~ Back Where I Belong ~

The consequences of my gambling appear to be endless. It’s been more than seven years since I placed a bet, and yet here I am today still dealing with the aftermath of my actions...

Just recently, I met with a Fraud Investigator. What a humbling experience that was. And bittersweet in every sense of the word; an incredible sense of relief found me as I uttered the words of my confession – loud and clear – into the recording device before me (“Taped Deposition” is the official term the man used). As the weight of my transgression lifted it was so incredibly freeing that I quite literally felt a piece of me floating away. At the same time, however, came the bitter realization that my ‘fate’ was now in the hands of the stranger next to me, and before I knew it, I was crashing back to earth.

Terrified, my mind reeled at the possibilities... Will I have a criminal record? Will my employer find out? Will I ever find another job? And then the most terrifying prospect of all… Am I going to go to jail? Every fiber of my being trembled. I felt the dampness of tears at my cheeks and a desperate, cold ache in my soul. But God is merciful and I was granted the opportunity to make restitution and avoid prison.

STEP 8: Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. For the longest time I wondered if I would ever be able to make amends for all the despicable things I had done. It seemed an insurmountable task to say the least. Six years in gambling hell had produced quite a lengthy list after all, from lying to my mother… to stealing from employers… all the way to committing fraud. (Perhaps I shouldn’t place my mother at the bottom of my list, as in doing so, it may suggest that my betraying her trust for gambling money was some small thing to me. It was not. My dear, sweet mother is one of those truly amazing mothers you read about in them there “Chicken Soup For The Soul” books!)

My employer couldn’t for the life of him figure out why sales were so low when there was such a high volume of customers… Shoplifting for bare necessities became a way of life… Conning my friends and family (for gambling money) became second nature… Who am I? And what has gambling done with the real me?

Gamblers Anonymous gave me the tools to cope with the aftermath of my addiction. Once I’d begun to heal and had gained enough strength to do so, it was time to make amends. I wrote letters to former employers confessing that I had pilfered money from them and vowing to repay every penny as soon as I was able. I made heartfelt apologies to my family and friends, and began to take my two dogs for more walks than all of their eight legs combined could keep up with. And with every amends came a little healing, and piece by piece my broken heart and soul became whole again. This last amends, for the fraud offence, was the BIG one for me. It was also the final amends on my list. At long last… My conscience is at peace. What an exhilarating relief! I have hoped and prayed for this moment for sooooo long. It’s as though I’ve reached some glorious little plateau of serenity. And I do not take this new dwelling place for granted; I remember well each and every one of those twelve steep steps that I had to climb to get here. And I also know how easily one can come tumbling back down…

Thanks to God, Gamblers Anonymous, and all the amazing people who make up my support network, the likelihood of my taking such a spill is, in my (humble but optimistic) opinion, relatively small… but (sadly) not impossible! I now have the tools to face life and dig my way out of nearly any situation it may throw at me. I no longer feel the need to escape my life. When things get unpleasant, when people, places or things manage to intrude on my serenity, I know how to cope! I attend a meeting, write in my journal, or talk to my Sponsor or another good friend. Or, if the sun is shining and my special place is beckoning, I’ll collect my most favorite friends… those two adorable angels dressed in fur… and the three of us will go gallivanting, ‘escaping’ deep, deep into that mystic place where time stands still, where wild flowers and tall, fragrant grasses are all we have to contend with. It is there that I am most free. It is there that I watch in silent wonder the birds in circled flight, and, as always, those amazingly graceful beings remind me of my own new pair of wings… And it is also there, in that sacred place that God made, that the love in my two dogs’ eyes spills over into a sweet, sweet song of gratitude…
So glad are we, that you are free!
And back where you belong!

Shortly after writing this, one of my two furry angels left this earth. My little friend left her fur in my carpet, doggy drool on my pillow, but best of all… she left her paw prints all over my heart. I was with her when she died, and ever so softly I whispered into her velvety, black ear three things:
Thank you for filling my heart with so much joy…
Forgive me for breaking your heart while I gambled…
See you later, sweet friend…

Ripley Angel-Dog
July 1, 1994 ~ November 25, 2007

Your sister, Joan S., Alberta Canada

 

Joan is the incredibly talented author of "A Place Where Weeds & Roses Grow." Check it out at the left-hand side of your screen under "Suggested Reading"...

HELP!     I need to have you ladies send in some articles for the Newsletter.

 I need articles from gamblers and from counselors.  Thank you~~~~~~~~~~~~       

            

“God please help me, take this devil from me”  

I was clean for almost 4 years, flying high and thinking, I will never go back to gambling. The addiction crippled me mentally and financially for 6 years and I was finally free. I live in Michigan and I attended G.A faithfully the whole time. I don’t know what happened. I just turned 38. Yes, I have read your story and have followed your newsletter since you started it eight years ago. I wrote to you back in 2001 when again my life was in a downward spiral. One day in September I was feeling like I had things under control in my life and I hopped on the freeway and there I was, sitting in front of the casino. The shame followed me in there but it didn’t stop me. I never smoked or drank, gambling definitely is my drug. Gambling has turned me into a liar, I lie to everyone and I’m so tired of it. Loving myself is my biggest issue and self-destruction follows me everywhere. Finding blame in someone else only works for a moment and in order for me to have some kind of life I need to let go of the past.

I work at a very successful job and have borrowed from everyone. The next few weeks will prove very challenging for me. I told everyone my car was stolen but in fact it was repossessed. I had not made a payment in four months because I was gambling and still trying to put up the charade that everything was fine. My husband allows me to control all of the money including his and he asks no questions. My gas is currently turned off. I told him the dryer was broken because everything else is electric. My young teenage daughter worked really hard this summer and I have taken over 500 dollars from her and gambled.

My daughter turned 17 last week and I promised her a car. I had the money but I just wanted to chance a couple of hundred and I ended up losing it all, 6,000 dollars the last 2 weeks and that’s about average right about now. I lost every dollar and didn’t even come home with a cake for her birthday.

I go to church every Sunday and pray, “God please help me, take this devil from me”, but as soon as I get any money, back I go trying to get the big win. I’m tired of hurting my family and hurting myself. Life has become unbearable. Marilyn it seems as gambling has licked me this time. I’m so embarrassed to go back to G.A but I know it’s what I need to do. I was hoping that someone like you can help me get from under this demon of gambling. Things are so bad for me right now I’m not sure what to do. How did I end up back here? I should have learned from my first go around. I ended up in trouble with the law for embezzlement. I lost my house. My first husband left me. I’m now repeating the whole disastrous cycle all over again. I can’t sleep, I’m a nervous wreck. I have really messed up bad and I don’t know if I can fix it this time.

Please help me. Pray for my strength to help me make it through this. Thanks for loving someone like me.

Brenda in Michigan
 

                     

MY HIGHER POWER

 

The concept of Higher Power (instead of God) was new to me - I am from catholic Poland, the homeland of Pope John Paul II, and God was always in my life, until my gambling.
 
I gambled for 15 years at the Pokies and cards, 15 years of isolation and loneliness and years of being ashamed of myself. I carried a dark secret, the secret of being a gambler. All of you know those tears of being helpless and powerless over a gambling addiction. I thought I was the only one being so addicted. There was nobody like me in this world. But there was a determination inside of me. I knew it would be the biggest poker game of my life, I had to win my identity and my dignity back.
 
During my recovery from compulsive gambling, the information about Gamblers Anonymous was a necessity for me. So at the early stage of my recovery the knowledge about my disease was essential, because to be recovered one has to know from what to recover.
 
Mike Brubaker’s article, “Similarities and Differences between GA and AA” was one of the most interesting articles I have ever read. (Mike Brubaker of Michael Brubaker Consulting is also the co-author of Deadly Odds, The Compulsion to Gamble.) While reading his article, I paid particular attention to the line …“Although Sam J. (who admitted to being an atheist) had left Gamblers Anonymous long before 1962, the issue of God continued to be important to Gamblers Anonymous. Why this is so, is not clear…”
 
Here I try to answer to the God’s matter touched by Mr. Brubaker.
 
For me the issue of God is as clear as the moment of hitting my gambling bottom, my moment of total despair of His existence, the crisis of faith, and the feeling of total loneliness and despair. The moment I was thinking about committing suicide was the very moment when (as I call it TODAY) God paid attention to me and for the first time in my life, I did not bargain with Him.
 
At that time I was blaming God for 15 years of my gambling, actually for everything bad that happened in my life. At that very moment, I questioned God’s existence. Today I see it differently. God who does not have to prove His existence to me, gives me His hand. When I totally doubt His existence, He reaches out to me.
 
But the day I hit my bottom I felt different . . . how could my reconciliation with him happen in a split second? How can I forgive Him at once? How can I forgive Him for my unhappy life, for the moment when I first gambled and it brought a relief and then for 15 years of a gambling merry go around? How can I forgive Him for 15 years of misery? When I began gambling I was a young woman, when I hit bottom, I looked in the mirror and thought, what has happened to my face? Why do I look so old? I was shivering and sick from gambling. And it was God I blamed for everything…
 
Since I felt such a terrible revolt and such a huge regret inside, why had You permitted or rather why had You sentenced me to such a terrible disease? Inside of me were thousands of questions and grudges about my whole life, because gambling conditioned my life and my life conditioned gambling. It was a vicious circle.
 
When I began attending GA, if someone had told me the 12 Steps abounded in the word God, I would have turned away from GA. The GA concept of the Higher Power was new to me.  What is more, it was the beginning of my recovery and I was being told – you have the right to DECIDE what you want your Higher Power to be. Me, who had no control over her own life. I was returning to the old days when decisions used to belong to me. I realized I had nothing to blame this Higher Power for, I was supposed to create it. Therefore, it was simpler to begin believing. Once again I could finally have something that belonged to me only, and on what I could have influence. It was fantastic. In GA I was given the right to create again but it was difficult.
 
Higher Power – Something bigger then myself, HP to help me, and HP to be my partner. For me, it was also a reminder of what friendship used to be. To be given I have to give as well, my HP will help me if I help myself .
 
At this time I was very far from my second faith in God. Step 2, Hope, was as necessary for me as oxygen. I was far from Step 3, Action. I had once entrusted my life to God and in my sick understanding He disappointed me. My faith at that time was bargaining, "God, please, I want to win so much, let me win and in this way prove to me that You exist".
 
Therefore, a second trust was very difficult. If there had been the word “God” in the first few Steps, I perhaps would not have made Step 2 or Step 3. For me the concept of the Higher Power is also a concept of waiting for a total reconciliation with God. This concept was very helpful to me, and it is today… however, in a different way.
 
Am I still on my way to God of my own understanding? There is inside of me the need of belonging to religion, to the God I lost during my way of life, and for my Higher Power to be my Guardian Angel – as it was when I was a little girl.

Isia from Poland

Gripped by Gambling.  

I have a new website  www.grippedbygambling.com with information about my book. The site contains an autobiography with some photos of special times in my life. The book may be ordered from Amazon.com, and on-line books stores or directly from the publisher, Wheatmark.com/bookstore or call 1-888-934-0888 x3,  It may be ordered by the title, author or Isbn # 978-1-58736-770-0. Gifts Anon stores in Phoenix and Scottsdale are stocking the book.

Marilyn Lancelot , AZ    mslancelot@cox.net  

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