I have never met a gambling addict yet who did not come into recovery a broken shell of the person they dreamt they would one day be. Gambling is the only addiction that is able to be hidden, sometimes completely, from our family. There are no external tell tale signs like exist with some other addictions, so once we come clean and admit we are a gambling addict that the world changes forever.
The realization of the concrete truth of the devastation that I single handedly caused was soul crippling. Not only for me, but imagine the shock to my then husband of over 30 years when I admitted that the house he thought was paid off actually had not only 3 mortgages on it, but was also about to be foreclosed on. The icing on the cake was that due to unpaid title loans, both our vehicles were about to be repossessed.
My world literally “coming down around my ears” caused me to seek something to “fix” it. I wanted a fast solution that could produce even a small glimmer of hope in the disaster.
It was during the Pandemic, and I lived where there were no resources for gambling addiction in person. Therefore, I had to find recovery in the same place that I had created my hell….online.
I was both incredibly relieved and incredibly frustrated when I found the online gambling recovery community and meetings. I was relieved because I had found my “tribe.” Finally some people who understood and shared in my lived experience with a common one of their own.
My frustration surfaced when I realized that there was no magical fix. There is no pixie dust or unicorn poop that will magically make it all better. Recovery, though it was simple, would be one of the hardest undertakings of my life. I realized that after 20 years of gambling, I could put a permanent end to the act of gambling, but the fact I am a compulsive gambler is for life.
Consistent hard work, honesty, transparency, accountability, lots of therapy, creating connections, building boundaries, and developing a self awareness I had never expected I would need were to be my keys to the kingdom of recovery.
Recovery is hard shit, but incredibly worth it.
Sad really….I think it would be so much more magical if pixie dust and unicorn poop was given to you at your first meeting…
