Understanding addiction
Addiction can take many forms, from alcohol and drug dependency to compulsive gambling and other behaviours that increasingly take control of our lives. Although the circumstances may differ, the underlying struggles often have much in common, as do the challenges of finding a way towards recovery.
Is compulsive gambling about winning?
It can be difficult to understand that gambling isn't just about winning. In fact, winning may have surprisingly little to do with it, which can make the problem difficult to understand and even harder to resolve.
People often gamble with good intentions, believing it will pay dividends. Whether it's in the pursuit of money, solving problems or just relaxing and having fun, unfortunately it almost inevitably leads to unintended and dire consequences.
And then comes the realisation that gambling is performing a very different function — one that increasingly causes harm to yourself and those around you.
Yet in the moment you're gambling, anything seems possible and nothing else matters. The adrenaline surges, the world narrows and it's as if it's just you and the bet. That's until you're back at bust again. It's like chasing your tail, with the chances of catching it becoming increasingly remote.
As gambling becomes compulsive, the loss of control can become overwhelming.
With that loss of control, your values get lost. You find yourself behaving in ways that are completely alien to who you believe yourself to be. Money, time, relationships, promises and commitments become lost beneath all the possibilities gambling promises. And something else gets lost too, your sense of your own value.
What gambling promises
Understanding the function gambling performs is an important start to recovery. That means being honest not only about what gambling costs you, but what it gives you. Maybe it's the promise of financial gain or the release of tension. Perhaps it's an escape from the everyday expectations or stresses and strains of life.
Gambling can become a place that's yours and yours alone. It might offer excitement, an antidote to boredom, frustration, pain or loneliness — somewhere you don't have to think about anything except the moment.
Simply removing the behaviour doesn't mean the things you were using it to deal with miraculously disappear.
What if there were other ways of finding what you've been looking for?
Recovery can mean discovering healthier ways of finding release, excitement, escape or simply some space for yourself — ways of living that give something back rather than continually taking things away.
Learning to recover
Recovery is a true investment in yourself and your future. But understanding what recovery is, and learning how to practise it, isn't always obvious.
Guilt and shame are often part of the cycle. The attempt to regain control, followed by more loss of control, can leave you feeling that you've failed yet again.
Recovery means recognising the harm your behaviour has caused without continuing to punish yourself for it. Chances are, you've been doing enough of that already.
And recovery can require a different kind of selfishness. Not the selfishness of addiction, but the selfishness of genuinely caring for yourself.
Recovery is being responsible for yourself and your wellbeing. It's learning what you need and meeting that, protecting what's important. It's beginning to invest your time, energy and attention in something that has real value.
You don't have to do it alone, because a gambler alone is in bad company.
Many a promising recovery has been dashed on the rocks of isolation. And being surrounded by people doesn't necessarily mean you're not alone. You may have family, colleagues or friends and still feel alone, especially when you've had to keep your gambling secret.
Some things are difficult to share with the people closest to us, especially when what we say affects them, and their response affects us.
Counselling offers a different kind of relationship.
It's somewhere you can talk openly about the gambling, the lies, the losses, the shame, the promises, the anger — and your feelings, perhaps in a way you've never been encouraged to before. You don't have to worry about getting it right or being judged.
I've worked with people affected by gambling and addiction for many years. I understand the issue and I'm comfortable having conversations about the things that are difficult to talk about.
Through that conversation and reflection, you can begin to see yourself differently — as someone with value, someone with choices, and someone capable of having greater agency over the direction of your life.
Recovery isn't simply about giving something up.
It can be about discovering something worth giving it up for.
Have you ever wondered just how much your upbringing affected you?
Being in the grip of a compulsive addiction yourself is one thing, but being affected by someone else's addiction presents its own, often difficult challenges.
It can be heartbreaking watching someone you love struggle, particularly when you feel powerless to change what's happening. Their suffering can become your suffering, and you may find yourself caught between wanting to help and not knowing what to do.
And sometimes those experiences began long before we were old enough to understand what was happening around us.
We can spend much of our lives trying to understand or change someone else's behaviour, without recognising how profoundly our own lives have been shaped by it.
Growing up around addiction, alcoholism or other difficulties within the family can influence the roles we adopt, the relationships we form and what we come to believe about ourselves. We may learn to keep the peace, take responsibility for others or put our own needs aside, without ever really questioning why.
These ways of coping may once have served us well. But what helped us manage life as children doesn't necessarily help us live the lives we want as adults.
Counselling offers an opportunity to explore these experiences, perhaps recognising patterns that have followed us through life without our being fully aware of them.
It's an important conversation we can begin together. One that allows you to see how your experiences have shaped you, what you might want to change and perhaps discover that sometimes the simple truth is the best.