Hello Jim, Thank you for your input. I would like
to invite you to visit our group.It is called....
Dares to care Support for Compulsive Gamblers @
yahoo.com. It is a very active group. Thanks,
lilly
--- gr8_move <no_reply@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone, I just discovered this board,
> wanted to share today.
> My name is Jim, I am a recovering compulsive
> gambler today, placed my
> last bet on January 23, 1996. Kindly recall
> that listening to Warren
> B.'s story along with writing my answers to the
> 20 Questions, helped
> me admit my powerlessness over gambling. That
> when I AM gambling, my
> life's screwed up. I have no power to control
> my gambling, because
> that "ain't the way I gamble". Attempts at
> control are only an
> illusion for me, and lack of power is my
> problem. ~~~~~~~ Now let me
> share, along the way on my journey, how I
> cleared up some confusion
> about the rest of Step 1, for me. Are you with
> me? I hope so. Let's
> cross the "bridge" together. The DASH. It's
> right there in Step 1,
> right in the middle. A DASH in the English
> language means "end of one
> thought, beginning of a new thought". (courtesy
> to Clancy I. from AA)
> The 1st thought (admitting my powerlessness)
> deals with, When I AM
> Gambling, the lack of boundaries and
> unpredictability of where it
> leads. And then we have the DASH. It looks like
> this - have you
> really noticed it before? And it leads into the
> 2nd thought! "that
> our lives had become unmanageable" The 2nd
> thought, which is more
> challenging in many ways, deals with the other
> part of my problem,
> When I Am NOT Gambling. When I stop gambling,
> in time, the yellow GA
> Combo Book describes the feeling as "pitiful
> and incomprehensible
> demoralization". Some members painfully
> describe it as losing
> their "best" friend. Other literature describes
> the way I am feeling
> When I Am NOT Gambling as being restless,
> irritable, discontented.
> Further into the Combo book, on page 14, it
> describes When I Am NOT
> Gambling (between binges), as periods of
> nervousness, irritablity,
> frustration, indecision and a continued
> breakdown in personal
> relationships ... and not periods of
> constructive thinking. And so,
> of myself, When I Am NOT Gambling, my life's
> screwed up. Or as the
> 1st Step reads, our lives had become
> unmanageable. And so, once
> again, my problem is lack of power. If I could
> "fix it", bring myself
> out of this funk on my own, I would have
> already done so. If just
> stopping gambling "fixed it", of course, then
> that would be the final
> solution. But it isn't, because of myself, the
> longer I stay stopped,
> When I Am NOT Gambling, the more "screwed up"
> (unmanageable) my life
> becomes. It feels as if there is a giant spring
> inside me being
> compressed more and more until one day it's
> gonna explode. Remaining
> in "abstinence mode" without getting "into
> recovery" only makes my
> life so damn painful that I can't stand it.
> Without gambling's
> illusions to deal with real life situations,
> and the associated
> feelings, the real life crap gets so real, so
> difficult, too real.
> Gambling-as-a-solution, my previous way of
> coping, my escape from
> reality, with that taken away, now what? So
> here again, lack of power
> is my problem. Step 1 means a lack power is
> what's missing, whether I
> AM gambling, or whether I am NOT gambling. The
> DASH "bridges" my
> (our) desire to stop gambling (~~~ admitting
> powerlessness) with the
> diligent efforts necessary to bring about a
> character change within
> myself (themselves) (~~~ admitting life's
> unmanageability). Thanks
> for listening! Jim A. email:
> gr8_move[at}yahoo.com
>
>


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