The magic of acceptance in gambling addiction recovery: Self-scrutiny and self-acceptance are not mutually exclusive
A commonly observed obstacle when helping addicted clients through the snags of recovery is a tendency to disregard one’s needs, character traits and, in fact, sometimes even the self at a very core level. Gambling has often formed part of a more widespread pattern of self-rejection. As it continues to cause pain, the denial not only forms a defence against wanting to tackle the addiction. It also provides a cosy comfort from the reality of one’s continued behaviours and wrongdoings.
It enables the addiction to keep flourishing despite its many devastating consequences that are difficult and painful to bear.
By driving a wedge of separation between your ‘real’ (higher)self and your behaviours, it puts you in a position where you cannot possibly decipher between your own personal needs and the greedy needs of the addiction. If your behaviour is ‘ill’ for long enough- there is a good chance you will start believing that you are somehow faulty. After lengthy struggles with addiction gamblers often say things like….. ;
‘How am I supposed to know who I am? Everything I’ve done has been the result of addiction and distorted thinking! I cannot trust a single one of my instincts anymore.’
This is fair enough. How can you trust your inner self when everything that you have done as of late has ended up a disaster? How are you supposed to turn towards yourself with a stance of love and acceptance when you have involved yourself in epic levels of destruction? It really is not an easy task. Turning towards your pain and choosing to live in reality without resorting to ‘shortcuts’ in terms of processing is yet a necessary step towards remission from this devious addiction.
Acceptance of how bad and destructive your situation has become is far from easy- but the failure of doing so means you are stuck. How can we process or nevermind start solving a problem we do not even admit to ourselves that we have?
“As Within, So Without”
(from a quote by Hermes Trismegistus that suggests that what we believe internally is going to be reflected in the outside world)
When you set out on a journey of disallowing denial and re-aligning yourself with the reality in which you live you will find that there are a number of items in your external reality that now need to be accepted. No matter how ugly they may seem. These may or may not be what initially gave wind to your addiction. Regardless of their cause/effect relationships, they are there now and need to be ‘taken on’ as facts.
Accepting that something has happened, or is happening, is different from blaming yourself. It is also different from liking something. It may feel like you accept defeat - but in reality you are doing the one thing that can enable you to take charge of your situation, and begin to change from your current position! The inability to accept reality makes it highly likely that you will be continuing with behaviours that are driven by a delusion that gambling can be used to get you out of your hole..
A common reason why people experience reluctance to accept reality is the common misconception that acceptance means that we find the situation acceptable and likeable…
.The thinking goes:
‘if I accept the damage I’ve done here- how will I be able to make sure it doesn’t happen again? It would feel like giving up on the fact that I want things to be different..’'
This is of course an understandable standpoint, certainly if you have gambled, lied, stolen and incurred losses to the point where even you cannot look yourself in the mirror. It feels unthinkable to accept that you could have done so wrong. Rough as it feels to hear this; please recognise that this is the most important time to accept that things are the way they are. The inability to do so might lead you to a place where you persist in believing that gambling can assist with problems it was responsible for creating.
Or that further dwelling and self-flagellation is the way to go when it comes to showing remorse for your actions.
These are standard fallacies and should not be seen as signs that you have difficulties understanding things correctly. The purpose of sharing them is so that you can recognise these errors in thinking and thereby help yourself adjust.
Acceptance in action
As the quote earlier suggested, re-alignment starts from within! The ‘tug-of-war’ feeling that is a common status for treatment-seeking gamblers is a difficult place to exist. A part of you wants to accept that it’s ‘over’ with gambling, but the other one does not. To hop into the seat where you are responsible for actions and accept the unacceptable is extremely difficult but will eventually create a feeling of personal ownership and a sense of taking control back.
The moment you start to shift the spotlight onto yourself in a neutral, unbiased way and deliberately choose to accept what you see- is the same moment you can start the journey of change.
You can then begin to recover the person ‘underneath’ your addiction that has been subordinate to the addicted ‘persona’ for a long time. If it is any comfort, you can be certain that the true you will be a better person than the one that was controlled by a raging gambling addiction.
I often have gambling clients who at some point in therapy when issues such as emotion regulation are discussed say ‘I can’t believe we didn’t even talk about gambling today’- often with an undertone of frustration. As if talking about things other than the removal of gambling suggests that they (or we) are not working on their recovery. It is a common misconception that addiction therapy is mainly the work of removing an undesirable behaviour/substance. Recovery really and truly is working on the re-integration and self-acceptance of the person behind the addiction, plus all the skills required to sustain oneself in life without returning to the addiction. It requires work on almost every level of the self, however, a lot of that work is inspirational and worthwhile as opposed to just painful and difficult. The failure to address the underlying difficulties will usually result in a gradual, but certain, return to gambling.
Accepting what feels unacceptable
"Each of you is perfect the way you are, and you can use a little improvement."
quote by Suzuki Rochi (founder of Zen Centre San Francisco)
The idea of perfection is one grand illusion. We are all walking contradictions. We are good and bad right at the same time. We want one thing and go on to do another. Furthermore, we have all made mistakes. Some are greater than others- but every single person has at some point participated in behaviours that make them cringe later. I am not suggesting you take this message as a prompt to become flippant about the negative consequences your gambling might have caused yourself and others. I am saying this to remind you of the grim fact that the past has already taken place and that there is nothing we can do to reverse our past actions. The only thing you can do is accept, grow and learn a better way to be for the future.
Being in control of our wellbeing rests on our ability to process our past and current reality appropriately. Denial has no place in that process. as i said earlier; we cannot process problems we pretend to ourselves we do not have.
Acceptance is a skill required even before getting to the point where you decide to quit. From that point onwards there are then many separate. but related, parts of reality that also need to be accepted. Therefore, if you have not yet started your recovery - working on your acceptance can be a great start!
Things that need to be accepted as they are - even when it hurts (please note this does not mean you cannot work on making all of them better). This list is, of course, not exhaustive.
The loss of control- if it was not for this you would not be where you are now.
Your losses. And that however much you chase you will not be able to win it back
Gambling has caused damage and will continue to do so each time you go near it. It should be treated with the same seriousness as a piece of food towards which you have a life-threatening allergy!
Your track record: The relationship with gambling will remain as it has shown itself to be. If it has been addictive, it will remain addictive. It will not suddenly become less addictive or harmful than your track-record has shown you with great clarity.
Gambling temporarily deranged your personality and the only way to recover the person underneath is to stop. You will also need to get your head around the terrible things that gambling influenced you to do.
Accepting that your addiction is not better, different or less serious than anybody else’s
The fact that building back will not be overnight!
Your underlying personality will shock you. Some parts of who you will be greeted with joy. Other parts will be met with contempt and horror. Anything in between these two is also perfectly possible. This does not mean that you are doing anything wrong in your recovery or that you don’t deserve to recover. It means that you are a human being and like all other human beings, you have flaws.
How to relate to yourself in an accepting fashion
One of the magical ingredients of psychotherapy is the experience of acceptance. Hard to measure the impact, but I would argue that ( in echo of old fellows like Carl Rogers) that our main job as therapists, regardless of what tools or theories we present, is to accept our clients without judgment. As most of you would know, the experience of acceptance is felt. Someone telling you that they accept you is not enough. You will sense if they mean it or not.
The experience of feeling accepted for who we are is a powerful one. It is common to hear clients draw a great big sigh of relief at the end of a session while stating how relieving it felt to be seen, heard and accepted despite often sharing some parts of the self that are by them experienced as ‘bad’. As a therapist, you can sense the tension and the anticipation of some sort of ‘jolt’ when they disclose something difficult, likewise the relief when they don’t get one. Acceptance is not a skill reserved only for those with clinical training. It is not that hard to accept people for who they are once you hear them out properly. It is, however, obviously far easier to be genuinely accepting of someone’s story when you don’t hold any personal strings or attachments to that person. In sharing themselves in therapy, clients start the job of aligning themselves with reality and truth, while also benefiting from the therapist shining the light of love and acceptance.
By the time those inner demons see the light of day - they simply don’t know how to survive. They lose some of their power once they are brought out from the hollows within. Whilst feeling accepted by others can make for a magical experience - it still cannot quite hit home until the clients themselves can do it for themselves.
Over time, the hope is always that the client will learn to mirror the acceptance and use it towards themselves! To be able to relate to yourself with more acceptance and less contempt is going to enable you to be more open and honest with yourself.
With or without a therapist, you can try to put the skill of acceptance to work all by yourself. Whilst it will not be immediate, you will find that as you gradually become a kinder presence towards yourself - an emotional shift will start happening. You will start feeling as if you are supported and validated. You start to recognize that with your own ‘backup’ you can be courageous enough to face yourself and your issues. There is no need to hide and avoid anymore as you begin to see to open your eyes wide and accept that it has been too damaging. You stop letting your ego tell you that you ‘should’ be able to do this without help or interventions, or that you should not have become addicted to begin with. Instead, you recognize that with acceptance, you end the inner war and allow yourself to see more clearly what you need to go forward.
When acceptance is conditional
case example:
I remember a person who came to see me in the clinic a few years ago with an extremely debilitating form of drug damage he had incurred during his years of drug use. After our assessment, I explained that our treatment would largely be based on working on his ability to come to terms with what has happened and learn to optimise his life based on his current reality. He told me that he would be prepared to work on his acceptance, as long as I could promise that his debilitating condition would then be fixed. ‘I am not here to learn to accept living like a cripple’ was roughly his words. He concluded that therapy was not for him and he never returned again. His position is in no way unique, but it makes for a good illustration of how difficult and counter-intuitive it can feel to accept things that we don’t like and/or do not have the power to change.
Our wish for reality to change will often trump our ability to embrace a difficult reality
I share this example as it illustrates the complexity of the continuum of denial – acceptance. The less we accept – the harder we make it for ourselves to grow and learn. Simultaneously, and as was the case for the person in my example, it can feel brutal to have to accept something that no part of yourself would like to come to terms with. To be made to feel as though we undersign facts that we find intolerable to even think about. The trouble is only evident when you over time realise the costs of not accepting.
Why honest self-scrutiny and self-acceptance are not mutually exclusive
With dedicated self-discovery, it is time to get to know your needs! Without knowing the voids that were filled (albeit falsely) by your addiction.
Whilst you might not be able to change certain things about your personality such as temperament, levels of impulsivity and emotional needs, you do have the capability of adapting how well you manage your needs, sensitivities and any character traits that made you prone to gambling. Some needs can be met through healthy coping behaviours, connections and a shift in how you treat yourself ( including self-acceptance and validation of one’s inner experiences.)
When this process is done well, a person will typically thrive. On the contrary, the inability to accept yourself often results in negative emotions, fantasies of ‘improving’ life with the help of gambling and ultimately, all the damage that more gambling will incur.
In other words, by disregarding your vulnerabilities or coming down hard on yourself for having certain needs, you will most likely end up in a negative spiral again. One that will spin you in circles all the way back to a bet.
How to talk to yourself in an accepting, yet truthful manner
Acceptance is a skill
‘yes, I acknowledge and accept that I need …….. to thrive’ (insert needs such as physical closeness, emotional connection, stimulation etc). Having such needs makes me who I am and having needs does not make me weak or abnormal. It makes me human.
‘I know that I have not channelled ……………. (insert emotional need such as the need for belonging, feeling powerful, feeling worthy) very well when I was trying to have it met through gambling, but I take responsibility for finding better ways’
Finally, also get used to stating loud and clear: I am who I am and if recovery is going to work for me I need to be real about who I am at least with myself and ensure that my journey works for me.
Self-scrutiny is just as important as acceptance – but both can be done in tandem
Trying to pretend we can do stuff we can’t do, or that our strengths and weaknesses are different to what they are is about as useful as embarking on a misfitting professional journey or a degree at a university that we are not interested in. It just creates an uphill battle when instead things could have been made easier by acknowledging your personal preferences and needs. Aside from making it difficult to find self-love and acceptance, there are other costs to turning a blind eye to the consequences of our behaviours, our personality traits and our vulnerabilities. By existing in a state of denial about yourself and your reality, you will end up creating a very slippery slope where only things like addictions are persistent and stubborn enough to get a foothold.
To cultivate your acceptance, make sure that you prompt your connection to reality in all steps of your recovery process. Go to meetings, hear peoples’ stories- embrace the similarities in the addiction you are all struggling with. Context will be different but the addiction is the same. When you begin to recognise that reality is unfolding whether you have a hand in it or not, this process will get easier. By trying to accept that life happens on its own terms, the process of letting go of control is going to feel more natural. As with many other processes we discuss, this is a process- meaning it is an act of surrendering control that happens repeatedly until it becomes the new normal.
On the reverse, acceptance creates inner peace and harmony; even when conditions are rough and the journey looks bumpy.
I wish you all the best in your continued recovery X