When we stop gambling and admit we are powerless over gambling it important to stay as far away from gambling as possible. Like Superman and Kryptonite, the closer I get to gambling the weaker I become.
I learnt early on at GA that there is a line and one side is gambling and the other side is not gambling. In GA anything where you are staking something to win something then that is classed as a gamble (even buying a raffle ticket is classed as gambling). There are a few grey areas in my opinion which I won’t go into but I got the idea about what was gambling and what wasn’t.
So the idea is to stay on the side of not gambling which is the ultimate goal (1 day at a time) but sometimes you start to move the line and things that initially were seen as gambling can become seen as ok to do because they aren’t really hardcore gambling. I know this from experience as I started to move line after being off gambling for over 5 years.
I started to have a go on the raffle, the football scratch cards, the sweepstake for the FA cup final etc. (All things that are 100% gambling) but I told myself this was no big deal and I wouldn’t get myself in a mess doing this. This then lead to me playing on quiz machines in pubs and dropping some loose change in fruit machines whilst I was working away (again nobody would find out about this so it wouldn’t hurt).
Eventually though I’d moved the line too much and I was back gambling. Back telling lies, covering my tracks and back into the routine of gambling not caring if I won or lost. The biggest thing for me was that I was probably gambling with my family and my future (although I didn’t see it like that at the time). The money was just like Monopoly money, if I lost I chased and if I won I couldn’t tell my wife so it just gave me more tokens to spend for the rest of the week.
I hear stories of people who go back hard when they have a relapse but mine was quite subtle over a number of years. Maybe 5 years of GA helped me but all I do know is you have to take this addiction seriously and you have to be prepared to say no to people when they ask you to buy a raffle ticket or have a go on the football card etc. No one said it was going to be easy but once you start the move the line you are on a slippery slope back into addiction and 2 recoveries is definitely enough for me.
Hope this has been useful for someone, it’s certainly made me think about a few things writing it. Thankfully I’m now in a good place with my recovery and my last bet was on 18th October 2014. I’m still attending 2 GA meetings and they really do help my recovery 1 day at a time.
gamblingfreeste 