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So glad to hear you told your mam and that she “got it”, I-Did-It!
Sadly, it most likely means that she herself is a latent CG.
Asking her to go to a meeting with you is a long shot. As you well know, that needs to come from the CG her/himself. Perhaps your mam doesn’t have the necessary “desire to stop gambling”. It will certainly made your visits home less stressful. You are making marvelous progress. It’s not about the number of G free days ONLY. It’s what we do in our G free time that counts. The main thing that is evident in your recent posts is the change in mindset. That speaks volumes.
When I “came out” initially, I told several people. I realized afterwards that my indiscretion backfired. I should have zipped my mouth and only told the people who needed to know.
From experience, I can say most people don’t want to know our “issues”. In an effort to appear open and honest I repeated my “issue” ad nauseam and people actually avoided me as a consequence. This in turn sent me back to the casino to bury my embarrassment.
I will short list the people who “got it”. My brother was my main source of support. He said “If you ever need to talk , you know where I am”. One nephew said something similar…………yes, that’s about the length of my list.
My “nearest and dearest” paid all the bills, gave me money, kept his mouth shut (as far as I know)but didn’t give me any emotional support. Indeed when I self excluded from two casinos (my comfort zones) in 2008 he gave me a card containing €200!
I do understand completely what you mean about waiting to have your misdeeds “slapped up”. That has been the story of my life. Its a mixture of mistrust and disloyalty and , yes, I do agree that this will drive a person with a gambling “weakness” to a place where we “find solace”. This creates a huge void in a relationship.
My adult children paid lip service to my “recovery” but I really think, because my gambling didn’t affect them directly they didn’t want to be too involved. My youngest son used my gambling to deflect from his own issues and would throw abuse at me but only “from the mouth out”. his reaction affected me badly initially but his continued absence (his choice) has resolved things pro tem.
One of my sisters feigned sympathy but had no difficulty ridiculing me in company and when I glared at her she just passed it off as a joke. Another sister said “O dear, how dreadful for you” but despite being told I was (am) in serious debt, she still talks about her disappointment at my failure to attend her son’s wedding.
In short, you can’t win!!
To be honest I-Did -It, my attitude now is I really don’t give a cock’s tonsils who knows what. I have never met a 100% squeaky clean person in my life . Ever.
The only people who really “get it”are other CGs. I was astounded when I first attended GA at how open these men were /are at discussing even emotional issues. Some members I have grown to trust and some I won’t ever trust, so when I attend GA, I play my cards close to my chest , as I do here on GT.
Openness and honesty are the key but in my book prudence supersedes both!Please accept my sincere condolences on the death of your sister, Micky.
That is very sad.
May she rest in peace.
Take time to grieve.PS
I suggest every CG should open a savings account (that has a time lock on it!)
Even if you save a fiver a week, it will set up a sort of “Balance and Loss account” in your mind.
It certainly helps me.
Life is then not all about “paying back debt”.
Just a suggestion. Not a rule!P, the only time I get an “urge”. I prefer to call it a thought/desire, is when the “addiction” knows it can get satisfaction.
I think you will understand that?
The analogy I use is “if I stop putting a saucer of milk on the doorstep , the stray cat will go elsewhere looking for a feed”.
On a hopeful note, my six figure debt is now down to four figures and my Fund has flipped to 5 figures
but,
really the money is secondary…………..A CG is powerless over gambling O N L Y when he/she places the first bet.
Like a drug addict with a needle in the vein, we then lose all sense of responsibility.
TODAY, you and I , Monica are 100% “at fault” if we decide to exercise our free will and decide to gamble.
My mind is very clear on that.You haven’t shown this lady one ounce of kindness.
You are using her for your own needs.
I think that is very cruel, to be honest!
YOU NEED HELP.
She will survive very well without you.
There is a name for ladies of her ilk but I won’t use it here!
Paying her to spend time with you might enlighten you.
You need to grow up!!!Change nothing, IDI, until you are 90 days free of gambling. That’s my tuppence worth.
Very Freudian, Monica!!!!!!!
Walnut “whip” not “whirl”, I d I!
BIG difference….slurp!!!I love walnut whips….
you are not a caged animal Monica.
Why not move to another room in the house , if even for one hour every day.
I know you are depressed so it is easier to stay in one spot. I do that too. Like Pete, my old man throws me “titbits”. 3 course meals, actually.
We are “spoiled”in the true sense of the word!Every day that passes by, takes us a day further away from the bet but also means we are a day older…nearer to the “hasbeen” stage. All the more reason none of us is free to waste time gambling.
I used to think “I don’t want to grow old in the casino”, but when I looked in the mirror I knew I had grown old. Very old! Gambling ages us. There is no doubt about that. The stress, strain, grief, borrowing, wheeling and dealing not to mention the distances that I drove.
Do I want to do all that again? All for the sake of a “buzz” that didn’t even exist in the end? Sometimes I get vague flashbacks, happy memories, “magic moment” images. Mainly thoughts of walking through the door and placing a note in the “slot”. Sick thoughts , that I never dwell on. It takes a long long time for the human brain to obliterate images and memories.
I think that every CG has “another bet in him/her” . I have heard men in GA telling how they went back gambling after 20 years. They did it by choice. None of us ever woke up in the bookies or in the casino, real or virtual.
Yes, I did put some effort into not gambling, I-did-it but not half as much as I put into gambling . The strides I went to so that I could spend endless hours in a casino would be considered incredible if not deranged to a non gambler. I remember telling you I was standing at the gate waiting for the “agent” to arrive with a high interest loan….and I would vow and swear “not this time will I gamble one cent” and the following day I would be screaming at myself and pulling my hair out literally asking why, w h y WHY did I do it AGAIN???!!! And so it continued until I just could not take any more.
I honestly don’t think I have another recovery in me.
I drove into the train station today…couldn’t get the parking meter to work. Took a number off the wall with the intention of phoning when I got on the train to pay the fee to keep clampers away…pushed my way through the crowds alighting six other trains. Saw the train on the platform. “Portlairge” . Elbowed the ticket guy to let me through saying “I’ll get my ticket on the train” only to be told “The train doors are closed love, can’t let you through”. I gave him an evil look and came back to the car park only to find the car two up from mine, clamped. I would have been next…I hate missing trains. I hate being clamped even more.
Is this RECOVERY?
When I gambled I got loads of parking tickets and on more than one occasion got locked in underground car parks that I would have entered “for an hour” at 2pm only to return at 2am. In the past I would have driven straight to a casino because “missing a train means I am entitled to gamble”. Not today. Today I came home…only to be greeted with an earful from “himself”for being so stupid and irresponsible and selfish (the car I was driving is not taxed) Again, a “reason” to gamble and “sort him out”.
..NAW!!
Not today. Too much effort.
I still didn’t collect the money even though I drove past the place where I know it is.
Maybe tomorrow.When we feel we have been treated unjustly, the best we can do is confront the injustice and talk it out with the people concerned.
Take notes. Contemporaneous notes are crucial if the injustice is of a legal/professional nature.
Not dealing with an injustice often means we allow it to build up in our mind. We imagine the worst case scenarios . Everything becomes magnified. And we find bitterness creeping in. The best cure for bitterness is to prevent it entering in the first place. When it takes hold we need to go back to the drawing board. Forgive the person who treated you unjustly for a start. Holding on and replaying the situation in our imagination will solve nothing. On the contrary, it will add to the resentment and increase the bitterness.
Writing is therapeutic.
Tears can bring healing.
Gambling masks many things and solves nothing.…to winning or losing.
I can relate to that 3raser, towards the end I was totally NUMB!
I think at this stage it means that gambling has taken over completely.
No buzz.
No pleasure,
No pain.
No reaction.
Just like a zombie.
Time to reclaim your true self, one day at a time.
Don’t bother looking up the meaning of recovery.
Just postpone the next bet.
If you were hemorrhaging would it be your priority to discover the cause?
Stop the hemorrhage.
Stop the gambling.
Just for today.
When you start recovery, you will know. You won’t have to do any research .It would be good to have your own space, Monica
Maybe your family resent him being there?
A friend stayed in our house for a few years….Affected a family member badly…when the friend left I started gambling…’Nuff said!
Thanks for posting to my thread.
I compartmentalize my money in the same way as I do with my life.
I have savings
“Fluid” money
Overdraft
Credit Union shares
and a LOT of debt still
but its all manageable which means I seldom panic or feel the urgent need to “double my money”in the casino.
In a few years , we will leave it all behind
No pockets in a shroud!Gambling was the greatest waste of time, Monica. But yes, I agree we wasted time doing other futile things also .I too got sucked into “Age Ideology /Waste of Time Antic” for a few years, ( healing/meditation/ Rogerian/Freudian /de Chardinian etc etc.) Powerful and convincing material for ripe liberals who later morphed into slaves. You name it, I sucked it up, but I was blessed that my early formation kicked in and I saw through the errors and brainwashing techniques and called a halt in time. It was when my children were in school that I noticed these ideologies were being brought into the classroom. Instead of sitting in rows in conventional desks they were put into circles (including the teacher) because “everyone was equal and there was no right or wrong/no morals/no judgements and if it FEELS good do it nonsense )” HELLOOO! Is this what I wanted for my children? When kids get that message , we all know where it leads! These ideologies will never be compatible with Christianity. For years the church tried to “adapt” them to Christian teaching with disastrous effects. I joined a Study and Research group in the early ’90s (before I started gambling) and all this “new thought” which was still at the grassroots has now taken hold in society-government, education, health etc. Was all this planned for the “common good”? I say not! The reasons were far more sinister! We didn’t listen. It was easier to follow our feelings than judgement and reason. Look around at the mess we created! Far worse than we ever imagined! We threw out the baby with the bath water!
At age 7, Monica I knew deep in my heat and soul that God was a Loving Father. I knew He sent His only Son to die for MY sins ( and yes at 7 the good old nuns taught us that sin was real and Satan was alive and well and , no we weren’t scared or brainwashed or emotionally damaged. On the contrary. there was a great order and discipline in life and we felt secure and knew where to turn for true Peace and Joy and Love and all the things that I hear grown men say in GA that they took 20/30 years to find. As a child, Monica I knew where all that was to be found but Life became complicated. We messed up! Fallen human beings are flawed . (Of course that is not what New Agers preach!) We all turn away from God and search in wrong places for what we already have. (In the New One World Order there is no God, of course and we can search wherever it “feels good”! )Every one of us tries to do it “my way”. My parents screwed up in many ways. I screwed up ten times more with my kids . My grown kids are now following wrongs paths but they do know where to go to sort it out. So do I!
No, not to GA, necessarily , though I do believe God works through some of the members there. GA is the HP for many. I know who my God is. I never saw Him as Someone to be afraid of but I sure knew that “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom”. What has happened in society, Monica and in the culture that deprives you and I of our rights and benefits stems from Man’s rejection of God.
I will be shot down for posting this on a Gambling Site but when I see cardboard messages laid out on the table in GA which read “Keep it Simple” , “Just for today”, “One day at a time”, I smile inwardly. The Spiritual Principles of GA are very similar to the spiritual formation I was given as a child.
Recovery is really all about My Will versus the Will of the Higher Power. That theme runs all though the 12 Step Programme.
God gave us Free Will. He will never take it back.
Today was the type of day when it would have be so easy for me to zone out and escape from everything……….
Did GT stop me? No! GA? No? A sponsor? No! A promise or a vow? No! Willpower? NO!
My belief, Monica is that we all recover in time by God’s Grace.
Just for today I will exercise my Free Will and choose recovery over gambling, light over darkness, freedom over slavery.
By God’s Grace.
Today, I will not gamble.Did you carry out the task you were procrastinating about, Monica?
Your situation sounds very similar to mine.
My old man does everything for me (with derision!) and nothing with me.
Well, that’s not quite true, he comes to church with me.
I asked him if he would come to the cinema last night and for a meal. I have vouchers for restaurants that will soon expire. He looked at me as if I had ten heads. He was “too busy”. This was one of the reasons I took myself off to the slots in the past. Casinos are one place you can go alone when other people are too busy..
He is a workaholic. One project after another, without pre planning or discussion. For example, he took up the tiles from the bathroom this week without saying why. They looked like new to me. About a year old. He has replaced them almost identical, but slightly bigger tiles . The job is not finished but he has started a different project. I have no idea what it is as it’s being carried on outside. If I ask, I get a surly answer. I can’t complain . He could be a compulsive gambler or worse still a CG in recovery who is hibernating, like me!
Monica, if you had money in abundance, what difference would it make to your present situation?