05-12-2011, 07:07 PM
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.
The recovery porogram asked me to look in to myseld and choose a healthier way of living.
I moved on from talking war stories and exposed more and more of my emotional being through honest deep seated therpaies from the heart.
I made that conscious decision that the life I use to live was painful and a complete waste of time.
The money was the fuel, any addiction or obsessive way was just the symptom of my emotional vulnerability and indicator I had certain emotional triggers.
Is recovery about who is right or worng who is control or is it about all of us taking back slowly control of our lives.
For me the spiritual recovery program gave me choices to live a healthy life without lying stealing deceiving putting on a face or putting a facade on that hi the real vulnerable me.
If in 1969 when I first walked into the spiritual recovery program I did not think that I wanted or needed the recovery program.
If I could not admit that I feared a telephone I feared the post arriving I also feared ringing our front door or people coming to our home, sadly I thought that by admitting my fears it was a sign of my inner weakness.
In those days I really believed that if I abstained from gambling I would be happy, it took over 20 years, I could say over 30% of my life to be able to learn and listen.
It took time for me to be honest with myself and admit that while I was consumed and obsessed with addictions I was a very unhealthy person.
Deep down I knew that I was going against my conscience and going against spiritual values but could not help myself.
It was a long before my addictions that I was living in fear, that I felt inept inadequate an insecure in many aspects of my life.
Yet it would take a long time to learn to be accountable and responsible to myself first of all, sadly fear inhibited me from being mature and accountable because I feared being honest.
The old saying that honesty is the best policy seemed very strange to me the most of my life, I now understand that honesty a sign of a healthy person with healthy relationships.
While I was in the grips of my addiction I was filled with fear and felt that the adrenaline rush was happiness, because the adrenaline was coupled with excitement I assumed incorrectly again that was happiness.
The truth was I escaped to my addictions and my obsessions due to the fact I could not cope with my emotional triggers, which were pain fear frustrations loneliness and boredom.
Deep down I did not know that I was a survivor, one counselor asked me if I understood how far I had healed and nurtured from my traumatic pain filled childhood.
Sadly some people would go through the same painful experiences as I did and were no longer able to function as healthy human beings again.
If I suffered emotional abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse and was even cheated of my emotional wants and needs of feeling wanted cared for nurtured and protected and did what I needed to do to survive which was to build a very high thick wall of fear around me.
Because of the therapies and the honesty from people's hearts I was able to be open and honest and expose the very depths of myself with out feeling fear and been able to learn to trust people once more.
If that kind of therapies I hear these days off very powerful strong and help me in so many ways that I can heal even more and be the very best person I can be simply day at a time.
Last night a member of our group came to collected me took me to the meeting and even returned me back home which was very caring considerate and respectful of him and his actions meant so much to me.
I am very fortunate in that I am a member of very strong meetings which are so honest sometimes we can even laugh at our ourselves, and when we can laugh at ourselves it indicates we have given ourselves.
In being fearless does not mean I do not care, in being fearless if I am able to be myself, in being fearless what people think of me is no longer important, if people love or hate me that is their choice.
I had been in recovery a long time if and came to understand that people not being able to trust me was their choice, even though my actions that changed it did not mean that people I had hurt had processed the emotional scars that I had caused them.
If in time I learned that sex on its own was not love, that sex can be used to express love and that sex only represented 5% of a relationship.
For me in time I started to understand that stress anxiety worry nervousness feeling uncomfortable were all fear based issues.
If the recovery program is only a Manual if learning the words parrot fashion was not going to change how I felt within myself, only once I was able to put the wisdom into my actions would I be able to say that I was in recovery and that I was healing from my past.
On arriving into the spiritual recovery program I had lost and faith in myself, low self esteem no confidence and it felt like I was lost confused and had lost all direction in my life.
If the best way I can describe it is that my brain was like the largest puzzle in the world and it was all jumbled up, ove time as the edge of clarity came to me it appeared that I understood what recovery is and was all about.
This week I was asked if in August which birthday was I celebrating, I had to think and then realized it was going to be 19 years in August since I last gambled.
I now understand that being in the spiritual recovery program is more about healthy living and healthy relationships then when I last had my gamble.
In recovery I learned for me that recovery could only happen once I was able to abstain from all unhealthy actions both addictions and obsessions.
I was an adrenaline junkie long before my first drink or my first bet, yet when in action I really believed gambling make me happy, if I now understand that the adrenaline rush is not happiness and is not contentment and that in fact the adrenaline rush was put in myself and others at risk.
I walked into recovery resentful bitter twisted resentful vengeful and very unhealthy it did not know it and could not admit it to myself
Each day I have more and more healthy choices and I enjoy that privilege. Sometimes people can take serenity and happiness for granted.
Money was never going to buy me happiness serenity or peace with myself or my past, money was never going to repair damage relationships with myself and other people.
The reason I could not be honest in the past was the fact I feared rejection abandonment and the appearance that I was stupid waek and useless.
I am not ignorant to why I turned towards addictions and obsessions today, once I understood my emotional triggers and recognize them I could do something about them.
Pain and fear was never going to be away to learn healthy habits, in the recovery program I was able to heal and nurture my pain, face my fears, and understood my own limitations regards people and life and also understand that having unreasonable expectations of others I was always going to be disappointed.
In time I would be able to do things unconditionally and give ofmyself unconditionally and enjoy doing it.
The spiritual recovery program would help me understand how I can help myself each day, it helped me understand that healthy relationships are based upon honesty mutual respect and accepting people for who they are at that moment of time.
I doubt that there is a person in our rooms who do not know I have been to prison twice, and they understand that when I was in prison I did not feel responsible for my actions, when I got a speeding ticket I did not think I was responsible for my actions.
In being accountable and responsible I now understand that my unhealthy actions had unhealthy consequences and I no longer want to hurt myself or other people ever again.
The gambling was just the symptoms of an emotional vulnerability, the spiritual recovery program is character building and takes me towards having healthy spiritual relationships with myself and other people.
The spiritual recovery program has ruined gambling for me now and I no longer want to escape to those unhealthy places today.
Even know with all my experience and time in recovery I can never say I will never gambling again, I now understand if I were to say to myself that I was never going to gamble again it would imply that I now have control over gambling and my reaction to wanting to escape from myself and life, if I were to feel and think that I would be fooling myself.
I understand now how vulnerable I used to feel, in the old days before recovery I did not have a choice, I understand also that my parents did not have a choice and understand how vulnerable and how ignorant they were.
The wording in red book step three âGamblers anonymous is a spiritual program, not a religious fellowship.â It is important to understand that anyone can find healing spiritual recovery without having any kind of religious beliefs what so ever, this fact is not mentioned often enough about recovery being a spiritual recovery program.
Love and peace to everyone.
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham
The recovery porogram asked me to look in to myseld and choose a healthier way of living.
I moved on from talking war stories and exposed more and more of my emotional being through honest deep seated therpaies from the heart.
I made that conscious decision that the life I use to live was painful and a complete waste of time.
The money was the fuel, any addiction or obsessive way was just the symptom of my emotional vulnerability and indicator I had certain emotional triggers.
Is recovery about who is right or worng who is control or is it about all of us taking back slowly control of our lives.
For me the spiritual recovery program gave me choices to live a healthy life without lying stealing deceiving putting on a face or putting a facade on that hi the real vulnerable me.
If in 1969 when I first walked into the spiritual recovery program I did not think that I wanted or needed the recovery program.
If I could not admit that I feared a telephone I feared the post arriving I also feared ringing our front door or people coming to our home, sadly I thought that by admitting my fears it was a sign of my inner weakness.
In those days I really believed that if I abstained from gambling I would be happy, it took over 20 years, I could say over 30% of my life to be able to learn and listen.
It took time for me to be honest with myself and admit that while I was consumed and obsessed with addictions I was a very unhealthy person.
Deep down I knew that I was going against my conscience and going against spiritual values but could not help myself.
It was a long before my addictions that I was living in fear, that I felt inept inadequate an insecure in many aspects of my life.
Yet it would take a long time to learn to be accountable and responsible to myself first of all, sadly fear inhibited me from being mature and accountable because I feared being honest.
The old saying that honesty is the best policy seemed very strange to me the most of my life, I now understand that honesty a sign of a healthy person with healthy relationships.
While I was in the grips of my addiction I was filled with fear and felt that the adrenaline rush was happiness, because the adrenaline was coupled with excitement I assumed incorrectly again that was happiness.
The truth was I escaped to my addictions and my obsessions due to the fact I could not cope with my emotional triggers, which were pain fear frustrations loneliness and boredom.
Deep down I did not know that I was a survivor, one counselor asked me if I understood how far I had healed and nurtured from my traumatic pain filled childhood.
Sadly some people would go through the same painful experiences as I did and were no longer able to function as healthy human beings again.
If I suffered emotional abuse physical abuse and sexual abuse and was even cheated of my emotional wants and needs of feeling wanted cared for nurtured and protected and did what I needed to do to survive which was to build a very high thick wall of fear around me.
Because of the therapies and the honesty from people's hearts I was able to be open and honest and expose the very depths of myself with out feeling fear and been able to learn to trust people once more.
If that kind of therapies I hear these days off very powerful strong and help me in so many ways that I can heal even more and be the very best person I can be simply day at a time.
Last night a member of our group came to collected me took me to the meeting and even returned me back home which was very caring considerate and respectful of him and his actions meant so much to me.
I am very fortunate in that I am a member of very strong meetings which are so honest sometimes we can even laugh at our ourselves, and when we can laugh at ourselves it indicates we have given ourselves.
In being fearless does not mean I do not care, in being fearless if I am able to be myself, in being fearless what people think of me is no longer important, if people love or hate me that is their choice.
I had been in recovery a long time if and came to understand that people not being able to trust me was their choice, even though my actions that changed it did not mean that people I had hurt had processed the emotional scars that I had caused them.
If in time I learned that sex on its own was not love, that sex can be used to express love and that sex only represented 5% of a relationship.
For me in time I started to understand that stress anxiety worry nervousness feeling uncomfortable were all fear based issues.
If the recovery program is only a Manual if learning the words parrot fashion was not going to change how I felt within myself, only once I was able to put the wisdom into my actions would I be able to say that I was in recovery and that I was healing from my past.
On arriving into the spiritual recovery program I had lost and faith in myself, low self esteem no confidence and it felt like I was lost confused and had lost all direction in my life.
If the best way I can describe it is that my brain was like the largest puzzle in the world and it was all jumbled up, ove time as the edge of clarity came to me it appeared that I understood what recovery is and was all about.
This week I was asked if in August which birthday was I celebrating, I had to think and then realized it was going to be 19 years in August since I last gambled.
I now understand that being in the spiritual recovery program is more about healthy living and healthy relationships then when I last had my gamble.
In recovery I learned for me that recovery could only happen once I was able to abstain from all unhealthy actions both addictions and obsessions.
I was an adrenaline junkie long before my first drink or my first bet, yet when in action I really believed gambling make me happy, if I now understand that the adrenaline rush is not happiness and is not contentment and that in fact the adrenaline rush was put in myself and others at risk.
I walked into recovery resentful bitter twisted resentful vengeful and very unhealthy it did not know it and could not admit it to myself
Each day I have more and more healthy choices and I enjoy that privilege. Sometimes people can take serenity and happiness for granted.
Money was never going to buy me happiness serenity or peace with myself or my past, money was never going to repair damage relationships with myself and other people.
The reason I could not be honest in the past was the fact I feared rejection abandonment and the appearance that I was stupid waek and useless.
I am not ignorant to why I turned towards addictions and obsessions today, once I understood my emotional triggers and recognize them I could do something about them.
Pain and fear was never going to be away to learn healthy habits, in the recovery program I was able to heal and nurture my pain, face my fears, and understood my own limitations regards people and life and also understand that having unreasonable expectations of others I was always going to be disappointed.
In time I would be able to do things unconditionally and give ofmyself unconditionally and enjoy doing it.
The spiritual recovery program would help me understand how I can help myself each day, it helped me understand that healthy relationships are based upon honesty mutual respect and accepting people for who they are at that moment of time.
I doubt that there is a person in our rooms who do not know I have been to prison twice, and they understand that when I was in prison I did not feel responsible for my actions, when I got a speeding ticket I did not think I was responsible for my actions.
In being accountable and responsible I now understand that my unhealthy actions had unhealthy consequences and I no longer want to hurt myself or other people ever again.
The gambling was just the symptoms of an emotional vulnerability, the spiritual recovery program is character building and takes me towards having healthy spiritual relationships with myself and other people.
The spiritual recovery program has ruined gambling for me now and I no longer want to escape to those unhealthy places today.
Even know with all my experience and time in recovery I can never say I will never gambling again, I now understand if I were to say to myself that I was never going to gamble again it would imply that I now have control over gambling and my reaction to wanting to escape from myself and life, if I were to feel and think that I would be fooling myself.
I understand now how vulnerable I used to feel, in the old days before recovery I did not have a choice, I understand also that my parents did not have a choice and understand how vulnerable and how ignorant they were.
The wording in red book step three âGamblers anonymous is a spiritual program, not a religious fellowship.â It is important to understand that anyone can find healing spiritual recovery without having any kind of religious beliefs what so ever, this fact is not mentioned often enough about recovery being a spiritual recovery program.
Love and peace to everyone.
Dave L
AKA Dave of Beckenham