Gambling addiction: How to keep going in recovery when nobody trusts you anymore
Chances are that if this post called out to you, you have had more than a few attempts at quitting gambling. Like most addicted gamblers, you might also have had the disheartening realisation that recovery features lapses. Over time, those lapses get increasingly painful. Not just for the gambler themselves, but also for the loved ones who tend to lose trust in the idea that long-term recovery will ever be possible. It can all feel pretty hopeless when time and again you realise that the promises you made have fallen through. Your excuses form an echo in the vacuum of your empty promises from before. You know when you look at your loved ones that nobody believes a word you say anymore…
When everybody has lost trust in you
If you are someone who has been in the business of burning more bridges than a serial arsonist, you might be wondering how you will ever be trusted again. The thought of being someone who is 'just talk and no action' is making you feel ashamed. No matter how much you know that you want to change your behaviour, it feels out of control when you realise that you cannot relay this to other people quickly in a convincing way.
Addicted gamblers often have a conflicted relationship with trusting themselves - for good reasons…
On the one hand they must not trust themselves to use willpower alone to get them forwards in recovery- since they have lost control over their own behaviour when it comes to gambling. This is why your behaviour now qualifies as an addiction- and the barriers and other trigger management techniques are there for this reason. On the other hand you must be able to trust yourself to provide you with unconditional support on your journey forwards. To love yourself through the ebbs and flows in motivations and through any lapses that might occur. As you can probably tell - this is a masterful balance that requires commitment and practice!
Building trust with other people after letting them down- where do I even start?
Building trust with others has the added complication of involving another human being and their willingness to trust you. This, sadly, is something that lies outside of your own control. Whilst there are some controllable actions you can focus on (we will cover below), it ultimately involves them having to take a leap of faith and choose to trust you again. This will only happen after a period of you showing up as someone trustworthy. It hurts to think about this. It may feel like a mountain that you cannot climb and in looking up towards the peak you cannot help but think ‘screw it then, I won't even try…’ . Sadly, it is with this attitude that many a gambler has headed for the next betting opportunity. Now with almost a vindicated attitude of ‘well what difference does it make? Whatever I do they will never believe me anyway’. All of a sudden, it is as though the main reason recovery was attempted was for the benefit of pleasing others. Of course, I realise that it matters what your family and your loved ones think of you. Ironically, in order to stay on the wagon, you must rethink this a bit. That is why I wrote this post. For you to gain some hope and new perspectives.
Remember that what we tell ourselves frequently ends up setting the intention for the behaviour that follows- don’t sabotage your own journey by setting yourself up to fail
If you tell yourself ‘I’m failing at recovery’ ‘I am so stupid, no wonder nobody trusts or believes in me’ you will feel just about zero degrees of motivation to move forwards. If on the other hand, you try to talk to yourself in a kind, accepting and uplifting manner, you will feel slightly more encouraged and as if you are able to make the changes necessary. Think of yourself trying to coach a cute little kid that is trying to learn a new skill- just so you can get the tone right. Unlike what many clients believe, it is not via the route of punishment and angry prompting that you are likely to succeed in this venture. You will feel much safer and happier moving with the winds of self-love and kindness in your sails and knowing that you will not launch a self-hatred attack should you make a mistake.
It will be hard for other people to trust you if you do not trust yourself. Therefore, the job starts within….
The trust that you have in yourself is going to have a strong bearing on how trustworthy you appear to others. In some ways, hearing this might feel quite negative (since it means YOU have to do more work) but it also takes away some of the nasty uncontrollable parts of the situation. It means you can stay focused on being a trustworthy individual in general and not get overly consumed by others’ feelings about how well you are doing that job! Do not make your ability to do right by yourself dependent on whether other people validate it or not! We will talk more about this towards the end of this post.
The problem of awaiting other peoples’ validation when you think you deserve to be trusted
Many people have sat on my sofa and exclaimed proudly the number of weeks and months that they have been able to remain abstinent. Most of those at some point still feel shocked and saddened by the fact that their loved ones don’t trust them yet and are not seeming particularly excited for them. It is as though their entire effort is only as good as the validation they have received for doing it.
Hard as it is, do what you can to keep your eyes on your journey. Unless your loved ones are able to muster up support and good faith at this point, try to not tie your worth to what they think of you for now. Clearly, if they are being obstructive to your recovery then you might need to rethink your relationships- but if they are sticking around and doing their best to support you, try to not over-fixate on what their view of your recovery is. So long as you feel certain that you are doing your very best.
trust yourself first..
Instead of placing your focus on other people validating or approving your changes- try and keep your eyes on the road ahead and just focus on being a trustworthy individual to yourself and others. The rewards will come in time…
But I have worked so hard - do I not deserve anything for my efforts?
I am not suggesting that you don’t deserve a good scoop of admiration for your efforts. You very much do. But sadly, your loved ones are unlikely to break out in rounds of applause for your efforts of abstinence. Remember that for them, your addiction is quite likely something that they wish was not there to start with. This may sound harsh to hear, and I do not mean that they don’t love you all the same. But for them, there is a great likelihood that they see the conditions of your ‘abstinence’ as the norm and the baseline and, on the flip side, your episodes of gambling as something they’d rather wipe from the record. You will not be able to control this!! Still, you need to accept your condition as something that is part of you and not deny it to yourself. If you come around to it while also continuing to work on your recovery- so will they. If they don’t then the even more harsh truth is that they might not be right for you. Your recovery is an absolute must for you to be happy in any relationship, even the one you hold with yourself.
Patience is an important resource when trying to build up trust
I have mentioned in previous blog posts that impatience is one of the complicated underlying traits of gambling addiction. This can be seen in the reliance on short-term gratification; not just during gambling itself but also in life in general. This probably has several explanations. First, research has shown that many gamblers struggle with higher levels of impulsivity and as part of such, you often observe a sense of urgency.
Second, gambling itself has reinforced quick outcomes and has very likely contributed to more impatience over the years of engaging in this behaviour. If you lived before the 1990’s you will have experienced the era before the internet. Being part of that generation myself, let me tell you an example of how patient we needed to be ‘back in the days’. At the end of the 90s when I was a student at a London university and needed material for studying, I had to go to an academic library in town. In there, I needed to pre-order items for pick-up on arrival. After that, I was allowed to bring as many books as I could carry into the lift up to the 5th floor where I could then photocopy page by page. This little venture would typically take a few hours. And that was before even starting to read the text-packed pages without any fast-track options for quick referencing. For a student of today, these methods would appear stone-age! Nowadays, a better result can likely be achieved by pressing a couple of buttons online.
How do you think this change has affected our ability to remain patient and delay gratification?
My point is; We have ALL been affected by the tech revolution and the instantaneous delivery of gratifying rewards. I am no exception to this myself. This detour of an explanation might seem a little excessive but I just want you to understand that our patience is influenced negatively by our engagement with anything that delivers constant and quick outcomes. Gambling is only one such activity. Gambling does however deliver a particularly powerful sense of reward. This reward is experienced as more attractive to individuals who are impulsive, impatient and struggle with a short attention span. It also plays into someone’s underlying difficulties with emotion regulation and struggles with boredom, and a need to quickly get out of the head and away from difficult thoughts and feelings.
Patience and trust – what is the correlation?
So how does impatience interfere with the building of trust you might wonder.
If you have come to a point with your gambling where you know internally you are ready to stop – chances are that you will start taking steps towards quitting. You will also be likely to share with your loved ones that this is your intention. This is all understandable. Yet, please understand that your loved ones do not inhabit your brain and therefore cannot possibly know for sure that ‘this time’ you mean it. Even if they do believe you, they are probably sceptical having seen you in this state of heightened motivation before. Only to then return back to gambling a little later. Yet, many gambling families I have encountered over the years are a bit taken aback by the gambler’s inability to have patience with them in the process of building up trust.
For you, the start of a new effort towards abstinence likely feels like a nice new reset. You want to forget all the crap that has happened, and it would be nice if everyone could just jump onboard the happy train and believe in you. Unfortunately, their pain and hurt have not been reset at all. For them, the anxiety of yet another lapse may be bigger than any thrill they feel about your renewed attempts. For you, it is the complete opposite. In order for recovery to work and trust to be rebuilt, you will have to be very careful not to outsource too much of your need for validation to other people.
The best validation is the one you give yourself
I am mentioning this to dissuade you from hinging your recovery on outside sources of validation!! I see so many gamblers feeling crushed and worthless as a result of feeling like their loved ones don’t notice how hard they work in their recovery. I know you work hard. You know you work hard. Why can they not see it?
One reason might be their inability to completely understand your condition. Gambling addiction is majorly stigmatised and even the most supportive of partners often have only a basic understanding of what it involves. We cannot blame them for this. They were not taught this in school, nor is there necessarily a whole lot of adequate information out there to explain to them what is going on. And they don’t take your word for things anymore. There may even be very good reasons for this.
Your ups and downs will possibly be perceived as a lack of commitment on your part and as though you don’t care enough to stay in recovery. Trust that I do know how false this perception is- but at the end of the day what I think will not matter. What they think will matter but we need to find a way for it to not be the central driver of your motivations for a gambling-free life.
So what can I do - what parts of building trust can I take control of?
Even if we want the main validation to be self-delivered, there are of course certain things that will contribute to the building of trust as you go along in recovery. Here are some examples:
# Your sustained actions. This may translate to a long period of time in recovery without any lapses at all but could also be a clear display of dedication towards recovery. If there is a lapse there is the initiation of new efforts to learn from the mistake and get back on track.
#Consistency between your words and actions If there was one thing that ruins trust in any area of life, it would be the discrepancy between words and actions. Try to not overpromise and underdeliver! This might mean sometimes laying low when it comes to making impulsive promises to appease a situation. Think through what you are committing to before you promise other people. This will be a very useful exercise in its own right and will also ensure that stay closer to reality when making promises to others.
# Time under the belt in recovery. Time is definitely a factor in the building of trust. Seeing someone over a few months in recovery is going to count higher than just a week or two. What convinces anybody of ANYTHING in this world is the way we can show restraint and focus on a process in the long term.
# Good communication; even at times when things are not going your way. Many gamblers are ever so great at talking and boasting about the good times in recovery. Understandably this is something you are very proud of and want to share with the world. Just be aware that the communication you do at bad times matters just as much for other people- particularly when there is a history of broken trust. It does not mean that every gambling thought must be shared, or that you are under oath to report every tiny fluctuation in mood. It does however mean that you need to stay committed to sharing yourself in an authentic way- not just the bits that sync with the version of yourself you would like them to see.
** this list is not exhaustive**
Other peoples’ trust in you will in part be built by seeing you trust yourself!!!
If there is a ‘punch line’ in this post, this one would be it.
The trust that other people have for us will in part be a projection of how much we trust in ourselves.
Picture a person that you have come across that talks a lot but takes very little action and who comes across as insincere. Like one of those blabbering car salesmen who are ever so happy to ramble on as long as you don’t have any serious questions. When you ask them why there is a gap in the repair history or why the car registration is flagged online, you watch their face drop. It is not convincing.
My point is; you can tell when someone really trusts their product and feels confident about selling it to you. They don’t need to talk too much. They let the product sell itself. In your recovery, this translates to you tuning into your OWN motivation, your own recovery actions- and really working on the trust that you hold for yourself that understandably is deeply fractured. Once you can trust yourself to go for longer and longer, you will find that there is no more need for all that talk. You just focus on going forwards and believing in yourself. If people around you cannot trust you yet, don’t critique them, don’t question them, and don’t throw a toddler tantrum and say things like ‘well what’s the point of my recovery if you can’t trust me anyway’. Instead, hold your head high and think to yourself ‘one day they will notice it’. From now until then, you will need to display some tolerance. You will not be able to prove yourself to them overnight. The process takes time and there are many useful ways in which you can make them feel involved in your life during this time. If they sense in you a person who is working in a dedicated manner on their recovery, without the need for their constant validation or propping- they will be more likely to trust you. That is a person who within themselves believes that they can keep clean and is prepared to do it even if it meant doing it without their support. Strange as it sounds, that will make them more likely to want to be part of your journey!
I am not saying this as a suggestion of playing games or attempting to manipulate conditions.
The truth is that the minute you decide to take full accountability for your recovery is when it will happen
Self-abandonment is not an option
If you abandon yourself in this process, things will unravel very quickly. Therefore, remember that the only validation your recovery is entirely dependent upon is your own!! This puts you right back in the driver’s seat and gives you far less to think about. If you trust yourself and keep doing the work that recovery requires of you- you can also trust that your family and friends will come around eventually. Should they not, you have still achieved what is non-negotiable for your own sanity and well-being.
Your resurrection from the hell of gambling addiction and the lies you told, is not going to be born out of other peoples’ blessings of you or your recovery. It will be born out of you having your own back through thick or thin and taking full accountability for your recovery. Whether you fall off the wagon at times or not! Give yourself plenty of credit and keep believing in yourself even if nobody else does.
With love,
Annika
image credits: ‘selbydate’ & ‘Im’