Hi, my name is Judy and I'm a compulsive gambler. I am a care giver and an escape gambler. I just passed 90 days. It may not seem like much to someone outside of GA, but to me it's a lifetime ... a new lifetime. Ninety days ago I contemplated suicide. I felt more self-contempt than I ever dreamt possible, and I almost lost it all.

 

I made one phone call that saved me ... to the Arizona Compulsive Gamblers Hotline. Within 24 hours, both my husband and I had received counseling, and I had been seen and evaluated by a therapist. And I had attended a women's only meeting and been blessed with a GA mentor with many years of recovery.
Without the Hotline I don't know what would have happened. I live in a rural area with no services available, an area where you can really feel alone and abandoned An area where the next meeting wasn't until Wednesday, and this was Thursday midnight.
 

The changes in my life are phenomenal. I no longer take anti-depressants; I have been released by my therapist; I attend GA meetings at least once a week, and on another positive note, my compulsive habit of everything in its place is back! I have more energy and have completed more projects in weeks than I have in the past 2 years. I feel ... anger, happiness, guilt. ... I feel. No, I can't change the things I did during my gambling, but I can work one day at a time toward not doing them again.
 

I am fortunate and thank God everyday that I only lost $25,000– not my husband, family, job, home and car; and I didn't break the law. But I also know that without GA, I might have lost it all.
Today, I won't gamble ... and, God willing, I won't gamble tomorrow and so on and so on. My wish is that we can reach all those who suffer and help them get back on track. Thank you to my GA mentor– my very own Guardian Angel– for watching over me....................................................Judy T, Arizona

Gambling compulsively consumed our lives. If we weren’t at the casino, card room or track, we were scheming to get money to go back. Or scrambling to cover the bad checks, credit card advances or loans we had used to finance the last trip.

Sometimes we spent hours embellishing the details of our dreamworld. Why just pay off the mortgage on our parents’ home when we could build them a new one? Why send the kids to the state university when their mother could afford an ivy league school? Why settle for a Volvo when a Mercedes would be more in keeping with our fortune?

When we weren’t physically absent from our homes, families and friends, we were mentally and emotionally missing. Our fogged brains fretted about whether our son’s soccer game would end in time for us to beat our husband to the mailbox. We hoped and prayed nobody would win that huge bingo jackpot while we were stuck at our daughter’s piano recital. How could we have the boss and her husband to dinner when we had gambled the grocery money away?

Maybe we skipped altogether many events in our children’s lives. Maybe we were fired or quit our job because the fog made us sub-par employees or told us ditching the job was the logical thing to do. Or maybe when you came to GA, your life hadn’t gotten that bad—yet.

No matter where we fall on the devastation scale, when we first begin abstaining from gambling, our lives seem empty. A fortunate few may be able to slip easily back into the life they had abandoned and will suffer only the occasional fleeting thought of gambling. Others may have an agonizing knot in the pit of the stomach that it seems nothing but gambling can relieve.

Most of us will fall somewhere between, but one thing is certain; a compulsive gambler who isn’t gambling will miss it. Be prepared because it probably will happen.

We may not remember what activities filled our hours before gambling. Hobbies we once enjoyed may not satisfy us. Work we once took pleasure in may now constitute a dreadful chore. Nevertheless, we have to fill the time we once devoted to gambling—and its aftermath. But what are we to do when we can’t seem to get our life back?

Of course, we will fill some of our time with meetings and spending time with other people in GA. We have to be careful, however, not to develop an "addiction to the Program"! Addiction is addiction, after all. By the way, compulsive gamblers seem especially vulnerable to compulsive shopping!

If we have neglected work, we may be tempted to go overboard in that department; but compulsive work, while financially rewarding, can create strain in our relationships, just as compulsive gambling did. Surfing the net, in moderation, seems an innocuous activity, but indulging for hours at a time may create an addiction. Most of us are capable of becoming compulsive about almost anything! And practicing any behavior compulsively hampers our ability to move forward in recovery.

Start thinking right away about constructive ways to spend your time. Be prepared when the inevitable urge to gamble strikes. Make plans to landscape your yard; with ingenuity it won’t cost an arm and a leg. Volunteer at a local school, hospital or shelter. Go back to school and get that degree you regretted not pursuing. Mark your calendar for special times to spend with your family and other loved ones. Root around and find that list of books you told yourself you would read someday. Just don’t read compulsively! ............................Betty C., AZ

Much of the following information comes, not from me, but through me. It comes from my teachers and mentors on the subject, with my gratitude for their patience and endless encouragement. Lori Rugle, Ph.D., Joe Ciarrocchi Ph.D., Deb Haskins Ph.D. and Jim Walsh Ph.D. Though they are all Ph.D.’s, I don’t hold it against them… often.

"The time has come the walrus said to speak of many things, of ships and sails and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings." So goes an introduction to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, as she begins another adventure through the looking glass.

The time also has come to speak of many things when we look at spirituality and recovery. In this era of aroma therapy and crystals, getting a good grasp on spirituality and the role it should play in one’s personal recovery can be confusing, if not outright difficult. Spirituality can be defined so many ways I would take up the remainder of this article quoting the top 10 definitions. Many wonderful authors have written to the subject far more eloquently than I ever could. At the end of these notes I will list just a few of my many favorites for interested readers.

As an outsider who has attended G.A. meetings since 1979, I have noted in many states around the U.S.—as others have—that G.A. has made an effort to secularize their 12 steps. Unlike A.A.’s steps, from which G.A. adapted the 12 steps in 1957, G.A.’s steps somewhat de-emphasize the importance of a "spiritual awakening" as part of recovery. Perhaps the common confusion between religion and spirituality affected the issue. In my view, while a person can nurture, or even implant, spirituality within the context of a traditional religion or faith practice, a traditional religion certainly is not a prerequisite for a full spiritual life.

Let me suggest to the reader, as Dr. Rugle presents it, spirituality can be your ethical practice, your value system, that little voice in your head that says "No, don’t do that," as well as an element of a religion. My work with compulsive gamblers has shown me many patterns of thought and behavior. One pattern has more than one compulsive gambler, often relatively new to recovery, telling me about dismissing the practice of their childhood religion. Often it is around the adolescent years, "... when my parents stopped making me go to church." Sometimes it is after a significant loss, death, or other hardship, and the gambler clearly expresses her or his anger towards this "mean" God who let this horrible thing happen.

Also clear to me is the missing element, as the search for serenity continues. Debts get paid, meetings attended, gambling stopped, but sometimes something is still missing inside. Perhaps the need to reconcile with one’s faith is part of the answer. Pastoral counselors are well-trained in this service. Perhaps the need to explore the topic will bring the searcher to some answers that suit the adult ready to practice a faith that fits. Perhaps the quest that lasts a lifetime can begin with a prayer from another colleague, Chris Anderson, whose presentations speak of the recovering compulsive gambler reaching out to pray in the simplest—the most direct—of ways. Consider beginning your day with "help" or "help me today" and end your day with the words "thank you."

In my mind this central connection is indeed part of Steps 2 and 3, and the rest all comes as we are ready for it.