Definitely on the zero steps forward 5 steps back bit.
One bit of forward progress was that on Monday night my wife had a phone call from our son, who was at work, with him saying he had gambled and lost his whole months salary in 30 minutes, having been paid the day before.
This is a step forward simply because he at least admitted to it immediately, rather than it coming out in a weeks time after the attitude ends in exclusion. It was on the phone, when he was still at work, so there was a safety zone between him and us at the time and he could always fall back on the “ive got to go, I’m at work” excuse when things got tough.
£1200 on slots in 30 minutes. 40p stake, then £1.20 stake, then £4 stake and a final crash and burn at £7.50 a go.
By the time he got home, there was the familiar mental barrier up and somehow, because he still had £700 in his account, but he owes us more than that so if we take that off him he has nothing to live on, then its now OUR fault he got no money.
We sit up until 2.00am talking and trying to get him to decide what to do about support, but getting nowhere. Eventually, we go to bed, I’ve got to be up at 6.45, he can and does sleep in until lunchtime.
That evening, things get much more involved but we still make little progress as the addiction is still firmly in control. We can see that, he obviously can’t. What he does know, is that if this continues then the same thing will happen, he will be kicked out. Another 2.00am finish.
The Wednesday, I’m at home and I find the time to click on the chat widget and speak to Harry. Excellent help and it gives a glimmer of hope that there is a way forward for him, if only he will take the steps himself. A lot of the stuff we are already doing, but it helps to hear that from an uninvolved person. Harry stresses the importance of consequences, there have to be consequences to him for what he did. If I give him cash to tide him over, then I might as well have used my money to do the gambling for him.
My son comes home, I know from talking to Harry that he is going to be there for another 40 minutes. I’d said I would try and get my son to chat to him.
My son hands me a list of things hes going to do, exclude himself from his gambling sites……wow that’s a list! his “aims” for the next 12 months without actually making any commitments. I asked him later what an aim was and he said it was something you hoped to achieve. Whats a commitment then? something you say you WILL do he says. So he knows the difference, and makes sure that he DOESNT make a commitment unless forced, which is OK then, because its not his commitment, he’s been forced to do it by his parents who make his life shit and don’t support him.
His list says get more help from elsewhere, but doesn’t say what/who/why/when? I hand him the laptop. I tell him that a guy who knows exactly what he feels like because he’s been there, done that, read the book, watched the film and worn the T shirt out, wants to speak to him.
I then sit there and watch him procrastinate, avaoid the issue, argue about anything and everything until 4.25, then theres only 5 minutes left, so its not worth it now.
His mantra of I’ll do it tomorrow, wins again. I have no idea at this moment of writing this, if he has made the connection today. I sincerely hope he has. He can’t beat this on his own and we can’t help him beat it as he has locked us out of his mind. The addict has won that battle, we are still trying to win the war though.
Yes he’s excluded himself from the gambling sites, and I’m putting Gamblock on his phone later – which he agreed to yesterday. He’s skirting around all of the peripherals whilst absolutely resolute in his determination to avoid the main one. Getting help.
In the end, after a long afternoon and into the evening of it, I really lost my temper with him. We had a proper shouting match. I’m not particularly proud of that but everything was/is all someone else’s fault.
We were supposed to go out and visit my wifes dad in hospital but that went by the board as things just went round in circles.
I’m going to try and make the F&F chat tonight and see what happens there. Rock bottom, for him, is not even close. There are going to be many more battles before this war even starts to be won.