[velvet]

Hi Evelyn

I am so pleased you wrote your first post even though it was so very difficult for you.

The first thing I want you to do is to stop blaming yourself, there is no book to tell you how to cope with this addiction when it comes uninvited into your life and until there is, friends and family will enable because the addiction is the master of manipulation.

This is a very short reply but I wanted to get let you know as quickly as possible that you were being heard. I will write again tomorrow and hopefully support you more constructively.

I would really like for you to come into a Friends and Family Group – they are on Tuesday and Thursdays between 19.00-20.00 UK time. We could communicate in real time; I always feel it is like we are sitting together chatting with no holds barred.

Velvet

[velvet]

Hi G

What a great thread to read on a Monday morning.

I was so pleased to see you pass the 365-day count as one of the dangers of counting can be a feeling of having achieved a goal, allowing the complacency-devil to wheedle its way in. A gamble-free ‘life’ is what it says on the tin, a whole future of freedom and control,

Well done – you are a joy to read

Velvet

[velvet]

Hi Margie

Thank you for coming back to help others.

I believe that when we seek help and examine the reasons why we feel we have been affected by our parents in a bad way, we have the ability to choose what happens next; we can retake control of our own lives or we can allow the bad things to keep us from progressing.

In answer to your general question regarding professionals who work with people who have experienced fallout from gambling, I approached a counsellor, a doctor and a psychiatrist when I needed understanding and I found none who offered any support, in fact the opposite was true – their ignorance drove me to even more unimaginable depths. Fortunately there are more dedicated addiction counsellors nowadays who have learned how to support families of gamblers. For me, however, it was one woman in Gam-Anon who changed my life and saved me; she had experienced the fall out you speak of and not only had she survived she had gone on to help others – I felt as though she had waited for me.

You are now in that position, you have experienced living with the addiction to gamble affecting your life, you have survived and you are an author.

Doing nothing, changes nothing – you are doing something, you have come back and told others where to find support and that is fantastic. Maybe, through your books you can do even more.

I believe you have made the decision to live your own life on your own terms and that makes me immensely happy and I thank you for that.

As Ever

Velvet

• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by velvet.
• This reply was modified 3 years, 12 months ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hi Sad

If he cannot deflect his anger on you, his ex and closest target, then who can he blame – certainly not himself, that would be to take responsibility for his behaviour and he is not willing to do that – yet.

I do hope you can make a group; I ‘spoke’ to Lind last week and she may pop back in again – I believe she is watching your thread.

Velvet

[velvet]

Hi wewinwhenwedontplay

You are neither a failure nor stupid; you have an unwanted addiction and you have struggled to take control of it for any great length of time, there is no shame in that, you deserve understanding.

If I have read your post correctly, It seems to me that your mother has, inadvertently, by expressing pride in your siblings, caused you to believe that you matter less. In my opinion, this comes from thoughtlessness, due to her ignorance of addiction and not from any failure on your part. Put feelings of guilt away, they are unnecessary and only hold you back. If, when you talk to your mother about being unable to pay for this or that at the moment,maybe if your mother was willing, you could direct her to this site – our Helpline and our Friends and Family section, are here for her.

‘You’ matter and at the moment you are unable to provide for your mother but you have siblings who can – in my opinion it is time for you to put yourself first and look after you. Gambling is never going to allow you to be the man you want to be.

This is a great forum for you to keep a journal and watch your own progress. Complacency is the biggest danger in recovery, hopefully by posting regularly you can you gauge where you are on your journey and stop hurting yourself further. There will always be others willing to support who understand.

You have written that you have quit many times but it takes only one quit, one leap of faith to make a true recovery. You are only 30 so you have many years ahead of you to happily, live gamble-free, in control of your addiction, or you can continue to feel as you do now. You have a choice and I know what I hope you will do.

Keep posting

Velvet

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by velvet.
• This reply was modified 4 years ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hi Cruising

Keep posting and please keep visiting F&F whenever you want to do so, you are welcome.

You did nothing to deserve the burden you are carrying; you didn’t ask for it, you didn’t want it; there is nothing to be ashamed about in owning it and nobody should blame you, including yourself.

Keep visualising the outcome that ‘you’ want. Nothing else and nobody else matters as much as ‘you’.

True, lasting recoveries do start; I know; I’ve seen them and heard them and they are wonderful. I know you can do it. I have been watching your progress and I am willing you on.

Velvet

[velvet]

Hi Lind

I hope you come back to this page because I would really like to ‘talk’ to you.

You are in the middle of a divorce which is a painful place to be but in this forum you will find understanding for ‘you’. ‘You’ matter and you deserve to feel safe and secure.

I cannot support you on someone else’s thread so maybe you could start your own thread and allow me to share thoughts, ideas and experiences with you or perhaps you could come into a Friends and Family group and ‘talk’ to me in real time.

Whatever you decide to do, I wish you a peaceful future out of the shadow of addiction.

Velvet

[velvet]

Hi Sad

I think you probably know the answers to your questions but wish that you didn’t.

Has your husband ever sought help for his addiction, does he even accept that he has a problem?

There is help for him Sad and it is possible for him to learn to control his addiction and live a wonderful gamble-free life but he has to accept and seek the help.

‘If’ you lent him the money to cover his gambling debts, it is a sad fact, I would go so far as to say a certainly, that he would see it as a green light to carry on gambling, deluded by addiction into believing that only in gambling will he ever escape reality. I doubt you would ever see that money again. A compulsive gambler does not think of money in the same way as you or me – money, to a gambler, is a means to an end and the end is ‘the gamble’. Your husband cannot win because he cannot walk away from ‘the gamble’ and it has nothing to do with money.

In my opinion, your husband should seek help from dedicated therapists and counsellors – on this site we are able to offer both and also to offer direction to other forms of support. We have, for instance, got the most amazing rehab facility in the UK, Gordon Moody. We also offer a fantastic Helpline that would willingly support your husband, they understand the addiction and they will also understand the desperation he is feeling right now. We have ‘gambler only’ support groups facilitated by Charles who will understand all that your husband is going through.

Many gamblers feel that nobody can understand them, they do not want to behave as they do but they do not know how to stop. Your husband is far from alone but he will probably think that he is.

I believe that giving him money, with conditions, will have achieve nothing apart from creating more debt. Your husband probably believes that he can sort his problem out with just one more loan, he would probably promise anything to get one but sadly, the word of a compulsive gambler counts for very little.

I would like very much if you could join me in a Friends and Family group where we could ‘talk’ in real time.

I am going to leave this initial reply and hopefully hear from you again soon. I would not be talking to you Sad, if I thought that your husband could not change his life but I know that he can.

I know he can be the man you want him to be and the man he would want to be. It takes dedication and hard work but if can be done.

You did well writing this first post, it can’t have been easy.
Speak soon

Velvet

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hello

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

Read about the friends and Family Groups Online Groups

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! </strong

[velvet]

Hi lj

I too am sorry that there is so little traffic in this forum at the moment but I look at it everyday and I find myself smiling when I read your recent posts. I know that many people read the forum without joining in.

I think it is great that your husband ‘asked’ you if he could do some squares and didn’t just do them without telling you. Complacency is the biggest danger a gambler faces when he first starts achieving his gamble-free life and you have understood that. It is a massive step when a gambler will ‘discuss’ a gambling thought, without acting on it first, it implies that he trusts you and as I think I have said before it is important that he learns to trust.

I didn’t realise how big a step I was taking when I realised that the gambler in my life needed to trust me – I had always assumed he automatically must do so. In early recovery he couldn’t know whether I was thinking about all that had gone before, ready to criticise and point out his faults, or whether I too, was embracing his recovery and my own.

I trust the gambler in my life to protect the recovery that he has fought so hard to get and I find I can live with that thought, very comfortably.

Talking calmly isn’t always easy when the gambling conversation arises in the early days – it takes a long time for it to be a subject like any other, just a conversation that doesn’t cause concern. I know it can happen though which is why I am here.

I like the expression that, ‘you have made your partner part of your recovery’ and I hope you will not mind but I can hear myself using it in the future.

Keep going as you are lj, you are doing great.

Speak soon

Velvet

• This reply was modified 4 years ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hi Lj

I am looking forward to hearing how your husband got on today, although many gamblers do not want to share at the beginning. The hard truths are difficult for them to process and many prefer to take time to inwardly digest what they have heard. This can be frustrating but is fairly common. I hope the counsellor impressed on him the need for accountability.

I don’t think there is anybody on this site who would not understand your frustration with gambling advertisements. However, in my opinion, they were not the reason your husband gambled after he told you he would quit – he gambled because he felt he needed to, the excuse would probably have come after the gamble along with the regret. A gambler will give a million excuses why he/she gambled and although I am glad that you are seeing his innate goodness, it is important to be careful with sympathy.

A coping mechanism that you may find useful and which many Friends and Family have found helpful, is to imagine your husband’s addiction is a ravenous, slavering beast in the corner of the room. Your husband is controlled by that beast but you are not. As long as you keep your cool and don’t threaten it the beast will be quiet but it never sleeps.

Never forget that although your husband is controlled by addiction, you do not have to be. When you threaten the addiction beast, it can come between you and control the conversation or argument. It is the master of threats, manipulation and false promises but you are not and nor should you have to be.

The addiction beast speaks with lies and deceit and it may seek to make you feel blame and demoralize you. When you speak it can distort your words. Instead of hearing that you love him or that you want to help him, the beast is telling him that you must be lying because surely, you cannot love someone so unworthy and unlovable as him. The addiction to gamble only offers failure and negativity to those who sadly own it.

I believe F&F waste valuable energy ‘wanting’ to believe that the gambler they love is telling the truth and that ‘this’ time, maybe, he/she is different. I think it is good, although difficult, to try and not believe too early because in doing so you can become receptive to manipulation. If you can stand back and just listen to what your husband is saying without necessarily believing, it becomes easier 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 beast 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.

If your husband accepts treatment then everything that you do now towards keeping yourself healthy will give him the support he will need. If you are in control of your life then he need not feel guilt, which will not help him.

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.

Speak soon

Velvet

–

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hi lj

I understand your anger and disappointment but please don’t take his behaviour personally. He would not have thought about the consequences of his gambling because his judgement is clouded by an addiction that he neither wanted nor asked for. Nobody would choose to have a gambling addiction. Neither of you are to blame.

When his family gave him money. they were feeding his addiction – but they were not to know. You are getting knowledge now that they do not have and I hope you will share it with them because there is no need to feel guilt or shame. Your husband appears to have family members who care but they don’t know what to do. Maybe you could all get together and discuss forming a united front. Many people do this and find it successful. It stops individual members of the family doing all the wrong things for all the right reasons. The gambler can also feel the power of the united front, willing to support, whist refusing to enable.

Accepting an addiction is a big step and I hope he goes to his counsellor with a determination to change. It is important, in my opinion, that he knows he can live a gamble-free life. It will take courage but he can do it – if it wasn’t so I would not be here writing to you now.

I understand your feeling that you may need counselling. Harbouring feeling of anger, guilt and aggression will eat into you, they will wear you down leaving you unable to cope. I know because it happened to me.

I hope this will help – I lived with a gambler for 25 years. When I became aware of the addiction and what it meant, I thought I would need counselling but talking to people who had ‘been there’ and not only been there but come out the other side, gave me the strength I needed. I am not alone in saying that this dreadful experience has made me a better person – I was determined that the addiction was not going to take any more from me, it was not going to define me. I am sure that makes no sense to you at all at the moment but I am hoping that in time it will.

Would you be willing to take over the finances? A gambler who really wants to live gamble-free will often welcome this support. Money will almost certainly not mean the same to your husband, as it does to you. Money provides the means to gamble and the ‘gamble’ itself is the goal – sadly your husband’s addiction means he cannot walk away from the gamble until it is too late. He will always lose.

Please keep posting. Think about what it is that ‘you’ really want because ‘you’ matter.

Velvet

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hello Craig 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.

As well as the forums New Members are invited to join Charles in the New Members Practical Advice Group On Mondays at 21:00 (UK) and Thursday at 19:00(UK)

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 lj50
I’m so pleased that you found us – I know how awful it is to be in such a terrible position with nobody to talk to.
I appreciate all of your words but I hope you will feel less humiliated when we have talked more because there is nothing for you to be ashamed about. You did not ask for nor did you want this experience but there was nothing that you could have done or said that would probably have made any difference. You cannot save your husband, only he can do that. If he accepts that he has a serious problem and seeks the right help, he can turn his life around – I know because I have seen it and heard it many times.
I cannot tell you that if you do a, b, or c then things will change but hopefully, by giving you knowledge of the addiction to gamble it will enable you to make informed decisions that are right for you. At the moment you are on the back foot and feeling out of control – it is important that you know that you can take control of your own life again.
Your husband did not deliberately do this to you and his family lj. Probably a long time ago he placed a bet, as millions do every day, without any harm coming to them. Your husband was not to know that an addiction to gamble was to be his lot until it was too late. I doubt that he is the man he would like to be, the man you want him to be. He probably feels alone, frightened and misunderstood; he probably has little or no self-respect or self-confidence; he will not know which way to turn because all his addiction befuddled mind tells him to do, is to gamble more, that only in gambling will he find his answer. The addiction to gamble is not about money, the only thing that matters is the gamble.
I want to hear that your husband is getting treatment, not talking about it; words and promises are meaningless from a gambler. I appreciate how degraded you feel getting physical support from you brother-in-law but please do not turn support away. Is your brother-in-law willing to learn about addiction and how to cope, will he help you to direct your husband to the right support? This site offers tremendous support to gamblers and there are dedicated addiction counsellors and therapist, GA and rehabs. We also have an excellent Helpline here which is available for you and/or your husband – it is one to one and private; your husband will be understood and supported, as will you. It is important that your brother-in-law knows that giving money to his brother is enabling his addiction, feeding it will only make it worse – it’s the same as giving a drink to an alcoholic. Plain food on the table is not enabling – cash is.
It is a lot to take in and I do want to get a reply to you quickly so that you know you are being heard. I appreciate that the forum is very quiet at the moment, Covid and Christmas are filling the thoughts of most people.
This might not seem much of an answer to you lj but I promise you it can make a tremendous difference and whatever your outcome, it will help you cope in the future. I want to you put yourself first, look after your children and have fun with them, see friends and get support even if they don’t understand and keep posting. Maybe you could join a Friends and Family group so that we can ‘talk’ in real time – the ability to ask questions and get instant replies has been beneficial to so many. Nothing said in a group appears on the forum, it is safe and private.
No amount of worry, lost sleep, threats with change anything. If you lose your health due to worry then you will not be able to help yourself or your children or your husband.
There is a lot more I could say but for now I will send this and await your reply
I will walk with you for as long as you want me to. Please keep posting.
Velvet

• This reply was modified 4 years, 1 month ago by velvet.

[velvet]

Hello lj50

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

Read about the friends and Family Groups Online Groups

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!

[Author]

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