You’ve written some brilliant posts lately Laura. And off the back of one of them I’ve started to get a bit more balance in my life. I’m just in from work and heading off on a trip to see my partner. I think we’ve resolved the big issue we had between us now, I’m sure we’ll both know for definite after the next couple of days.
I think all Cg’s are as bad as each other. I don’t think I was any worse than anybody else. That’s the whole point I try to make to people. I crossed line after line after line. That dosn’t mean my addiction was different to yours for example.
I hope you don’t mind me bringing up your situation a couple of months ago. Without going into details you crossed a line that you had never crossed before. The difference between you and I is that you had the foresight to see where that could lead to and you took immediate and necessary action to get yourself back into recovery.
I was an immature teenager when I first done a similar thing, my sense of right and wrong was already being eroded by my gambling, I neither had the foresight or fortitude to look past winning the money back to repay.
I do believe that this addiction is capable of corrupting us all with its venomous mesmerising hypnotic spell. It just needs to catch us at the right minute.
I was referred to at my last court case as a pathological gambler and although I refer to myself as a CG the acts I committed to get gambling funds certainly demonstrated pathological tendencies to a tee.
I believe any CG whether they see themselves as an escape or action gambler could so easily cross this line.
Although we re all unique people with different reasons for first gambling, and then ending up as addicts, I think the core elements of recovery are the same for all of us.
I tried and tried for years to stop. The problem for me was I never wholeheartedly believed I could. It wasn’t a case of I wasn’t trying hard enough. Like lots of people currently posting on my journal I couldn’t have tried any harder. The problem was, I think, that I was barking up the wrong tree. I was trying the wrong tactics.
I suppose I am lucky in the respect that before I entered into real counselling which included a lot of regression and looking at my former self , I was able to get properly prepared. I learned how to be honest and I learned how to strip away all the layers that had covered up the real me over the years. Even though I have gambled many times since leaving GH, and nearly ending up in prison again, eventually I started using all I had learned there.
Gambling dosn’t tempt me in the slightest now Laura. Not today. And that is a wonderful feeling. I feel clean, and I feel like a real member of society. I used to feel that I was either insane, evil, and I always felt like an emotional monster..as if I had no emotions..and this is how I behaved.
I do realise that people wont change until they are really ready, and I know nobody was ever able to force me into recovery. I don’t really think I can force anybody into it either, sometimes I do unwittingly try to do so.
Sorry for wandering, (not like me)!
I’ve been meaning to post to you for ages. You’ve given me, as well as others, some brilliant support recently and I just wanted to say thanks before I go away for a couple of days.
Nobody is beyond support whether we’re doing well or not so good.
Thanks again.
Geordie.