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Learning about myself - Guest - 03-12-2010

My name is Dave of Beckenham. I am a compulsive Gambler!

Today my pains from my past are being nurtured and healed, my fears willingly faced and frustrations resolved by accepting the understanding of the serenity wisdom and I live a much healthier spiritual life today, I am healthier and stronger in myself than ever before in my life simply JUST one day at a time.

From day one on walking in to GA I found it difficult to understand what recovery was all about.

Even though I could not admit to myself that I felt very inept inadequate insecure irresponsible and immature when someone or something tried to regulate my life I would react to it in an unhealthy way.

In time I would learn that the recovery program has nothing to do about religion and was everything about spiritual values and spiritual values are all about healthy interactions with all people.

On walking in to the rooms of recovery I could not admit to myself or others that I had lost all faith and hope in myself that I was filled with fear in so many ways and the simplest ones were I was scared of the postman I was scared of the telephone ringing and I was scared of people coming to our front door.

I felt that the recovery program was going to limit my life that was my perspective, the truth was that once I embraced spiritual values and exchanged unhealthy habits in to healthy habits recovery was going to open up opportunities I never felt was possible in my life at any time.

It is with sadness that I decided to close down the Wednesday midday meeting in Calgary because people were just not attending the meeting.

The Thursday midday meeting in Calgary will remain open as far as I know.
There were far too many times when I drove there and was on my own, no one has volunteered to take meeting over from me so sadly the meeting has come to the end of its time.

Last night at a meeting the topics were step one forgiving and patience, those use to be the hardest items I could cope and deal with, yet today they seem so much simpler.

Step one being unmanageable I use to think was about the money and the gambling, step one took me over 22 years to learn what it was all about.

Step one being unmanageable was about me not being able to cope emotionally with certain feelings, pain fear frustrations loneliness and boredom.

I found over time ways of healing my pain, facing my fear, and understanding the limitations of what I have any control over and understanding that having unreasonable expectations of others I was always going to be disappointed.

Loneliness is two separate items it can be physical loneliness or emotional loneliness, obviously if someone is not in your life any more then you suffer from physical and emotional loneliness.

Now if some is filled with a lot of pain and fear the way as I use to be then there was no way I felt able to interact with my family in a healthy way they would have felt I was emotionally absent as a husband father son and as a friend.

The emotional rollercoaster rides I use to think were from happiness and misery, sadly they were between the high of the adrenaline rush and low of despair and having no faith in myself.

I view myself as the biggest jig saw in the world and all the pieces were all jumbled up, over time the simplest edge pieces started to fit together, as that happened and I got to understand my behavior recognized my pains fears and frustrations I understood I no longer needed to react in anger and in such unhealthy ways.

Yet that reaction to the simplest question what relationship do I have with myself, you got to be kidding, what relationship did I have with my neighbors, and so on.

The responsibility was l mine, my excuses for not having relationships were very poor indeed yet now understand it was all fear and pain based issues.

My recovery each and every day is all about my progress, not yours, mine, if you or anyone else chooses to go back to any form of self abuse and go back to being their own worst enemy that is your choice.

The more effort and energy I put in to my recovery reduces the odds of me going back to unhealthy habit, the more honest the more I expose of myself and the more effort and energy I put in to healthy relationships then I am embracing spiritual interactions.

In recovery I felt that I was lower than dog crap, today I am now equal to all people in recovery, the gambling to me looks like dog crap and I do not want that any more today.

When I use to smoke I did not care about myself, when I was tail gating I did not care about myself, I use to think that I respect the laws sadly I feared the laws.

To care about myself I found I needed to be gentle with myself, to no longer beat myself up, to no longer call myself dumb stupid evil wrong bad loser, today I am more than that.

I now attend the dentist regularly and my hygiene has improved.

One of the things I found hard to do was to give myself approval, even when people said kind things about me I would think you got to be kidding, in my mind I would see that I was who I use to be or what I use to be.

Yesterday dentist expensive, purchased card for a person’s celebration being free of gambling over 25 years, I have only met him once.

I then went swimming for half an hour I wanted longer but time was limited by other people then went to counselor number ten for an hour, then on to evening meeting.

What do I have in my hand to show for my time for the whole day? Nothing but by me sharing myself just that on its own I have less fear in me, do I think that anything I do or say will change another person’s path?

Not that is down to each individual person, it is a conscious decision, often what is said to me is that people can relate to me, that by my words they can relate to my experiences and how I felt.

In myself I do not feel I am very articulate in my words, yet recovery is about getting to the core of our issues which is emotional issues, do I want pity or sympathy not at all if I can touch another person with my emotional experiences then they just might see them self in me and see that if I can do it that to can find recovery.

No matter how much faith or hope you have lost in yourself recovery helps you help yourself, by your healthy actions and doing spiritual actions again nothing to do about religion you start to gain confidence in yourself.

To get to know yourself you need to overcome your fears, because the person I feared facing the most was myself, I had buried so much of my past inside of me I was sitting on my own compost heap and did not know it.

There will always be people who are not able to open up and face them self I am glad to see that some new people coming in to recovery are more are stronger and more open and honest than people who have been in recovery decades.

Once people make conscious decision to act in healthy ways I am very willing to say you should be very proud of your actions, yes very proud.

Do I understand today the deeper reasons behind each one of the spiritual values today, that each spiritual value embraced is important in to my character building such as healthy unconditional loving unconditional giving forgiving apologizing caring trusting trust worthy patience tolerance humility sincere honest faithful loyal optimistic self assured and well self balanced punctual courteous respectful considerate grateful content productive creative constructive nurturing sharing encouraging optimistic cooperative aware content stable humble open minded self confident calm proud love and serene.

How much effort and energy do I put in to my recovery today?

Love and peace to everyone.

Dave