20-05-2011, 05:02 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.
For me the spiritual recovery program gave me an opportunity today to a healthy productive creative life.
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.
If each time I gambled I got weaker and weaker giving up all site and hope it in myself and even thinking that money would resolve my life issues.
The person I feared facing the most was myself, deep down I knew that what I was doing was unhealthy, but I felt I had no choice.
Not only did I feel that the gambling control me and was a victim of the gambling I also felt a victim of the gambling, I felt a victim of other people, I felt a victim of life was deeply resentful and felt cheated and that life owed me big time.
Sadly I was angry resentful confused weak inept inadequate insecure immature irresponsible lost and panicky.
The fear I did experience was due to childhood painful traumatic experiences, childhood fears would remain with me into my adulthood.
I now understand that fear is a consequence of pain, so every fear I have today is a consequence of some unhealthy experience in my childhood.
As fear grew I reached a point when I could not cope with high levels of fear and would go in to panic mode and at that point I could not think clearly and what panic into unhealthy decisions.
Panic became a way of life and due to panic I lost all faith and hope in myself causing a drop in confidence and self esteem in myself.
By doing the 12 steps it would help me achieve goals progress and improve my confidence and self esteem on my own actions.
In time by me being honest along with other people I would learn that honesty was the best policy, that healthy relationships are based upon honesty, that by being honest I could learn to be myself.
Today has been a slow day when I have been able to relax and allow my arm to be less so swollen.
I was able to give up smoking because I just my unhealthy actions, thinking that by smoking will it take away my stress, once I gave up smoking I found that by going outside and taking deep breaths help me to relax, I did not need to smoke at all.
In taking self inventory about my finances, if I just spent $5.00 a day on cigarettes in one year I would spend $1825 a year just on cigarettes.
If I just gambled $5.00 a day on gambling that would mean I spent $1825 a year on gambling.
If I just drank $5.00 a day on alcohol that would mean I spent $1825 a year on drink.
Calculating in one year three times $1825 equals $5475 a year which is a very conservative estimate to the cost of my unhealthy addictions.
Considering I was in unhealthy habits over 20 years the cost of unhealthy living was very expensive.
One of the things I did was to calculate my gross hourly rate and see just how many hours I needed to work to earn that large sum of money.
Funny enough this total did not include my obsessive and addictive coffee drinking and tea drinking; I have now lived without drinking tea or coffee for some decades.
Often one will give up an addiction and then switch to another addiction or another obsession; it is quite regular for people to be obsessed about money, lack of money, or acquiring money.
Been obsessive in any way is often an indicator a person is not allowing themselves to be in touch with the deepest feelings.
Often obsessive behavior is just a way of deviating facing them self.
The gambling buzz was very much fear and adrenaline based the bigger the risk the bigger the buzz.
Was I an adrenaline junkie yes very much so, the side effect is that life seemed very boring and very slow?
In slowing down my pace I needed to learn to be patient and tolerant with myself first of all, this was going to be a long process.
My sulking was an indicator that I was very immature, mead not being honest was very immature, me not being able to apologize was very immature, me not being able to be accountable was immature.
Why did I fear being honest, simply because when I was honest as a child has punished for it physically emotionally and was ridiculed.
Again why did I fear being honest, because I feared pain and humiliated time and time again.
There was a long period of time before I could write things down on paper and be accountable to myself that took a long time.
Being accountable to myself was a very big step for me and came about by me over coming my fears.
The serenity prayer helps us understand that we do not regulate or control other people, however as we get stronger we are able to speak out for ourselves and no longer feel a victim of our own silence.
The website enables us to recognize and see ourselves in others, to see and feel unhealthy actions in others and come out of our denial.
I feel I am very fortunate to use the site and be able to learn so much from other people, I often feel and see that people are able to be more articulate in explaining their feelings and their emotions.
The art of learning comes about by us learning from other peopleâs mistakes and also from them demonstrating spiritual values to us.
Progress is slow and often people will want to jump from step one to step 12 in a very quick time sadly they cheat themselves.
I now understand for me the angry is not healthy, being angry for me is not healthy, I had myself, and I had my relationships with other people when I am angry.
I now understand that spiritual interaction helps me heal and grow and that helps me have a better relationship with myself.
I also understand that everyone wants and needs the same emotional contentment and serenity and to be at peace with themselves.
The fact is that people do not have the ability to heal and nurture their pain, so often people will transfer their pain on to other people.
Transferring my pain is a very cruel thing to do and by setting up a boundary on it and not willing to do that anymore.
Next Tuesday will be four weeks since my operation and Iâm halfway through the heating process, yet still need to be patient with myself.
The more I get in to recovery the more aware of how much more work there is to do on myself.
Welcome to those lurkers and new people in time you will be able to open up and feel less fear.
Do I practice and 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 loyalty 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.
Love and peace to everyone.
Dave of Beckenham
For me the spiritual recovery program gave me an opportunity today to a healthy productive creative life.
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.
If each time I gambled I got weaker and weaker giving up all site and hope it in myself and even thinking that money would resolve my life issues.
The person I feared facing the most was myself, deep down I knew that what I was doing was unhealthy, but I felt I had no choice.
Not only did I feel that the gambling control me and was a victim of the gambling I also felt a victim of the gambling, I felt a victim of other people, I felt a victim of life was deeply resentful and felt cheated and that life owed me big time.
Sadly I was angry resentful confused weak inept inadequate insecure immature irresponsible lost and panicky.
The fear I did experience was due to childhood painful traumatic experiences, childhood fears would remain with me into my adulthood.
I now understand that fear is a consequence of pain, so every fear I have today is a consequence of some unhealthy experience in my childhood.
As fear grew I reached a point when I could not cope with high levels of fear and would go in to panic mode and at that point I could not think clearly and what panic into unhealthy decisions.
Panic became a way of life and due to panic I lost all faith and hope in myself causing a drop in confidence and self esteem in myself.
By doing the 12 steps it would help me achieve goals progress and improve my confidence and self esteem on my own actions.
In time by me being honest along with other people I would learn that honesty was the best policy, that healthy relationships are based upon honesty, that by being honest I could learn to be myself.
Today has been a slow day when I have been able to relax and allow my arm to be less so swollen.
I was able to give up smoking because I just my unhealthy actions, thinking that by smoking will it take away my stress, once I gave up smoking I found that by going outside and taking deep breaths help me to relax, I did not need to smoke at all.
In taking self inventory about my finances, if I just spent $5.00 a day on cigarettes in one year I would spend $1825 a year just on cigarettes.
If I just gambled $5.00 a day on gambling that would mean I spent $1825 a year on gambling.
If I just drank $5.00 a day on alcohol that would mean I spent $1825 a year on drink.
Calculating in one year three times $1825 equals $5475 a year which is a very conservative estimate to the cost of my unhealthy addictions.
Considering I was in unhealthy habits over 20 years the cost of unhealthy living was very expensive.
One of the things I did was to calculate my gross hourly rate and see just how many hours I needed to work to earn that large sum of money.
Funny enough this total did not include my obsessive and addictive coffee drinking and tea drinking; I have now lived without drinking tea or coffee for some decades.
Often one will give up an addiction and then switch to another addiction or another obsession; it is quite regular for people to be obsessed about money, lack of money, or acquiring money.
Been obsessive in any way is often an indicator a person is not allowing themselves to be in touch with the deepest feelings.
Often obsessive behavior is just a way of deviating facing them self.
The gambling buzz was very much fear and adrenaline based the bigger the risk the bigger the buzz.
Was I an adrenaline junkie yes very much so, the side effect is that life seemed very boring and very slow?
In slowing down my pace I needed to learn to be patient and tolerant with myself first of all, this was going to be a long process.
My sulking was an indicator that I was very immature, mead not being honest was very immature, me not being able to apologize was very immature, me not being able to be accountable was immature.
Why did I fear being honest, simply because when I was honest as a child has punished for it physically emotionally and was ridiculed.
Again why did I fear being honest, because I feared pain and humiliated time and time again.
There was a long period of time before I could write things down on paper and be accountable to myself that took a long time.
Being accountable to myself was a very big step for me and came about by me over coming my fears.
The serenity prayer helps us understand that we do not regulate or control other people, however as we get stronger we are able to speak out for ourselves and no longer feel a victim of our own silence.
The website enables us to recognize and see ourselves in others, to see and feel unhealthy actions in others and come out of our denial.
I feel I am very fortunate to use the site and be able to learn so much from other people, I often feel and see that people are able to be more articulate in explaining their feelings and their emotions.
The art of learning comes about by us learning from other peopleâs mistakes and also from them demonstrating spiritual values to us.
Progress is slow and often people will want to jump from step one to step 12 in a very quick time sadly they cheat themselves.
I now understand for me the angry is not healthy, being angry for me is not healthy, I had myself, and I had my relationships with other people when I am angry.
I now understand that spiritual interaction helps me heal and grow and that helps me have a better relationship with myself.
I also understand that everyone wants and needs the same emotional contentment and serenity and to be at peace with themselves.
The fact is that people do not have the ability to heal and nurture their pain, so often people will transfer their pain on to other people.
Transferring my pain is a very cruel thing to do and by setting up a boundary on it and not willing to do that anymore.
Next Tuesday will be four weeks since my operation and Iâm halfway through the heating process, yet still need to be patient with myself.
The more I get in to recovery the more aware of how much more work there is to do on myself.
Welcome to those lurkers and new people in time you will be able to open up and feel less fear.
Do I practice and 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 loyalty 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.
Love and peace to everyone.
Dave of Beckenham