to make sense of the senseless but enjoy finding yourself again – you certainly should like the person you find, she sounds very special to me.
Thank you for your post, I am sure it will help others.
VelvetHi Cathy
One of my favourite quotes is ‘success is not the result of spontaneous combustion; you must set yourself on fire first’.
I don’t know about new-age-ish but I do hope you can put guilt firmly behind you and take heart from the knowledge that you are standing up to your son’s addiction by not enabling it to grow further because of your actions.
I can hear you have lit the fire Cathy and I salute you – well done.
VelvetHi Hope
Well done joining this forum – I know it isn’t easy to pour everything out but you have made an excellent start and as you can already see there is judgement free support available.
Hope, I cannot tell you what to do because it is ‘your’ life but I can give you knowledge of your husband’s addiction so that you can make informed decisions. As Vera has indicated, it would be good to meet you in the F&F only group on Tuesdays between 20.00-21.00 UK time. In the group we can communicate in real time knowing that nothing that is said appears on this forum.
What has gone before cannot be changed but from now on it would be better if you didn’t threaten your husband with ultimatums that you might not be able to keep. The CG is the master of threats and when we back down on an ultimatum the addiction sees a weakness and seeks to use it.
Many CGs welcome help with their finances when they determine to live gamble-free but there is a difference between asking for support and having it thrust upon them.
Your husband’s addiction will probably be bouncing off the walls by now – he is blaming you because you are the nearest one to him, the person he thinks will give in to him and the person his addiction is telling him is the one denying him his so-called ‘pleasure’. As you have found, shouting, screaming, crying, pleading, tearing your hair out is useless against the addiction, it only wears you out – It is time to find another way to cope.
It is not recognized professionally but the following is a coping method that many of us have used at the beginning of our recovery to help us cope.
Imagine your husband’s addiction as a slavering beast in the corner of the room. As long as you keep your cool and don’t threaten that addiction it stays quiet, although it never sleeps.
Your husband is controlled by his addiction but you are not – even though it feels like it sometimes. When you threaten his addiction, it comes between you and controls the conversation or argument. His addiction is the master of threats and manipulation which you are not and nor do you want to be. Once the addiction beast is between you, you will only hear that addiction speak and because it only knows lies and deceit, it will seek to make you feel blame and demoralize you. When you speak the addiction distorts your words and your husband cannot comprehend your meaning – you might as well be speaking through water..
My CG explained it to me by saying that when I told him (for instance) that if he didn’t lie but lived honestly he would be happy, his addiction was distorting his mind convincing him that I was lying because he truly believed that he was unlovable, worthless and a failure – he was lost and fought back angrily because he didn’t have any other coping mechanism. The addiction to gamble only offers failure to those who sadly own it.
I believe F&F waste valuable time ‘wanting’ to believe that the CG they love is telling the truth and that ‘this’ time, maybe, he/she is different. I think it is good, although difficult, to not ‘try’ and believe the CG because in doing so you become receptive. If you can stand back a bit and listen to what your husband is saying, it becomes easier to not get caught up in an argument that has no point apart from making you feel less in control. Once you begin to try and put your side the addiction has something to get its teeth into.
This all sounds a little negative but the positive side is that it removes you from the centre of the addiction giving you time and energy to look after you. By looking after you first you will become stronger, you will reclaim your own life and be able to cope with your children and make the right decisions for your relationship. One of the best ways to win is not to play the game.
You are indeed young and it is unfair that this addiction has entered your life – however your husband did not want or ask for his addiction any more than you did. Having said that, you do need to protect your finances because you have young children to care for and your husband’s addiction does not want him to take responsibility, it is best therefore to put money in an account to which he has no access.
It is very lonely living with a CG and equally it is very lonely owning the addiction. Is your husband accepting that he has the addiction to gamble or is he still saying he knows what he is doing? If he does accept he has a serious problem then please encourage him to seek support from those who understand him as you and I cannot. In GA or in ‘My Forum’ on this site he will find other CGs who want to change their lives and who will support him, our helpline is excellent as are our CG groups.
I don’t imagine anybody living with this addiction has not felt their love turn to resentment – It certainly happened to me but I can tell you that I would not be writing here if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble can be controlled and wonderful lives lived as a result.
I hope you will feel less lonely now that you are in a forum where ‘you’ are understood.
Speak soon and ask anything you want to know – you will always be heard.
VelvetHow about a mushroom – because even though they grow in the dark they will have great versatility and goodness once the light bulb is switched on?
Hi Worried
It was good to see you post and to get your update.
This may sound like nit picking but I hope it will help. Your son has ‘slipped’ twice and that is not the same as ‘relapsed’. A relapse is a total re-immersion in the addiction but a slip implies a desire for change even if a true recovery is still slipping through his fingers. Recoveries have ups and downs. I know that many CGs never tell their loved ones when a true recovery starts – mainly because they don’t know themselves, having experienced slips along the way.
I have absolutely no idea why my CG changed his life when he did – I have no idea how often he attempted to control his addiction and did not succeed. What I do know is that he went to GA for a time and then ‘relapsed’ following which there was a long devastating period with him in the wilderness but I also know that when he finally did enter a true recovery, the time spent in GA had made a difference – he had never forgotten what he heard at his meetings even if, for him, rehab was the final answer.
I cannot know when your son will retake control of his life but having been to GA for 7 months he will have knowledge of his addiction that he would not have had before, he will have shared with others how he feels, he will have been understood and that will have made a difference, however small – even when it seems, to you, that he hasn’t listened at all. As long as he tries to get back on that horse and sometimes succeeds in hanging on – he has hope and as long as you support him as you have been doing he has a greater chance of success.
Judging by your post, your understanding is pretty perfect – living the perfection is probably impossible. In refusing enablement you are giving your son the finest love and the greatest hope for him to live gamble-free – well done.
Great positive post – I hope you update again sometime soon
VelvetHi Emma
Don’t try reading anything more into the words than ‘he is fine’ and ‘he is where they would expect him to be’.
The battle a CG has, when he/she is learning to control their addiction, in the early days, is a greater battle than I know I will ever have to face. The support workers and counsellors who are taking your partner through the programme understand his battle – they are dedicated to him – they can only hope that you look after yourself, which is what you are doing by asking questions here and learning about your partner’s addiction.
We take feeling ‘normal’ and living a gamble-free life for granted, something denied to the CG. I know only too well how difficult it is to be the one who is waiting but the length of the programme is a mere drop in the ocean compared to the rest of a CG’s life. I appreciate that my waiting is over but I know that for me and my CG a visit would have disrupted him, so whatever you are told, when you ask, always remember that they have to put your partner first – their duty of care has to be to him. Christmas is a little way off, by December you will hopefully be feeling more confident and your partner will be further on in his recovery. He will be learning to take one day at a time and it is a good way for us to live too..
You don’t say whether you have been to Gamanon or not but the following is a quote from the GA/Gamanon booklet which I found helped me immensely before, during and after rehab.“There are two days in every week about which we should not worry: two days which should be kept free from fear and apprehension.
One of these days is yesterday with its mistakes and cares, its faults and blunders, its aches and pains. All the money in the world cannot bring back yesterday. Yesterday has passed forever beyond our control. We cannot undo a single act we performed. We cannot erase a single word we said. Yesterday is gone.
The other day we should not worry about is tomorrow with its possible adversities, its burdens, its large promise or poor performance. Tomorrow is also beyond our immediate control.
Tomorrow’s sun will rise, either in splendour or behind a mask of clouds – but it will rise. Until it does, we have no stake in tomorrow, for it is yet unborn.
This leaves only; one day – TODAY. Any person can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burdens of these two awful eternities – yesterday and tomorrow – that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives people mad – it is the remorse or bitterness of something which happened yesterday and the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us, therefore, LIVE BUT ONE DAY AT A TIME.”It is lovely to hear you are concentrating on your little one – he/she will benefit from the strength that you are finding to cope at this time. Well done
Velvet