Thanks for your post Geordie. Let me clarify for you. I have not turned my back on God, not at all. I find that most of my anger that surfaced in a big way was towards God. It came up in a big splurge on Friday with a curious link to the steps on spirituality. It was not about gambling. One of the reasons I started gambling was the depression and the pain for 2 years post cancer surgery together with the relationship going up the creek. It was about being hit with a lot of things at the same time. I did look up the lady that Vera suggested. Iam pretty clear that GA is useful but I am equally clear that some of these steps past step 3 in respect of character defects are completely out of Kilter with today and particularly with women problem gamblers. I am sorry if where I was coming from is not clear. My refusal to go to a food bank is neither here nor there. If I choose not to go that is my choice. It is quite a distance from where I live. In the film I did this week for the Labour Party, the interviewer commented that many people felt they could not go to a food bank. I am one of those people. I understand jp because the distance between the feelings he describes are quite close to me. I think that time in recovery, particularly a long time, makes the memory short. It is actually not my words re tough talk but Marilyn Lancelots, the lady who Vera referred to. I looked her up yesterday and read some of her stuff. I just happen to agree with her. And actually it wasn’t you whose thread I thought was tough talk. It was jonnys. It was self indignant and somewhat annoyed that advice was not being followed. My view, and Marilyn’s is that this type of tough talk does not work when someone is clinically depressed, and I agree with her. If I get a place on the women’s programme fine, if I don’t that is fine too. Although my situation is quite difficult, over the past few days I have actually been able to be very clear in my thinking and come to some conclusions as to what I feel or my views are on certain things. I am grateful for that. My views may well differ from your own but I know that we are both big enough to respect differences of opinion.
