Publisher:  Marilyn Lancelot   

Vol. X  Issue No. 6  June 2008        

       E-mail:     mslancelot@cox.net
 
Today, I'm going to accept rather than expect.
                     
  I don't understand me right now

I am new to your website and really relate to these women. I too have a gambling problem and have just begun the process of recovery. I go to my first GA meeting on Saturday night and have already begun psychotherapy sessions. It is amazing how all the thoughts, actions, and stories are such a mirror of one another... We live on the other side of that mirror looking at the women we used to be and wondering how the heck we got there to begin with.

I really don't know why I am writing other than I am so empty inside. I know that I have a problem and I do not want to let ANYTHING or anyone control me like I have let this gambling addiction control me for the last 8 years but I am also grieving too. It is like I am leaving the only 'constant' in my life. I feel horrible as a result of what I have allowed this to do to me but yet I grieve it like a lost relationship????

I have spent many hours looking into our addiction and it just seems unreal to me even though I have been a sufferer for so long. When does it become real? When do you actually separate yourself from this addiction and become an individual again? It seems so far away and close at the same time. Since I recognized that I was unable to control this in me I started viewing myself as two opposing people. The addict and the counselor hahaha. The counselor always trying to rationalize with the addict to 'control' herself. It is not easy when the counselor and the addict share the same mind. The addict always wins because of the craving and need. I don't understand me right now and it is just so strange to not recognize anything about this person I carry around everyday.

I am a Christian and really struggle with the fact it was so easy for me to tear my spirituality down to a nub and lie to everyone (including myself) for the sake of what equates to a very expensive video game!!!!!! I can't believe I did this to myself. Life for me prior to uncontrollable gambling was a series of checks and balances; most everything I did made sense, until I woke up one day and nothing made sense.

I know I am on the right road and that God has always been with me but I feel like I have so much to make up to so many and may never get back to a place of recognition??? Will I ever like me again?

Marilyn, thanks for sharing your life with me and letting me have a contact to vent too.

Cristal, Oklahoma
                                        
 
 
 
GA MEETING – WHAT IS IT? IT IS A MIRACLE…   Part II
 
 
 
So, all I had was the internet. I desperately needed meetings and the company of other recovering gamblers. I tried to find a place to start meetings. Unfortunately, nobody wanted to rent a place. I finally found a cellar in an old building in a city center and on the 1st of September 2006, the first meeting took place, with only the Steps and Traditions I had previously translated.

All I knew about GA was from Women Helping Women Newsletter. Some nights I sat alone. I would buy cakes hoping somebody would come. It was a dark cellar and I was a little bit scared being there all by myself and then the rental came to an end and I had to leave the cellar.

December 2006 and January 2007 were windy and cold. I am a gambler and I have never ever drank alcohol, because I had to have everything under control and always be ready to gamble. I hated alcohol. To my own surprise in January 2007, I decided to attend AA meetings to see how the proper meeting should be held. I needed company of other addicted people and it really didn’t matter to me what they are addicted to. I needed somebody to share with me strength and hope.

Everyone was afraid to rent a place for meetings. ‘Gamblers – bad people’ -I read peoples’ minds. And then, I woke up one morning and went straight to my favorite church and said to a parish priest: “I am a female gambler and I need a place to organize a GA meetings, help me please.”

And he said : “Okay, there is a room. When?”

It was like a miracle. On the first meeting on the 29th of January 2007 it was only two of us, a young gambler and me.  I sometimes sat alone but this time I was lucky - it was a room, not a cellar. Marilyn L. sent me GA literature and I was translating it and all I knew was – I am so fortunate, I was given one more time a chance to recover. I went to a radio station and we were given a chance to talk about GA in a few one hour programs. And a year passed by.

I was a chairperson at more then 150 meetings in a raw, three meetings a week, and sometimes additional ones. I was translating literature, copying it for people at the meetings. I was working on my own recovery guided by my internet Sponsor Marilyn L. and thanks to her, I become a sponsor for other people. I was cleaning the room after the meetings and I loved it. I was a treasurer, secretary, a chairperson – you name it. GA it was something new in my hometown - Krakow. All this time I was working on my own recovery and I was reading a lot and published my websites with more then 3 thousands posts by myself.

Nobody, absolutely nobody from Polish GA helped me with anything. My computer was banned till today. And when I decided to take a 12 hour trip on the train to an Intergroup in Poland on July 2007, carrying with me all GA literature translated, all I could hear from Polish GA men and the only one women over there was “go and hang yourself”.

So meetings in my home town are called Original GA Meetings and they have nothing to do with the rest of Poland. But they have everything to do with original GA. Polish GA cheated me, humiliated me and gambling didn’t make such a harm to me as they did!

For me GA it is not only about recovery from compulsive gambling, it is a life philosophy. And the fundament of it is honesty with myself and others. Everything I am now I owe to Marilyn L. from Americas GA. She is for me an example of what it means to be a member of GA. To recover from compulsive gambling was hard. But as I said, I decided to recover and when I did, nothing in this world was able to stop me.

What is worst about meetings? When compulsive gambling takes people away from the meetings. Each time I feel very sad. But I have learned that new ones will come. And I can only hope those gamblers will come back one day as I did. It is a pity it took me so many years to come back to GA. But I know it was Gods' plan for me.  He guided me through life…As He does the same for other people…

 (Part two of the article from Isia in Poland.  It gives a vivid description of her struggles to find recovery without a GA meeting to attend.  She is a courageous lady and I'm proud to call her my friend.)
 
                                  
 . . . what I loathed the most in my mother
 
I would do anything for my mother, always hoping that she would show me some sort of affection. My mother never once hugged, kissed, or loved me. I just wished she would have put her arms around me and said “I love you.” It would never transpire. My mother played poker for money all of her life until she discovered the slot machines. She called me on the phone several times a month always wanting a ride to a casino. I would say yes. Maybe just maybe she would be nice to me. When we arrived at the casino my mother would hurry to a slot machine. My husband and I would grab a cup of coffee and head to the top deck where we would go outside and relax. We had no interest in gambling, after all I knew first hand how my mother’s gambling addiction destroyed my life. My mother would play the slot machines continuously and never get tired. When we asked her to leave she would always tell us to play the slots but we said no.
 
After turning down her offer over and over, the day came when my mother put five dollars in a slot machine and told me to play for her - she had to go to the bathroom. I was hooked. I don’t know if it was the bright lights or the loud noise of the slot machines paying off that made me crave to play more. I soon became conscious of the fact that my mother was nice to me only when I was gambling with her. If I told her I had no money to gamble or that I had other things to do she would become furious and start ridiculing me. After a few years I realized that I was doing what I loathed the most in my mother - gambling with money which was needed for other things. I never knew until that moment what anguish my mother went through with her addiction. Was that the reason she was so mean toward me? I drive by a casino now and realize what gambling can do if not controlled.

Today I keep busy with writing and gardening. I look forward to the visits from my four children, ten grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. When I face difficult challenges in my life I don't run to a casino. I might not be able to change things but I won't add more complexity to the circumstances. With a great deal of determination not to be like my mother, I now know how to control my gambling. The craving is finally gone. When someone wants me to go to a casino with them I can say no or maybe once in a while I will go. However I am truly thankful that I do not have to gamble.

Linda Sommer Farley, author of A Childhood Taken Away by a Mother and Grandfather.
(See suggested reading to learn more about Linda's childhood.)                                     
 
                                                                           
         
   ACCEPTING REALITY                              
                       
“...self-contempt never inspires lasting change.” -- Jane R. Hirschmann and Carol H. Munter
 
 
I can suck myself down into a deep, black hole when I focus on what I think I SHOULD be… more loving, sexy, productive, whatever. Thinking I should be something else means I’m not good enough now. This is poverty thinking and a guaranteed way to be miserable.

I can let go of this suffering by accepting WHAT IS. I can say, “This is how I am right now and that’s okay.” When I first tried this, I could say it but not believe it. Then I began to experience the freedom this perspective brings – just by changing my mind! Now I’m beginning to believe it. What a gift!
 
~ Patrice Robson publishes Women at Heart, a Newsletter where readers join together to "Nurture and Empower Ourselves." Expect to see more messages from Patrice in the future Women Helping Women issues.  Check out her web site for inspiration and support.

(C) Reproductions Permitted:    http://www.women-at-heart.com
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS: patrice@women-at-heart.com

“When we stop opposing reality, action becomes simple, fluid, kind, and fearless.”-- Byron Katie

Gripped by Gambling.  
If you have not read or seen my book, you may click on:  www.grippedbygambling.com and take a peek at the  information inside the cover.  The web-site contains a list of events I've experienced which qualify me to write such a book, an autobiography with some photos of special times in my life, and several reviews sent to me by readers. The book may be ordered from Amazon.com. by the title, author or Isbn # 978-1-58736-770-0. 
Marilyn Lancelot , AZ    mslancelot@cox.net  

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