Hi Annie
The other issues that you have mentioned are common to the addiction to gamble and usually once the addiction has been controlled these other issues disappear in time, although of course people can be subject to paranoia and anger for other reasons too.
I have brought up my thread entitled ‘The F&F Cycle’ which I hope will help you begin to see how the different problems you have described fit in to the cycle of addiction.
It is of course impossible to tell the feelings of others and even if his family are at their wits end they may still (and probably do) care and long for a positive outcome; realising that we cannot see into the hearts of people or save them is an important lesson we learn with this addiction. The only person you can save is you and if you look after yourself this is ultimately the best thing you can do for your SO.
When you say you have moved away, is this from your CG or just from his family? If you have moved away from him, is this because of his addiction? If he is with you, does he live with you?
Co-dependency is a difficult subject and is often bandied about too easily. Maybe ‘Co-dependent No More’ written by Melody Beattie would help you recognise if you have a problem with this or not because feeling that you are the only one left caring is not, in itself, co-dependency.
You have done well refusing to give your SO any money as money is the same to a CG as a drink is to the alcoholic – it feeds the addiction and helps it grow, it never helps; be it 5 pence or 5 thousand pounds it is money with which to gamble and it is the gamble, not the money, that is the problem.
I would never challenge your assertion that you love your CG but what I would warn you against is believing that love in itself will conquer all – it doesn’t. It was my belief that provided I showed love every day, one day the penny would drop and my CG would see the joy that honesty, kindness and giving love brings and he would awaken him from whatever had him in its grip– it didn’t, it merely offered enablement and I possibly kept him in his addiction longer than was necessary.
Does your OS ever admit he has a problem? You don’t have to answer this but I wondered what went wrong with the intervention.
I wouldn’t be writing to you Annie, if I didn’t know that the addiction to gamble can be controlled but the path to that recovery is slow and difficult and often the outcome is not the one that is desired.
Keep posting, you will always be heard and understood. You have done well writing your first post which is always the hardest.
Velvet
