Dear Soloma
Harry thought your post was your first, hence his welcome,
so I will reply to you here but also I will bring up your ongoing thread and repeat my reply on that because multiple threads confuse and information can get lost lost.
Anxiety causes terrible problems and panic attack –you are doing everything right by regrouping yourself using this site and using any other help you can get.
I’m not sure if you mean by saying ‘staying away from others’ whether you mean friends or family but although this may be an answer in the short term it isn’t good in the long term. Friends talk about things that have nothing to do with gambling and time spent thinking about anything but gambling is good for your mind and soul. Being switched on to one person and his problem 24 hours a day doesn’t help you or him or those around you who love you – and believe you me I know that not thinking about your son and what he is doing is really hard.
Therein lies the thought, however, that if it is what your son is doing that is worrying you morning, noon and night then short of locking him in and throwing away the key you will not stop him gambling, so look after yourself first.
Worrying about your son as a person is, of course, hard as well but he has within him the power to change his life, the ability to control his gambling, and the ability to live a wonderful life. That is the person that is your son and with the right treatment and without enablement you can give him the best support. We believe that from the time they are born we can make everything right for our children but with this addiction, that which we believed to be the right thing to do is often wrong.
Don’t try and second guess your son yet, don’t worry about trusting him yet – it will come. Be careful how you question when you are feeling uneasy – if he is trying to control his addiction he will want you to trust him but it is too early to trust in anything apart from the fact that he is trying.
One of the hardest things of all is letting go of the way you thought/hoped it would be for your child – it will be different to anything you dreamed about but it can be wonderfully rewarding too. I know that my CG is and always will be a CG but I trust him completely to protect his gamble-free life, I trust him to live in control of his addition and I love his company and I am happy.
I hope this helps
Velvet
