Compulsive gambling is a lonely disease; although it may have seemed that we were part of the lights-and-action crowd, we were often tortured by loneliness. Even before the end of our gambling days—before the debts and the guilt showed us how unmanageable our lives had become—nearly all of us felt that we didn’t quite belong. …
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us, wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes. I was never able to look at what was within me until I came to Gamblers Anonymous and heard my story told. Then I no longer had my uniqueness to hide behind. What was more, the …
I considered myself a loner in the days when I was gambling. Although I was often with other people—saw them, heard them, touched them—most of my important dialogues were with my inner self. I was certain that nobody else would ever understand. Considering my former opinion of myself, it’s likely that I didn’t want anybody to understand. I smiled …
If we felt guilty, degraded, or ashamed of either our addiction itself or the things we did while in action, that served to magnify our feelings of being outcasts. On occasion, we secretly feared or actually believed that we deserved every painful feeling; we thought, at times, that we truly were outsiders. The dark tunnel of our lives seemed …
Many of us in the Gamblers Anonymous Program share the memory that we originally gambled to belong, to be a big shot, or to be a part of the crowd. Others of us fueled our addictions in order to get in—to feel, at least for a short time, that we fitted in with the rest of the human race. Sometimes, our gambling …
Looking back at those last desperate days before I came to Gamblers Anonymous, I remember more than anything the feelings of loneliness and isolation. Even when I was surrounded by people, including my own family, the sense of aloneness was overwhelming. Even when I tried to act sociable and wore the mask of cheerfulness, I usually felt …
A very popular error—having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions, wrote Nietzsche. The Gamblers Anonymous Program is helping me get rid of my old ideas by sharing with others and working the Twelve Steps. Having made a searching and fearless moral and …
When a person wakes up each morning and rises, with nerves screaming and sick at heart, to face frightening reality; when a person stumbles through the day in a pit of despair, wishing to die, but refusing to die; when a person gets up the next day and does it all over again—well, that takes …
My courage must come each day, as does my desire to avoid a single bet, a single addictive act. It must be a continuing courage, without deviations and procrastination, without rashness, and without fear of obstacles. This would seem like a large order indeed, were it not for the fact that it is confined to …
Now that I know I can no longer use false courage that is really bravado, I seek and pray for twenty-four-hour courage to change the things I can. Obviously, this isn’t the kind of courage that will make me a strong and brave person for life, able to handle any and all situations courageously. Rather, …