Why ‘just stopping’ is not enough; 3 additional techniques you can try to help you along in your recovery
To stop gambling when you are addicted to it is not a small step to take. Most gamblers that I see in therapy (and remember those are the ones who were motivated enough to seek treatment!) will typically have one or even several small lapses before the writing is on the wall; The gambling will have to go. Even at that level it is much easier said than done to remain abstinent.
Some of the reasons that the gambling often persists despite people’s better judgment are…
Too relaxed or too few barriers have been put in place; remember these barriers are not optional, they are an absolute necessity since you must accept that the gambling no longer falls within voluntary control for you (or you would have quit long time ago!)
Intermittent denial & high impulsivity levels With this I mean the ‘night/day’ approach to the gambling, which can be flavoured by outright disgust and hatred of the gambling one day and with the person swearing it will never happen again - but a few days later that same person is sitting in front of you making a great case for why a little bit of gambling isn’t going to hurt them further
The urge to get quick money becomes too overwhelming and in a moment of losing touch with reality; the argument for gambling as a money-making method yet again seems realistic and sensible
The pain of no longer having an escape from a difficult reality, from boredom and/or from past hurts fuels panic, quickly followed by cravings to go back for more
The energy that should be focused fully on moving forward, is instead consumed by rumination, worry and negative moods that (although sometimes justifiable) do little but bring your positive momentum to a full stop
Something really negative happens that calls upon good coping skills that have not yet been put in place or practiced - and the gambling may appear to offer some short term 'comfort’ and relief
The rose-tinted glasses comes on, and in a moment of sheer nostalgia , where the gambling suddenly appears to be an almost trouble-free activity that used to bring pure joy and excitement to life, it seems almost punishing to push something so great out of one’s life. And so a bet gets placed again.. and before you know it the brutal reality of the activity yet again hits home!
There are of course other reasons too, but the ones described above are some of the common ones.
What happens to the things we put our full attention to?
One of the features of gambling addiction, that people often overlook, is the enormous ‘investment’ of time and energy (in addition to money!) that has been made towards gambling. In pretty much any other walk of life, whatever we attend to and put that much energy towards, would be highly likely to flourish. Let me give you a few examples:
If you are a parent and give your unattended attention to your child - he/she will really appreciate it and you will be able to see how your loving attention nourishes them and make them feel seen, heard and loved. This will in return make you feel like a great parent and the bond that you build will be strong and durable.
Many people who enter recovery from addictions take up gardening as a way of helping themselves. Gardening offers plenty of opportunity to witness growth, learn mindful attention and to be able to enjoy daily the rewards of the efforts spent. If you put some attention to learning how to plant and care for a garden or indoor plants- you will soon be seeing the results of your care reflected in beautiful crops or flowers.
One of my ex-gamblers was telling me how he has put his energy and time into doing up some rooms in his house. He sent me some before and after pictures and WOW! – a complete home makeover had taken place over the course of just a few weeks. The place was looking like a scene out of Elle Decor!
·Challenge: Try and see what happens if you inject a large portion of your daily energy into learning a new skill for example cooking – and watch how quickly you will progress!
Whilst this may well be obvious, you can probably also recognise that during those episodes of your life when the gambling has been a part of your journey, your attention and participation in other activities (be it the raising your children, pruning your garden, doing up rooms in the house or cooking) will be half-hearted and diluted. They may also seem very boring as the stimulation levels of the gambling are very hard to compete with. It therefor risks interfering greatly with everything else that you are trying to do to enjoy yourself. This is despite the fact that I have yet to meet a gambler who logically would not argue that most other activities are more worthwhile than the gambling, and ‘should’ be bringing them more joy than the gambling ever did.
Gambling is an experience of extremely high intensity- be it positive or negative intensity!
The dopamine rush achieved through the anticipation, the euphoria of winning and the thrill of chasing all add to the experience of gambling. Sadly, even the negative bits add to the feeling of ‘drama’ and intensity. The intense chase of losses, the distraught and regrets after a loss and the desperate feelings of losing control are all-consuming and negative in experience, but can still make for a handy wake-up from boredom and dullness and/or avoidance of unresolved trauma and misery that may otherwise impact mentally on your everyday existence. For this reason, it is crucial to view the gambling not just as an act of ‘madness’ or ‘crazy impulse’ but as a behaviour that fills a profoundly important function in your life, even if it certainly is not a positive one. It has indeed fulfilled some sort of ‘job’ though and we don’t want to lose track on what that job is, as it provides important clues as to how to proceed in your recovery, and where to start doing some work on yourself. At the end of it; gambling has unfortunately been one big waste of time, since it should be clear at this point that whatever ‘job’ it set out to do for you, it never did it properly, and it never ever will.
The gambling did not bring any of the rewards that you fantasized about, the energy spillage is copious and the ‘loving attention’ that you have put towards it end up making you feel as though you’ve invested all your money in dead stock. You ended up getting absolutely nothing back, but it took you to a place where you are now in severe emotional and most likely also financial debt
Many gamblers I see try a bit too hard to motivate themselves through a process of ‘fear-mongering’ themselves into quitting i.e.., ‘if I don’t quit gambling things will get worse’ ‘he/she said they would leave me if I don’t quit’ etc. In my experience, creating a fear of these gambling-related consequences can provide a powerful deterrent early on in treatment. In other words, it can make for a an effective catalyst for change. Unfortunately, in the longer term the attention biases take over and slowly but surely the memory of gambling is yet again being romanticized. The intellectual knowledge is there, but the connection with that painful feeling is gone. This is one of the reasons why you want to not just quit the activity, but also take care of some of the more mental processes that underpin the addiction.
How to disrupt not just the gambling behaviour but also the mental habit?
We have established that there is a real function of the gambling and hopefully you have also put all of the immediate steps in place that are necessary for abstinence both in the shorter term and in the longer term. If you have not taken this step, then please read about those steps here
Strange as it may sound, many gamblers are initially able to stop the behaviour of gambling with relative ease (not everyone of course). For some people, even staying away for a few weeks or months just is not that much of a challenge. How difficult the first step is will depend a lot on what sub-type of gambler you are, and whether you have been known to engage in the gambling in a dependent fashion (for example every single day or in response to every difficult feeling) or if it has more had the pattern of out of control binges but with no felt need to take part in regular gambling activities.
Either way – what you might have realised is that the ‘addictive component’ incorporates far more than the actual gambling moment itself. It is comprised of all of that time, energy and affiliated behaviours and habits that have been filling up your psychological bandwidth. If you were to sum up all of the time that has gone towards your gambling in one way or another – be it the anticipation and planning for the next bet, or the aftermaths and how to clean up the mess- you will realise that there is the equivalent to a part-time , or for some even a full-time, job! When you leave that ‘job’ you are going to notice it. Having your mind consumed by obsessional thoughts, whether these feel positive or negative, can be a really powerful way of avoiding reality and its associated problems. This is why you want to acknowledge that now that the gambling has stopped, there is also a need to actively disrupt the mental habit of obsessional and gambling focused thinking, that is likely to still have a life of its own inside your mind. It won’t feel great, but we all know that avoidance never leads to resolution. Instead it leads to the buildup of pain. If we equate the gambling with a toxic relationship, which it very much is– you can easily imagine how unhelpful it would be to break up from such a relationship, yet spend every waken moment thinking of why it ended, who said what, and whether you can somehow make it work again. Yes, your mind will try to do this and it might even try and prompt you to reach out to your ex as a means of avoiding the pain of experiencing the loneliness and rejection, but it is your choice if you allow the process the airplay. In summary, the emotional brain will try almost every trick in the book when it comes to ‘suggesting’ to you ideas for how to avoid the short term discomfort. Rather than buying into this, what you want to do instead is to recall that you have come to this conclusion once and for all through your own wiser reasoning, and that you have the power and control to let go of the need to have every single stone turned too, for the sake of moving forwards.
So, how can we do this?
3 techniques to try….
1. Keep yourself on a routine and incorporate sports and something creative
Certain activities such as exercise or creative projects are extremely useful since they can do a great job at temporarily pushing the gambling out of your mind by creating enjoyment and healthy preoccupation for you. The fact that they have to be initiated by you yourself can often make it harder than it sounds though to incorporate these into your daily routine. Try and build up slowly by incorporating first small ‘chunks’ of the activities that you are trying to cultivate and build up from there. Starting with 10 minutes of exercise per day is still going to be better than the thought of starting another day or week! The purpose of this exercise is not actually about becoming accomplished in something new or to pressurise yourself into creating anything in particular. It is about teaching your brain to derive enjoyment from means other than gambling and to start creating new and better habits. It is also about starting to get the brain used to being in the flow of other, more genuinely satisfying, activities that will gradually start to get a foothold in your life if you keep them active.
2. Make a rule that whatever you do, no matter how mundane it may be, do it with your full attention.
This is the power of mindfulness. Finding things boring? Try and see what happens when you really put your mind to doing whatever the task is that you are finding unstimulating. I know some activities will still not make you jump for joy, but they do feel a bit better. You will also start feeling like you are being far more productive when you do things properly and without your mind fixated on which bet to put next, or how you are going to cover your recent losses before someone else finds out about them. It won’ take too long before you thank heavens for being able to do these simple everyday tasks with a peace of mind. If you want to take it one step further, I would recommend practicing this skill by creating phone/iPad/internet free hours of every day as you will find that this is likely a bigger distraction than you might give it credit for. The reason I say that is because every so often do I watch gamblers end their engagement with the gambling, but instead pick up some other form of obsessive activity online that simply just keeps the avoidance going and prevents you from learning new ‘proper’ coping skills.
3. Actively disengage/let go of the overflow of thinking that is compulsively and unhelpfully nagging inside your mind
All the ‘why…, ‘if only…’ should have/would have could have’ … all the ‘what ifs…’ Many people feel unsure as to whether it is ‘safe’ to disengage in these very persistent thinking forms that in the clinical literature are referred to as worrying and rumination, despite the fact that you will typically notice that they are followed by a range of excuses to return to gambling. It may well feel as though worrying and rumination protect us from negative situations in the future or help us help us learn from ones we already endured in the past.
One of the most asked questions we get in therapy, regardless of what condition we treat, is how to stop negative thinking? How to let go of the thoughts that make us unhappy and bring our moods down? Or, as in the case with addictions, the ones that tempt people to be drawn right back into addiction-mode.
There are many ways of learning how to disengage and let go of thoughts that are unhelpful. The ultimate goal is to create separation and detachment to them by any means necessary, so that you can have a choice as to which thoughts you wish to listen to and which ones you want to pass up on completely.
One of the metaphors that I really love comes from a phrase that spiritual master Eckhart Tolle uses in Power of now ( this book is a must read!)
(student : ) “How can we drop negativity, as you suggest?
( Master Tolle: ) ‘By dropping it. How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don’t want to suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it.”
(Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment)
This is just a small list of things that you can do to help yourself beyond the point where the activity of gambling has stopped. By no means does this form a complete guide for everything that needs to happen, but they are good ones to start with.
You want the experience of not gambling to be a good one, not one where you are not gambling, yet still obsessing and ruminating about everything to do with it. That is the equivalent of being a ‘dry drunk’. Instead you want to create new mental habits that are fundamentally about being present-focused and thereby opening up your mind to whatever is actually happening in your life. This incorporates both good and the bad stuff. The good bits will bring you joy, and the difficult parts are there to be tackled instead of ignored.
With love,
Annika