05-05-2011, 08:25 AM
Hi danny,
Thanks for taking the time to read my share. The best advice i could give you regarding you journey to recovery is to attend as many meetings as possible, don't be afraid of being honest about how you feel and what is on your mind. One thing i learnt very quickly is that keeping things in my head is very destructive to my thinking pattern, i seem to suffer from having a magnifying mind which blows the slightest thing out of control. I have had to learn to let things go and not have resentments with others as that is one of the biggest reasons for relapse (very hard to do at first but it gets easier especially if you talk to someone else in recovery so it's out of your head). When i first started my recovery i was very judgemental of others, putting myself higher than everyone else. i have had to practise seeing everyone as a equal to myself. I am ABOVE or BELOW no one. I always had to be the best at everything i did in life and always had to be right, nowadays i ask myself the question of how important is it compared to my sanity? I haven't found a occasion where it has been. I found myself being very competitive in everything i did in life and that was due to not feeling good about who i was and what i did, so i had to boost my self esteem with being competitive. It's funny how we judge other people based on our own way of living. When i was gambling, cheating and lying i assumed that everyone around me was the same so i found it very hard to trust anyone, but now my life is based on different foundations, i find it a lot easier to trust other people and be honest. When i walked through the doors of recovery i was self will run riot, i was impatient, insecure, angry, resentful, self seeking, self centered, egotistical, fearful and full of guilt, blame and self pity! These are the characteristics i have had to work on to enable me to find happiness otherwise the washing machine cycle continues. What happens for me is that when i feel these emotions i have the urge to escape them by running away to the fantasy world of gambling but the trouble is that because the buzz we get from gambling and escaping reality is so great we are not able to leave until every penny has gone, once we are skint reality kicks back in and all the feelings we felt in the first place come back 10 fold so the desire to return is even greater. Self pity was one of the hardest defect to work to work on. I try not to be bitter about what i haven't got and be grateful for what i have got. Writing a gratitude list helps. I found myself always dissapointed in life and this was because my expectations were always set too high, if you lower the later this will help.
This may sound like a lot to work on but you have the rest of your life to practise these principles in all our affairs (we are not striving for perfection)
Today i do the right thing in life and accept the outcome whatever it is after all i wasn't put on the earth to play god!
I continue to work on this way of living daily one day at a time.
I hope this will help you on your journey to happiness.
Take care.
My name is scott and i am a recovering compulsive gambler.
Thanks for taking the time to read my share. The best advice i could give you regarding you journey to recovery is to attend as many meetings as possible, don't be afraid of being honest about how you feel and what is on your mind. One thing i learnt very quickly is that keeping things in my head is very destructive to my thinking pattern, i seem to suffer from having a magnifying mind which blows the slightest thing out of control. I have had to learn to let things go and not have resentments with others as that is one of the biggest reasons for relapse (very hard to do at first but it gets easier especially if you talk to someone else in recovery so it's out of your head). When i first started my recovery i was very judgemental of others, putting myself higher than everyone else. i have had to practise seeing everyone as a equal to myself. I am ABOVE or BELOW no one. I always had to be the best at everything i did in life and always had to be right, nowadays i ask myself the question of how important is it compared to my sanity? I haven't found a occasion where it has been. I found myself being very competitive in everything i did in life and that was due to not feeling good about who i was and what i did, so i had to boost my self esteem with being competitive. It's funny how we judge other people based on our own way of living. When i was gambling, cheating and lying i assumed that everyone around me was the same so i found it very hard to trust anyone, but now my life is based on different foundations, i find it a lot easier to trust other people and be honest. When i walked through the doors of recovery i was self will run riot, i was impatient, insecure, angry, resentful, self seeking, self centered, egotistical, fearful and full of guilt, blame and self pity! These are the characteristics i have had to work on to enable me to find happiness otherwise the washing machine cycle continues. What happens for me is that when i feel these emotions i have the urge to escape them by running away to the fantasy world of gambling but the trouble is that because the buzz we get from gambling and escaping reality is so great we are not able to leave until every penny has gone, once we are skint reality kicks back in and all the feelings we felt in the first place come back 10 fold so the desire to return is even greater. Self pity was one of the hardest defect to work to work on. I try not to be bitter about what i haven't got and be grateful for what i have got. Writing a gratitude list helps. I found myself always dissapointed in life and this was because my expectations were always set too high, if you lower the later this will help.
This may sound like a lot to work on but you have the rest of your life to practise these principles in all our affairs (we are not striving for perfection)
Today i do the right thing in life and accept the outcome whatever it is after all i wasn't put on the earth to play god!
I continue to work on this way of living daily one day at a time.
I hope this will help you on your journey to happiness.
Take care.
My name is scott and i am a recovering compulsive gambler.