Thank you Velvet. He applied the GMA in the immediate aftermath of an earlier binge. He was distraught, and appeared on the face of it, genuinely wanting to do something about it and recognised the need to do so.
I knew of GMA as I had come across the forums in my research about gambling addiction. I tend to do this. If I don’t know a lot about a subject, I will research it as thoroughly as I can. I don’t just read the first article on google and accept that as being the full extent of what I need to know. I will read extensively and look for differing views before making up my own mind.
So I had come across GMA in that process and I knew that GA had not been a successful road for him in earlier attempts. He seemed genuinely engaged with what GMA said after he completed the online application and the contact he had over the next few days.
However, it would seem to me, that the “window of opportunity”, when a CG is receptive to this is small. As the days pass, the mind says I’ve got it back under control, I don’t need to go away for 14 weeks. Three weeks after his major relapse, the mental trauma (to him) of the catastrophe that had befallen him was massively diminished in his own mind. I think I knew then that he wouldn’t go.
I’m making that simply as a comment, based upon my experience. That period immediately after a relapse is when the greatest opportunity lies. As always, there are no simple answers