Special occasions, gambling ‘by proxy’ and Why addiction recovery will not allow you to cherry pick and gamble a bit 'here and there'

The lure of rewards for ‘highdays and holidays’

The idea of giving up a once beloved activity for good can be difficult. Despite the fact that gambling has ruined your life, you might still find that there is a fondness for certain aspects of the activity. Certainly, you will at times be flooded with memories of how great it once felt. Clients often find it difficult to let go of the idea of never being able to revisit gambling at times when gambling has represented something fun and sociable. It is not that they don’t know that gambling has destroyed their life- it still feels intolerably difficult to envisage an entire lifespan without gambling. This is actually quite normal and I urge you to not make this too much about the actual gambling.

Rather, try to recognise that any activity that has been consuming you to the point where you even forget to go toilet, is going to create a harsh void when you leave it behind! It does not mean a thing about the healthiness and/or the necessity of that activity to be in your life. It simply means - it was really addicting and engrossing for you!

During periods of recovery that for one reason or another have become associated with gambling, you might find that the lure of returning to gambling becoming particularly strong. If these self-created ‘exceptions’ from needing to be abstinent have not been in place sooner, it is often at this point during recovery that people start manufacturing a set of new rules around their gambling. Rules that provide the occasional permission to return to the scene of the crime.

you will grieve even if the activity hurt you

‘I cannot possibly give up gambling forever and/or all the time. There will definitely be times when I will want to have a bet and that should be possible. Thinking of my cousin’s stag in Vegas next year… (or insert a different excuse) there is no way I cannot permit myself to have some fun then right?

It is not that these events are not important or that you don’t have a right to feel bereft when you now have to face an entire host of life situations without the occasional ‘spice’ or emotional blackout previously provided by your gambling. The trouble is that any degree of compartmentalizing gambling into a safe activity that it never was, has is likely going to lead to trouble down the line.

Here are some common examples of ‘special occasions’ where gamblers would often prefer to reserve the right of continued engagement:

Make it stand out

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

Who made your life about gambling?

You may have manufactured a life that put you in touch with other gamblers, and gambling-related activities (horse racing, casino nights, poker get-togethers to name a few). Those of you who are traders and hedge-fund managers, and turned into addicted gamblers, will be likely to have many friends within trading/finance circles and hence, lots of conversations continue to be about opportunities and great investments. This can be enormously triggering.

Giving up on all these affiliations as well is a big ask, in fact often one that is impossible. How can we ask you to cut ties with your nearest and dearest friends? Or family members who continue to gamble? The truth is we can’t but you will still need to maintain vigilance to the gambling itself. It will still give rise to some sadness, boredom and low mood to suddenly need to opt out of activities with people you love and enjoy.

At times when you are finding yourself listless and under-stimulated, the nostalgia will arise like an uninvited guest and make you question everything about your decision to stop. Your mind gets full of romanticized and highly glamour-filtered memories of what fun and buzzing times gambling used to provide.  Remembering those ‘good ole’ gambling sessions or great big wins acts as a psychological pacifier (albeit a very temporary one) to having to face the blandness of the here and now. Not to mention the potential hardship of having to go through continued recovery.

 One of my now-recovered gamblers put it perfectly so I will quote him:

‘When I quit I first thought that it was strange that everyone in my surrounding was so keen on gambling and that all we ever do together has something to do with gambling. When I stopped it became clear to me that it was actually I who made it like that….I would always suggest things to do with gambling so that I could hide behind them to get my own fix… I realise that it has to be on me to change all of these habits now or else I will not be able to join them a lot of the time‘

 The reality of giving up long-term simply feels so overwhelming, yet it is a reality that has to be faced

Worrying about how difficult your present and future recovery feels is normal and understandable. Unfortunately, the more you worry and obsess about the hardship you are now facing, the worse you will feel - the more your propensity towards avoidance behaviours of various kinds (be it gambling, procrastination or just putting your head in the sand) will kick in. Similarly to how many people would feel tempted to be ‘friends only’ with an ex, with whom the relationship did not work (which is why they are now an EX!) you are certain to be deluding yourself by the time you soothe your sorrows by permitting yourself a half-hearted approach to giving up.

The mind can be very devious at times. The ruminations and obsessions that persist well past the point of gambling can very easily draw you back into thought patterns that are dominated by fantasizing and frankly lusting hard for just one more gambling encounter. I see many excuses for ‘special occasions-gambling’ get created at this point but frequently, there also tend to be a few pre-constructed permissions that recoverees hold in mind. All of them will lead you down the same route so we can treat them in the same manner.

What do I do instead then?

#Don’t overthink it: make the decision to stop entirely now - but take one day at the time

‘the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step’ Lao Tzu

The above quote is a useful one for the road as it reminds us that anything in life that we desire in the long term has to start with small steps. We don’t want to paralyze our ability to act in the now by overthinking the future. Thinking too much about your future obstacles now will very likely result in procrastination and a downright unwillingness to stop at all. Having to make a definite decision of quitting plus also being faced with the prospect of having to endure financial and emotional hardship does not make for a calm mind. Even less so without an addiction to hand that can help you in those rough moments when the mind is crying out for some escapism. 

Why it will still be hard?

The route to ‘winning back’ any losses that may have been incurred also appears to shut down with the loss of the gambling. The truth is that the idea of winning money shut down a long time ago because of your gambling, but the brain will not process it in this way. This might feel really rough to think about but, trust me: It is a great idea to let go of the illusion that you will at ANY point be winning money back with gambling. You will have money in the bank (locked away so that you cannot easily access it) but only if you can accept that gambling has nothing to do with how you will achieve it!

Not being able to gamble at all feels like a loss not only to your immediate life but also to your identity, to your friends’ groups and to your overall sense of who you are.  In really extreme cases it might even feel like life without gambling will never be worthwhile.  If you think like that – please do not worry. This is just as understandable as it is to miss a partner who was not right for you. It is a loss nevertheless and you are very much entitled to feel raw, upset and in a state of bereavement about the activity no matter how shameful it feels. 

 # Work on acceptance instead of reinforcing your denial. Think less, act more.

You already have all the data you need to support that gambling has messed up your life and has not helped you. If that was not the case you would barely be reading this blog and you would not even be in doubt about gambling. Even if you struggle to fully accept this fact right now, you still have the power to act on it and put an end to your ongoing struggles.

The trouble with thinking about stopping without actually doing it, is that you will bring to mind all difficult obstacles and challenges but not reap any of the postive momentum or feelings you would benefit from if you indeed were to stop!

In summary, put a firm end to the cycle of gambling, but take your healing one day at a time. All things feel hard before they feel easy and by just approaching this situation with an open mind, you give yourself permission to experience everything on your journey ahead. The pain, the struggles, and fallouts etc. Now without the extra destruction of gambling that forces you to acknowledge that you are not helping yourself. 

The biggest loss of control you are now facing is the unknown.

Wouldn’t you rather face that than face the certainty that your gambling destroyed all your chances of a good life?

 #The loss of affiliated activities is real – treat it as such!

We want to avoid treating thoughts and in-the-moment feelings (i.e., cravings) about gambling as some sort of prophecy for how recovery will pan out.

Speaking from plenty of experience with people who felt as though they were amputating a limb when they finally stopped- I can tell you confidently that the feeling of missing gambling goes away with time. Not without effort though.  You need to now take active steps to enrich your existence so that your new gambling-free life is a worthy contender to the old one where gambling was still a feature.  In time your brain will become more appreciative of the substance and quality of activities, rather than just the intense peaks that arose in the hollow that was your life when you still gambled.

 Why you cannot cherry-pick your occasions

If it was to work – remember it would have worked. If you put your hand in the fire and it burnt you- you would not choose to intermittently insert your hand into the fireplace for special occasions just to see if it still burns you. It will still burn and the more times you put it in the more scarred and damaged it will become.

You are hooked on the feeling of gambling primarily! Once you start skewing your template for enjoyment even by just a couple of rounds of gambling – you are no better off than a heroin addict who thought it would be a great idea to shoot up just at times when things felt a little dull with a hope of then returning to business as usual. It will not work. This kind of thinking undermines the entire science of what an addiction actually is all about!!

You would never sit here and read this if you had been that person who was able to have a little fun moment of gambling and then let it float into the back of the mind and be present for your normal life. Without having to know the exact reason WHY you are not such a person – you only need your own data points from the past to assess whether you are sensitive to what the feeling of gambling does to you. 

Making hard decisions is exactly that - hard! But dropping gambling is non-negotiable!

You cannot short-cut your way around the hard decisions – giving up your gambling means letting go of your old notion of what constitute ‘good times’ and allowing yourself to experience a new type of fulfilment and happiness

 The decision to give up is a hard one to make, but without making these hard decisions you will create plenty of struggles for yourself along the way. 

Make the decision each day to do the best that you can do for yourself to widen your horizons and learn to find joy in a wider range of activities and life pleasures.  By continuing to believe that only gambling can bring excitement, joy, wins, buzz etc you are slimming your chances of getting motivated to actually live!!!

Dopamine, patience and rewiring

In reality, your brain needs a lot of getting used to the new normal. Part of this is a ‘reset’ during which your brain begins to appreciate that it is not realistic to operate in an existence where you are chasing the next dopamine high. Although many people will not be aware, the tendency to constantly feed the brain with highs is going to be a flattening of all normal experiences. You will also notice that you crave a repeat of the very behaviour that was able to provide you with the burst of dopamine in the first place. You basically get hooked on the chase itself and whether you lose or win is no longer relevant. In order to override this tendency of your brain you will need to provide it with a new set of circumstances for the longer term. Having a dull week followed by a blowout binge on gambling is going to continue to reinforce a pattern where you are reliant on ‘highs’ to feel ok. It will be about as useful as dieters who decide to binge each weekend. The weight won’t come off, yet they continue to feel deprived at all times. 

 

‘Make one big decision that eliminates thousands of smaller ones…’

(source: a lot of podcasts and articles I have read online. I have not been able to trace it down to the original citation)

Translated into the current context:   Solve one problem instead of avoiding the real problem (your gambling) and spending your time trying to resolve small ones  (how to manage to control your gambling at the races, how to do ‘mediocre’ levels of sports betting)

Making the big decision of having recovery at the front and centre of your life is obviously life-changing. Anything life-changing feels difficult and scary in the beginning. Even those things that are good for us.  Think of having children or becoming a pet owner as a perfect example of that! Any degree of change can cause a reaction that feels a bit negative and uncomfortable to start with. It may help to view this as a necessary ingredient for achieving change. No pain no gain as they say. This is true in the gym, in school, and at work and is also true in recovery. You will not be successfully able to move forward with yourself unless you are prepared to embrace and open up to some of the pain that it gives rise to. Simply by relating to pain as something that is an indication of positive growth and development you might already notice the slight difference in attitude towards it. Think about the smug feeling when your legs or arms are on fire after a gym session – you feel the pain but you think smug thoughts to yourself about the great session you had. You probably don’t wish your gym session undone and make arrangements to how one can get back onto the sofa asap.

 Prioritizing recovery over and above everything else

Addiction recovery means you are needing to PRIORITISE your recovery. This means:

Your recovery comes first. If you return to gambling, everything else that you have hinged on your recovery will crumble when you decide to return! I have written a past blog post on the topic of prioritising your recovery. You can find it here

Nobody who feels that their recovery is making them feel ‘high on life’ is going to argue that a little session of self-destruction could come in useful!

By proxy-gambling - say no more

By proxy-gambling: When you are thinking of gambling VIA the use of someone else. Betting, trading, spread-betting or placing sports bets through a friend, relative or someone that you know in order to continue to ride the exciting wave of gambling- just without the risk of chasing your losses into a financial grave. Alternatively, watching other people gambling. A bit like the goggle-box of fruit machines.

For those of you who have been coming to the blog for a while, you will know by now that I don’t mean to make fun of anything you guys do during recovery. I point it out because doing so is my job as a helper. I am here to help you see your blindspots when you have a blindfold, or partial blindfold, strapped across your eyes.

The idea of what I now call ‘by-proxy-gambling’ is one of the strange things I observe again and again. Often in response to sustained periods of listlessness and boredom.

Be on alert for your mind suggesting this concept as it really does not make any sense.

A potentially even worse form of by-proxy gambling is the idea of watching other people gamble as a form of sick delight.

‘if I can see other people losing their money it feels strangely rewarding and makes me feel grateful I am no longer gambling’

or

‘I find it interesting and satisfying to see how other people stand there spellbound by the machines. It makes me feel really proud of myself’

What is not accounted for, is the absolute horror show of seeing someone else win. This starts chipping away at the recovered parts of you in due course and gives far too much fuel to the fantasy of becoming rich from gambling. Watching another person win has nothing to do with your personal ability to control your engagement and certainly does not give a fair account of the amount of money that has gone in before the win came out. Back to your baseline again: you have lost control and cannot win at gambling!

There are many reasons why by-proxy gambling is a terrible idea. The main one for me is still the fact that you are trying to let go of gambling, but clinging for dear life to the all aspects of the activity! This prevents you from moving on and makes you far less keen to pursue more healthy interests that could ultimately steer you away from the gambling for good.

You can do better than sitting in a bookie observing some other person getting their pockets drained by machines or relishing in moments of ‘phew so glad it was Mark and not me who placed that bet and lost…’ I promise you wholeheartedly that these approaches are rooted in the same part of the brain that thought gambling further when you were scraping for your bottom dollar was the way to go.  Just don’t listen to this inner nonsense and start generating lists of ideas with more diverse and fruitful activities. More than anything else- just start doing other things with your time and have faith that the mind will eventually catch up and start deriving pleasure from them.

With love,

Annika X