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Hi Adele
You are doing so well putting information out about the site but you still have not answered my request for an update on ‘you’ and I know you have seen it because you found my post of 29th.
V
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Dear BB
I have brought this thread up because I am not sure whether all your posts have moved across in the transfer of the site and I don’t want to lose you. It might be that you just haven’t posted since August in which case an update would be brilliant.
I wont write more at the moment but I will wait in the hope that I hear from you soon.
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Thinking about you
V
Hi PF
In your last message you were; understandably, ready to throw in the towel. I think that Adele’s line in her last post ‘but we love them (our CGs) don’t we’ is not necessarily the bottom line in all relationships and of course this addiction can (and does) push many people to draw a line and say ‘enough’. I want you to be sure that whatever decision you make, or have made, will never be judged on this forum.
We are all individuals when all is said and done. Your top tips for loving an addicted person have possibly triggered a line of thinking for you. This forum is designed to support those who love CGs, to help them to find themselves again when the addiction to gamble has buffeted them around destroying their confidence and self-esteem.
Not every member has the outcome they wanted when they first posted. If, however, every F&F member who passes though, moves on with their head held high, ready for a future that is not over-shadowed by the addiction to gamble then this forum is a success. I always hope for more though than just a ‘moving on’ – I fervently hope that everybody who passes through ‘gains’ from their experience both with the addiction and from going through this forum.
I am a great beli ever in stripping the addiction of it’s victory. The 10 survival tips and all the repli es you have had from strangers, who care, are things you can use to make a better life for yourself.
Success is not the results of spontaneous combustion,. You must set yourself on fire first.
Speak soon
Velvet
Hi Jen
If you are still looking for support, please update. You have had a couple of excellent replies and it helps us to know if you found them supportive and/or if you acted on anything they contained.
Velvet
Hi Adele
I meant an update on ‘you’.
I saw elsewhere that you know your husband has been on the site.
This is ‘my’ experience and although I know that others have done the same, it is no way designed to be a statement of how it should be done. What you decide to do is entirely up to you. When a CG wants to use this site as a place to learn and talk about their addiction it can be useful if there is an agreement that the F&F loved one doesn’t read the CG’s posts. The reason being that CGs can, obviously, say things that are controversial because their memories don’t necessarily coincide with the truth and the F&F member, loved one, can feel the need to criticize or correct, thus removing the protection and freedom of speech that anonymity offers. I do know that many CG do read the F&F forum and I also know they can find it very painful but generally speaking, I think, this is not as problematic as the other way round. A CG ‘can’ use the forum as a means of manipulation and I am definitely not saying that this is inevitable.
I hope that makes sense – but if it doesn’t you know where to come to and how to post your question.
Velvet
Hi San
The drama of the addiction – how scary it can be. Many of us have heard such threats and been afraid, which is what the addiction determined we should be. No matter how many t imes we hear such threats they will always frighten us.
I really, really do understand when you say you are sick of it – unfortunately mothers can seldom walk away or even separate themselves, unscathed.
You are doing well though and I hope you can keep control of that lid. It would be good if you could let of some steam and I hope you can do it with somebody who will help you mop up the condensation when you have done so. Make sure there are many times in the day when you do not allow your thoughts to go to this addiction – deprive it of the air it sucks out of you.
The addiction will take you all the way to the bottom if you allow it and you will help nobody if this happens. You are important, never forget that. Your health and happiness are the greatest protection from the addiction and also the greatest support to the CG struggling with the addiction.
I hope to see you in a group soon and I hope you soon get the pick-me-up you need.
V
Dear Adele
What can I say? Your advice is invaluable and everything you have written has been noted.
I have one further observation and that is that asterisks are often bleeping out words that do not warrant being bleeped out. Until this can be sorted I suggest putting a space in the word. Anything with the letters l i e following each other are being bleeped so words like bel ieve and famil ies are being bleeped.
I too believe this site will be terrific once some teething problems are sorted.
Thanks again Adele
Velvet
Hi Shelly
It would be great to get an update.
I hope your husband has contacted a helpline, those who have replied to you about this are right – he will be understood the minute he communicates.
Speak again soon
Velvet
Hi Tootal
I know how tough it is to become estranged from a loved one because of the addiction to gamble but it is often the only way to get the space and time to think clearly without the addiction swirling around inside your head. Know that ‘you’ are very important.
Unless people have lived with the addiction to gamble, their opinions can be very narrow and not supportive so personally I think it is best to tell others as a statement rather than asking for or allowing opinions. You can gather information here so that you can make your own informed decisions with that knowledge but it is better to get good support than to be alone. Even after years of understanding I still get the blank look when I try and pass on information about this addiction – some people will never begin to make the effort to understand and would certainly argue – why should they?
Is the counsellor your husband is going to see aware of the addiction to gamble?
I think it is fine to answer your husband’s texts as long as they are kind and good texts, free of manipulation.
To be the best support Tootal, look after yourself first. Your husband will struggle with responsibility for you, as he is unable to take responsibility for himself at the moment. Your husband will be suffering from low self-esteem and lack of confidence because the addiction he owns only brings him failure. If you look after you, when he can face his demons and changes his life, you will not be part of the wreckage of his addiction. CGs do not hurt their loved ones deliberately, they are driven by triggers that are destructive.
I am not surprised your feelings are all over the place and I understand only too well that you do love your husband. I admire the stance you have taken but it would be wrong of me to suggest that just by separating from him, will bring his mind to reason. He has a lot of work to do and you, for your part, need to be strong. Do things for yourself at this time that maybe the addiction has stopped you doing, rekindle old hobbies and interests, see friends (to talk about anything but addiction), go out for a meal, explore nature and make sure that whatever you do gives you pleasure. It might not seem a lot but I know it is hard to break your mind away from an addiction that has consumed ‘your’ mind for 24 hours a day for years. Time away from the addiction controlling your thoughts is time well spent and will help you and ultimately your husband.
You have said you want to give your husband the opportunity to fix himself but equally you need an opportunity to find you again because your self-esteem and confidence will probably also be low as a result of your husband’s addiction.
I look forward to getting an update. You are among those who understand Tootal and who will never judge. I wouldn’t be writing here if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble can be controlled and wonderful lives lived as a result.
Well done on the way you are handling your situation
Velvet
Hi Chedum
You have had a few great repl ies and it would be really good to get an update. It is very difficult to give ongoing support without feedback and we do want to support you.
Your boyfriend is showing all the symptoms of the addiction to gamble and ‘if’ the therapist did say that which your boyfriend reported back, then that therapist was ignorant of the addiction. I say ‘if’ because lying is symptomatic of the addiction and your boyfriend was possibly trying to increase his manipulative arsenal. The addiction to gamble is the master of threats and all words from an active CG are, in my opinion, generally subject to embellishment.
The apologies, tears and promises to change, are all part of the cycle of compulsive gambling. I am not judging because we are all in the dark, at the beginning, with this addiction but I am glad to read you are not accompanying him anymore.
I cannot tell you what to do but many F&F hang in bel ieving, as you do, that their loved one will sink deeper if they are not there for them. I will never tell you to go or to stay, all ultimate decisions have to be yours but you cannot save your boyfriend or stop him gambling – there is only one person you can control and save and that is you. It is possible for a person who loves a CG to keep them in their addictive cycle doing everything wrong for all the right reasons, unwittingly enabling the addiction. As I said I cannot judge – I unwittingly enabled for 25 years.
The addiction to gamble is not embarrassing or shameful – it is a condition that devastates those who own it and those who love them.
Please don’t cut your family out. The addiction to gamble unfortunately divides famil ies by feeding on l ies and secrecy. Unless people have lived with the addiction to gamble, their opinions can be very narrow and not supportive. Personally I think it is best to tell others as a statement rather than asking for opinions. You can gather information here so that you can make your own informed decisions with that knowledge but it is better to share – especially as your boyfriend is endangering your future as well as his own.
I am really glad that you wrote your first post, it is a lonely life dealing with someone with this addiction but on this forum you are among those who understand.
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Velvet
Hi Madge
I am concerned that I might be repeating myself but I am sorry I am trying to catch up and don’t have time to look back. Unfortunately the new site has not learned that asterisks are not necessary for the letters ‘l i e’ so I have edited and hopefully this post will make sense.
You ask ‘WHY WHY does he have to l i e?’ It all starts, I bel ie ve, because the CG is emotionally immature. Like a child, when your husband was caught out in bad behaviour he would have l ie d to cover for something he had done but did not understand. It is quite likely that the person to whom he l ied backed off because the l i es were so extreme, unnecessary and imaginative. The CG’s inability to reason and rationalise causes them to use l i es again as a coping mechanism – how else can they explain the irrational. This goes on and on until it becomes the norm for the CG. After years the CG has no memory that is a true memory, their memory is all wrapped up and encased in a mesh of l i es. The CG’s l i es become their truth.
However, knowing all this will not help you stop crying. I do relate to your feeling of going crazy, I can relate to everything you have described. I know you are not crazy and you are not pathetic but I know how vivid these feelings are to you and I bel i eve that ‘you’ need physical support. It is amazing how long the rope is, even when you feel that you have been dangling on the end of it for as long as you can remember, just dangling there is enough to destroy your confidence.
I think that San’s suggestion of a break for you is good, cutting the rope and allowing yourself some space – is it difficult with your children?
In my opinion, your husband is not responding as he should and I am not surprised you have a problem with intimacy.
Have you seen anything positive coming out of his visits to therapists?
Sometimes Madge, estrangement is the only way forward but I am not suggesting that is definitely so for you. It is important, I think, that you have time and space to think quietly what it is that you want. You are not being given that time living in the middle of your husband’s addiction; I suspect you are only hearing white noise. It might be that your husband does not truly want to change his life, if might be that he cannot. It might even be that unwittingly and through no fault of your own, you are cushioning him against changing his life – a break from the intensity would help.
I appreciate the depth you feel at, at the moment and the feeling of being unable to function properly. I hope it helps to know that others have been where you are now and they are there no longer. Try and make it possible for ‘you’ to have the chance to think. You can do it Madge. The Mixed Martial Arts fighter is there. Dig deep and make a push towards freeing you up.
You can do it
V
Dear San
I have read Adele’s reply to you and I am in the dark about your posts from the 15th that didn’t make it in the transfer. It it appears that the worry you had, might have been sorted but please write about it again if you still have concerns.
I was pleased to see that you said ‘we’ got a phone call which tells me you are sharing and not dealing with this on your own.
Anger and disgust are understandable and I think every one on this site feels the same about the addiction regardless of which forum they are in. Sadly your son may be a fair way off from sorting himself out and I know how stretched those loving feelings can get. We shy away in the real world from saying the unmentionable that is screaming around in our head but I know that being a loving mother is not always the feeling being enjoyed. You can love your son and even be afraid that you might not but you definitely do not love his addiction. I know that sometimes it is impossible to see the difference but as I have said before there will never be (and could never be) any judgement here.
If you think you figure in the reasons for your son’s poor behaviour and his gambling then, in my opinion, it would good to talk about it.
I don’t think your son would have recognised that you were low; it probably just felt like he did because you were feeling down. Write your positive headlines when you are strong and then bank them for when you are not on top, they will help you cope.
Example of what not to say: ‘I am getting paid’.
Example of what to say: ‘I don’t have any money to spare’.
Unfortunately one of the blips on the site at the moment is the use of asterisks in the wrong place and I don’t know the word you have used in your post following ‘chemotherapy’ but you have said it will increase your energy levels so hopefully that will make you more positive about the way you feel.
I am having a bit of catching up to do but hopefully I will be on top soon. I can see that you are coping with your replies and I think the new forum will be great once we stop hankering for the familiar old format. The support and care is still the same regardless.
Are you enjoying the new job?
Speak soon
V
Dear Ell
I wrote you a long post and then I I didn’t post it but I am glad that I did not. You have written again and you have made your leap of faith. You had been afraid to look past the shadow and now you have. We can’t make the shadows disappear but we can look for the light and you have.
Look at the difference those three little words have made Ell and imagine how much more joy will come as you both say them again and again.
Forgetfulness, not in the sense of repressed memory but in the sense of deliberately refusing to allow the past to ruin your life, is a perfectly respectable and often efficient way of achieving mental equilibrium.
I believe that those who love active CGs do not think further than the day they stop gambling, indeed, I was told, by a counsellor when my CG went into recovery that I did not need support anymore. Personally I believe you need immense support in the early days until a balance is reached and that is where you are.
This support is vastly different to the support an F&F member ***** when living with an active CG , when looking for the light often leads to denial of the addiction – you are 100% aware Ell. Your husband has been living gamble-free and what is more his behaviour has been that of a loving husband and in my opinion he deserves to be loved.
Will next year be better? Oh I think so and I will look forward to hearing how you both a progressing.
Let go of the fear of failure. Whenever you feel anxious stop what you are doing and slowly bring your hand to your heart area. Let it rest there gently for two breaths; notice how you begin to feel more confident. You can, of course, always write on our new forum which is having a few problems but is still, at the core, the same caring place to be.
Fantastic post Ell
V
Dear Adele
Thank you for sticking with us – we are indeed having teething trouble and unfortunately due to sickness some cannot as yet be ironed out.
I have made a note of all your comments and I will pass them on.
Now you have found the way to get a post in the right place, it would be great if you updated.V