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Dear Looby.
I am sorry that you have had this experience.
This is another tough one for you and it must hurt.
But, as you say, you are carrying on with your own life and plans. And you have seen some positives in the way your son has been dealing with things this time. You will not let this pull you down.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your story.
Stay strong – I know you will. And I wish you all the best for your Anniversary and holiday. Enjoy it to the full!!
Love, Monique xx
Keep hope alive.Dear Berber.
I am sorry you are not seeing the right attitude in your parents-in-law, but I hope you and your husband can stay strong and united in the endeavour to see him into true recovery.
I wish you all good things and the resilience to keep going in the best way for you and your family.
Best wishes, Monique.Keep hope alive.Hi Looby.
I hope your meeting with son and g/f was good and your anniversary plans also go well.
My cg has visited recently. Good and ‘strange’ all at the same time.
You must be experiencing such a range of feelings with so many different things going on – terminal illness, re-connection with son, a new birth approaching and a big anniversary.
I wish you joy and peace in every circumstance.
Lots of love, Monique. xxKeep hope alive.Dear MrsL. Welcome to this site – it is good you have reached out to a place of support. You can find non-judgemental consideration of your situation here; you will be listened to and can also hear the suggestions of others who love a compulsive gambler (cg) family member. My situation is that I have an adult son who has been gambling for at least 10 years and is not in a good place in life. I joined this site about 18 months ago and have been encouraged to look after myself, ie seek my own recovery first. We can each do something about ourselves, but we cannot ‘make’ a partner or son change his ways, no matter how much we care about them. This approach often seems strange to family members, but it means we can live a good life (not an easy one, but one with its own satisfactions) and be strong for the gambler, now and in the future if/when he seeks his own recovery. Being strong for now can often mean we feel more apart from the one we love, because we are choosing a healthy way of life and he is choosing a destructive one. He is allowing addiction to control his way of life, but we don’t have to be controlled by it. He will not have chosen to be an addict and he will have other deeper-level problems, but he has to make his own decision to find recovery. Gambling may have seemed an ‘escape’ from painful things, but it has become a terrible trap instead. But one from which there are ways of ‘escape’, when the cg is ready to work hard to find them. I hear that you and your husband have faced a huge number of losses and great sorrow in your life together. You are both very hurt. People here do care about you and will help you. You can have a brighter future – it takes work and perseverance, but it will be worth it. I wish you well and sincerely hope you will use this support network as much as you need. Very best wishes, Monique . xxKeep hope alive.
Dear mzr123. Welcome here. It is good you have reached out for help. You have been and will be heard and supported. It is often good to do nothing when you are unsure about the best course of action. It may sound counter-intuitive for you as you have struggled to get your husband to stop gambling for so long and that seems the primary goal of your life, but I suggest that the important thing now is to look after YOU. It is not surprising that you feel that you have no more strength, but I would encourage you to start believing that you do have a future. I cannot describe it, but it can be better than the past. If your husband leaves, that will be his choice. It does not have to be a final move. But if you start rebuilding yourself, any further decisions will eventually make themselves a bit more clear for you. Perhaps contact the Live Advice Helpline also. There is much support and guidance for partners and other family members. My very best wishes. Monique.xxKeep hope alive.
Hi ReadytoWalkaway. I have just read your post and hear a strong, intelligent woman, facing an agonizing problem and difficult decision. I know you have already been thinking through these issues for a long time, but we are often advised not to do anything whilst we are still unsure of the path to choose. The right choice will often make itself clear when we are concentrating on other things. But I do note that your head is telling you clearly to protect yourself – that is definitely true in the case of the addiction of a loved one. You have already taken action in that sphere and no doubt will continue to do so. You then wonder how to respond to your ‘heart’ which says you should support your husband. I would just offer these thoughts….. I think an addiction illness is a different kind of illness (and some thinking refers to it as a ‘learned behaviour’ needing to be ‘unlearned’) from cancer or other physical diseases. Recovery in the context of addiction probably involves much more in the way of a mental and emotional ‘turning around’ or ‘choosing’, which can only be done by the addict himself. The loved one can be of support in this, but ***** to be able to draw the fine line between support and ‘enabling the addiction to continue’ and also the fine line between supporting the addict and fully looking after herself and her own recovery – yes, we family members need to enter our own recovery from the effects of the addiction on us. In this some degree of space between or separation is often actually helpful. We can sometimes feel guilty and ashamed and act on these feelings, but it is important to recognize these feelings for what they are and continue not to let them motivate us. It is very interesting that you ask ‘how long can I convince myself that I am happy?’ Our first duty is to our own well-being and ultimately that will be the best inspiration for the addicted one, if he is indeed ready to be inspired towards recovery. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it has often been proven to be the case – we cannot help if we get sucked into the addict’s mad world. As I said at the beginning of this post, you have already taken a very thoughtful and sensible approach. If you exchange more posts with people here, attend the Family and Friends live group time (if possible) and/or use the Advice Helpline, you will get ideas and support to help you stay strong and separate from the addiction. I have no experience of being the partner of a gambler, but I have an adult son who started gambling whilst a student at university and became seriously addicted. I love him very much, but have to be careful about the way we now relate. He does not live with me now, but visits from time to time. I hope this is of some use and that you will use this site in the days to come to inform yourself more and to help you practically and emotionally. With very best wishes, Monique.Keep hope alive.– 10/02/2013 09:36:46: post edited by monique.
Hi Harry. Not quite in time, but I hope you had a great birthday as part of a lovely weekend. Thinking of you with appreciation and gratitude for your work and inspiration to others. Very best wishes, Monique.
Hi Looby. Still thinking of you and your family – it is a tough and sad time for you. Lots of love, Monique xxKeep hope alive.
Dear Baseball594. Just a word of welcome from me too. I am the mother of a young man who has been gambling since his late teens, ie for ten years of so. As far as I know he is not seriously seeking recovery. This is very hard for me and the family circle, but I guess one big lesson I have learnt is to seek my own recovery, because that is the only thing I can have control over. I cannot decide for my son, nor make him ‘see sense’. I will of course be there for him when he does reach the point of entering his own recovery. You have had good information and guidance from others already, so I will not write much, but I wanted to say ‘Hi’ and wish you well. Monique.Keep hope alive.
Dear Ell
I just want to echo all that Looby has written. Also to say Happy New Year and to hope it will get better for you from day to day. But share your sadness and tough ***** and receive support from here and wherever you find it, so that you become stronger and more at peace as the days, weeks and months go by. Every good wish, Monique.***** Aj
Welcome to this site where I hope you will soon find a lot of support and help. No one will tell you what to do but you will be helped to bear the pain and anguish you are going through and begin to feel you are not alone.
I am a mother of a cg, which is also very painful, but different in the practicalities. I really feel for you as you experience so much responsibility on emotional, practical and financial levels right now. I wonder if there is anyone who can offer you any help locally too? Eg anyone who can share some of the burden of the business or anyone who can help with domestic tasks – just for a little while, so you can get a little bit of space and build up a bit of energy? I know it is hard to ask and I don’t want to urge you to do something that is not comfortable for you – but just want to urge you not to feel afraid or ashamed to reach out to others, if there is someone willing and able to share your load for a while.
Sometimes we feel ashamed of the mess around us, even though it was caused by the gambler/the gambler’s addiction and not by any failing on our part – but there is no need for shame; we deserve support not blame.
On this site, you will get a lot of emotional support – it can feel strange at first and maybe a bit ‘distant’ as we struggle through the practicalities on our doorstep, but I think in time you will feel strengthened by the love and care of this community and that will make it a little easier to find the courage to get through what you need to do.
Looking after children, including a new baby, is a very demanding and time-consuming task in itself – you deserve help from your partner in this, but find that he is in fact another ‘dependent’ on you now. We all appreciate how difficult this is; but if you can possibly do so, I would urge you not to ‘waste’ any energy acting angrily about this – you have every reason to BE angry, but for your own protection and sanity, I think it is wise to use your energy for coping as well as possible.
Your husband did not WANT to become addicted to gambling but, now that it has happened, he ***** to take responsibility for his recovery and his future, while YOU look after YOURSELF (and your children, of course).
We usually care so deeply about the gambler in our lives, that we forget our own ***** and concentrate on ‘helping’ him, but in order to survive well and live a positive life from now on, we must attend primarily to our own *****.
I hope this makes sense and I hope you will gain benefit from writing on here and also attending the live group sessions.
Lots and lots of good wishes for your well-being. I reach out to you with hope and love,
MoniqueKeep hope alive.Dear Looby. Like the others, I want to wish you and your husband every good thing at this important moment in your lives. We all look forward to hearing soon that all has gone well with the medical procedures and hubby is thriving. But as the others have said, it could be a significant time for ‘father and son’ too in other ways and my instinct would be to let your son know if possible and allow for this opportunity to be positive for you all. As Velvet says, we can think that the cg doesn’t really love or care about anyone or anything but their addiction, but somewhere inside is always a person who probably does care, but is currently unable to express it. And if your husband wants to make contact, that is a crucial factor, of course. Every good wish, Monique xx.Keep hope alive.