A Gambling Addict – One Day at a Time

One bet is too much, a thousand bets is never enough. Gambling brings me pleasure but it can never bring me contentedness, it’s like two separate islands, the more time you spend in one the less you spend in the other.

When the feeding frenzy was at its worst the pleasure was incredible, like I’d just put the nozzle of a fuel pump full of adrenaline in my head and filled it up. Willpower? It was always as strong as ten spinach filled men when I had no money. 'Never again' I’d say, until I got paid and the willpower lay smashed on the floor like a helpless victim of psychological violence.

Every day I woke up the addiction was there in the corner of the room wrapping up its hands looking for a fight, never tiring, breathing with hulking muscles and boundless energy, blow after blow. It would take me into the ring and pound me and also my family. Isolation reigned supreme, my friends and family had all drifted away in a sea of bewilderment wondering who I was. Bruised and psychologically battered I crawled into a fellowship of compulsive gamblers, recovery they called it. As I made my way across the floor a gentleman paced towards me, the fear in me was beyond words, he then stuck out the hand of friendship, looked me in the eye and said four words that changed my life. 'You are not alone'.

The human connection I felt was like a superpower and that night I shared my life with the people in that room and none of them fell off their seat or judged me because they had all done the same things I had. I immediately felt HOPE. So guess what? I returned the following week and the weeks and months after that and it eventually grew into years. I had found a home amongst people who were the same as me. A ship of fellow recovery members that could say with authenticity 'I know how you feel' on any given day.

I’ve been in recovery now for over a decade, everything I gambled for I now have through not gambling. I live my life one day at a time, looking forward creates overthinking and anxiety, it serves me no purpose and has an audience of only one. . .me. Looking back can also create unpleasantness but if I live in the here and now I can deal with that, I can deal with the next twenty-four hours, that’s enough.

Everyday I wake up with hope, it’s a crucial ally as it teams up with the burning desire not to place a bet, that hope and desire is like an ever burning flame, like the pilot flame in a boiler you can see, always there always burning. I still go to recovery meetings every week even ten years on, but I don’t go to stop gambling as I’ve done that. I go to help my mental health, if there’s anything that’s troubled me during the week I can go there and put it out in the middle of the floor and take away the good stuff. It’s a bit like taking out the rubbish bins on a Sunday night, you don’t bring them back in do you?

Finally, I know when I’m in my recovery meetings that this illness is out there in the car park doing press ups waiting on me, but as long as I stay teachable in recovery and do the right things living a day at a time with hope then there’s a good chance I’ll notch up another gamble free day until the sun goes down and I’ll happily do it all again the next day.