I woke up today and had several things in my mind. My first thought was of the article I read last night about a woman who lived up north in my home state where I grew up and once they opened the casinos she became a CG. She tried and tried to quit, banning herself from all the casinos in the surrounding states and her state as well. For a year things improved and her family thought she was doing great! From all accounts it appeared she had conquored it! Then one night her sister got a call from the hospital. She had overdosed on anti depressants. Her sister found in her car gambling reciepts for the ATM withdrawls in a state that was 2 states away.She had returned to gambling even if it meant driving that far away to do it. She died 5 days later! I cried and cried last night when I read it, I felt so much pain for her- pain for others and I felt anger too at the casinos themselves and the states that are allowing gambling, almost everywhere now and it’s killing people!! I then thought about my younger brother who struggled with drugs and alcohol addiction for nearly 20 years. He reached his bottom after many visits to mental inst. and jail and almost dying many times, as well as breaking his leg, getting a super cell infection in his arm from shooting up that almost killed him (in hosp for months and months), and so many more stories that he went through! I thought about when he arrived at my home to live with me, with nothing but the clothing on his back and a messed up head, and how he had to just keep going with us everyday, he had no license to drive, so we took him to work with us and we monitored all he did. For a year and a half he was with us every moment and got somewhat better! Then we gave him an opportunity to do his own work for a weekend by himself and he had just gotten his license back and that weekend he got drunk. It was the only time, he came home to me and cried-and I told him that he had to like himself fully- and he has not drank or used since, that was years ago, he is happily married- works in our business and has the other half of our business and works by himself always!!! BUT I thought about this, he is addicted to something, it’s not much but he spends all his time painting action figures and selling them!! He belongs to groups just for that, and he buys all the stuff for them.. I thought about this and I realized, we are all addicts to something. Perhaps we have to find another focus that is not so harmful. If that is all he is addicted to, then that is a blessing!!!So I determined myself to focus on my hobby more.. I mean geeze if my brother can overcome all that- what in the world am I doing! Well ODAAT, that is all I can do right now… For today I will not gamble and I will not obsess over my losses as hard as that is for me to do!!
