Hi Ngill
I hope that by posting and sharing you will begin to feel less helpless. In my experience, when those around compulsive gamblers keep control of their own lives and refuse to allow the addiction of a loved one to bring them down, it benefits everybody and includes a greater hope for the recovery of the gambler.
It is not recognized professionally but the following is a coping method that many of us have successfully used at the beginning of ‘our’ recovery from living with a compulsive gambler.
Imagine, if you can, that your husband’s addiction is a separate entity, a horrible beast that lies in the corner of the room watching and waiting for an excuse to gamble, a reason to argue, an excuse to blame, an explanation for poor behaviour.
The addiction beast is the master of manipulation and threats and you are not and nor should you try to be. The beast is divisive and seeks to divide families for enablement purposes. It is therefore better when a family stick together over any action regarding the addiction’s manipulation and threats.
Your husband is, at the moment, controlled by his addiction but you are not, you are stronger than his addiction, you do not have to live by its rules. Imagine his head is full of sand which requires treatment to tip out leaving room for logical honest thought. Unfortunately, your husband doesn’t know how to do this at the moment leaving him almost certainly feeling isolated and believing that his ‘need’ is to gamble.
It was explained to me, by a gambler who is living in control of his addiction, that the beast, called addiction, destroyed his self-esteem and self confidence. The beast’s nature is to cause constant feelings of failure (in that a compulsive gambler cannot walk away from a gamble until it is too late). The feelings of worthlessness made him unable to think logically and reasonable. Many of his life’s experiences, good and bad, would trigger the beast; the gamble would follow with the inevitable loss. Isolated, ashamed and confused he would follow the voice in his head and chase his losses – the outcome was always the same.
I know that being told to look after yourself first and keep your mind healthy and active doesn’t sound much but it works. The more you feel dragged down by your husband’s addiction the more likely it is that you will begin to lose yourself in his lonely world. I believe that if you try and help him to talk to you without tears and recrimination, he is more likely to open up about his fears. Keeping the beast in the corner and not allowing it to come between you will hopefully help you communicate and open up opportunities for you to tell him where support is to be found and that he is not alone.
By keeping your friendships alive, enjoying hobbies, enjoying your daughter and refusing the negativity of the addiction to gamble to bring you down, you will be stronger, you will be able to reclaim your own life and be able to cope with your child and make the right decisions for your relationship. Maybe you could find a Gam-Anon group near you, it is the sister group of GA and it was my salvation many years ago.
I am bringing up my thread entitled ‘The F&F Cycle’, I hope it helps. Knowledge of the addiction will give you power over it.
If you have any questions, please come right back at me. It took me months at the beginning to get my head around what I was being told and I didn’t believe half of it so I understand how difficult this is for you.
I will walk with you for as long as you want me to do so
Velvet